A 'first step' to reviving Chrysler plant
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
February 19, 2010
by Steve Giegerich
FENTON -- Local, state and federal officials on Thursday affirmed a commitment to reviving the worker-less Chrysler assembly plant, pledging $2.1 million to start the process of returning employment to a facility abandoned by the domestic automaker last summer.
At the same time, the dignitaries -- including the Obama administration's "car czar" -- tamped down expectations for a quick sale and subsequent job recovery at the 5-million-square-foot, 295-acre parcel of property.
"This is one step of the process," said Edward Montgomery, who formally holds the title of the administration's Director of Recovery for Auto Communities and Workers. "We've come a long way, but we have a long way to go."
Montgomery and the other speakers delivered their remarks from a podium arrayed before the idled machinery and production lines in the Chrysler South plant that once turned out Chrysler minivans.
The federal government is pledging $1.575 million toward the initial phases of the site redevelopment: cleaning, positioning and marketing the site for resale. Missouri, St. Louis County and the city of Fenton are contributing an additional $575,000 for what David Kerr, director of the state Department of
Economic Development, called a "strategic action plan to move this property forward."
In a brief meeting with reporters following the official presentation, Montgomery revealed that economic development officials have fielded questions about the plant from unnamed European and Asian auto manufacturers.
Still, he acknowledged the two plants on the Chrysler site likely produced the last motorized vehicles when the final Dodge Ram pickup rolled off the assembly line last July.
"I don't know if they'll ever make cars here again," Montgomery said.
Since 2004, Missouri has lost two-thirds of the jobs that once manufactured automobiles and trucks across the state. A thousand of those jobs were in Fenton.
His words echoing through the massive emptiness of the former minivan plant, Fenton Mayor Dennis Hancock took a moment Thursday to remember a better and more prosperous time for workers in the state's auto industry.
"The first time I walked in this building, in 2001, I was struck by how loud it was," Hancock recalled. "We (weren't) able to have a conversation face-to-face because the noise was deafening.
"Now," he added, gesturing toward the muted machinery. "The silence is deafening."
