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Ideas for Fisker site abound

Aaron Nathans
The News Journal

Andy DiSabatino remembers the 24-hour concrete pour for the new paint shop at the old General Motors plant on Boxwood Road about 30 years ago, and returning about four years ago to retrofit the plant for the plug-in hybrid manufacturer Fisker.

The Wilmington-based construction firm EDiS was eight months into its contract with Fisker when the company told it to stop the renovation for lack of money.

Wanxiang America Inc., which bought Fisker's assets out of the automaker's November bankruptcy, said last week there are "50-50" odds the plant will be used to manufacture hybrid cars, largely based on the strength of that very paint shop.

"I'd love to get a call from the new owners and say, pick up where you left off," DiSabatino said.

But even Fisker's new owners have ideas of what else could be done with the 141-acre property – and so do other players in Delaware's real estate market.

The new Fisker's interim president, Roger Brown, said Thursday that if Wanxiang does not build cars there, its real estate arm would try to find another use for the property, such as an industrial park, manufacturing of some other sort, or perhaps a distribution center.

Distribution center?

In the event the facility doesn't return to being an auto plant, the concept of a distribution center resonated with Scott Johnson of McConnell Johnson, a Wilmington real estate company. Johnson said the location is great, given its proximity to I-95, with on-site rail and plenty of available power, as well as being near the Port of Wilmington.

Go to the Princeton, N.J., or Baltimore areas, and there are – just off the interstates – big-box distribution and logistics centers, he said. But the market for these facilities isn't strong in Delaware, he said, because there's not a lot of land available.

Remaking the Boxwood site in that fashion would take awhile, and potential users would be looking to get in relatively quickly, he said.

"Someone needs to clear a path when they're leasing something to get in there right away," Johnson said.

Dan Reeder, executive vice president at CBRE real estate services in Wilmington, agreed that it's a big enough property, and if the right network of roads were put in place, it could be an attractive site for a distribution center. Northern Delaware works well from a strategic location point of view, but there haven't been many sites available.

Most recently, Amazon opened its 1.2 million-square-foot distribution center in Middletown in early 2013. It was able to take advantage of Delaware tax incentives, Reeder said, but, "the farther you are from 95, the more expensive transportation costs are."

A developer could demolish the existing buildings and create a master plan, awaiting a user to build the new structures, he said.

The site easily could accommodate a 3 million-square-foot facility, which would be attractive to a range of potential businesses that otherwise would need to look out of state, Reeder said. Lehigh Valley, Pa., has been a recipient of many of these type of distribution centers, Reeder said.

Reeder said a distribution center needs high ceilings to take advantage of racking, and many of the existing buildings there have lower clearance.

"I don't see a lot of value in the existing buildings" for a warehousing purpose, he said.

Research campus?

Ernie Delle Donne, the owner of Delle Donne & Associates, which developed the Science Technology and Advanced Research campus at the University of Delaware, envisioned a similar project at Boxwood, if it's not used as an auto plant.

Delle Donne said perhaps Delaware Technical Community College could train the next generation of manufacturing workers at the site of the old GM plant, much like the STAR campus is on the site of the old Chrysler plant.

Unlike some others, he doesn't think the property is big enough for a distribution center.

"It's very easy to say, manufacturing doesn't work anymore in America. So do we just give up? I don't think so," Delle Donne said.

Reeder said Delle Donne's idea could work, but it would need to be underwritten by the government, which he said, is "tapped out."

"Development follows the money. It's easier to get a financing for a big-box distribution center," Reeder said.

Asked to dream of what else that site might become, DiSabatino said that would be difficult, given his firm's long history there.

Wanxiang, DiSabatino said, is probably a lot more credit-worthy than the startup Fisker was.

Maybe there is a chance to salvage the plant, he said, and there still are plenty of skilled auto workers living in Delaware.

"I hate like hell to tear it down," DiSabatino said.

Contact Aaron Nathans at (302) 324-2786 or anathans@delawareonline.com.