Bids start at $500 for AMC headquarters in tax sale

Want to buy the onetime headquarters of American Motors Corp.? Bidding starts at $500.

The 1.4 million-square-foot facility on Plymouth Road near Schaefer is among the 25,500 properties up for sale during the second round of the Wayne County tax foreclosure auction that began Tuesday.

The massive complex was a hub of Detroit innovation for more than eight decades, but became a dumping ground in just three years, according to a 2013 Detroit News article that highlighted its plight. As recently as 2009, more than 1,000 Chrysler employees worked at the site designing Jeep Grand Cherokees and Dodge Durangos. The complex, which opened in 1927, also was home of Kelvinator, a refrigerator manufacturer.

The winner of the auction would inherit the facility’s summer tax bill of $160,631. That and other factors makes it unlikely the property will receive much interest at the auction, said John Mogk, a Wayne State University law professor who studies land use.

“The market for industrial and commercial sites in Detroit is very weak and in some cases non-existent,” Mogk said.

The auction is the county’s largest ever and runs through Oct. 22. Buyers can register until Thursday. About 23,000 of the properties are in Detroit.

To discourage speculators, Wayne County has grouped about 6,500 unoccupied foreclosed residential properties with the goal of handing them to the city if they don’t sell at an October tax auction, said Eric Sabree, the county’s deputy treasurer.

The county wants $3,186,000 for the bundle, a high price for the mostly dilapidated, fire damaged homes and vacant parcels.

If no one bids, the Detroit Land Bank is expected to take them so they can sell vacant lots to neighbors, demolish dangerous homes and sell the viable homes through its own auction, officials said. Nearly 1,000 homes that were part of a bundle last year have since been demolished, land bank officials said.

Typically, the properties would be sold individually for a starting price of $500. It’s the second year the county and city have grouped together properties at the auction.

Mayor Mike Duggan has used the land bank as the central repository for most city property.

The were no takers when 6,500 properties were offered to buyers individually in the first round of the auction in September for the total debt owed in property taxes and fees.

The AMC facility also could revert to the city if no one bids.

More than $1 million in taxes was owed when it foreclosed. The county could have foreclosed in 2013, but officials opted against it because they falsely believed it was tied up in the 2009 Chrysler Group LLC bankruptcy.

Terry Williams acquired the property from another owner who bought it during the automaker’s bankruptcy.

By 2013, neighbors told The News they feared he was removing all valuable metals from the facility and turning it into a dumping ground. He told The News he was going to turn it into a home for autistic children and was merely storing clean fill dirt.

Experts have said the facility is an example of a cycle of abandonment that policymakers must address.

cmacdonald@detroitnews.com