  Tetsua Member Username: Tetsua Post Number: 624 Registered: 01-2004 Posted From: 68.42.78.219 |
http://www.uli.org/AM/Template .cfm?Section=Calendar_of_Event s&Template=/Conference/Confere nceDescription.cfm&ConferenceI D=1657 This is a presentation on June 7th will feature the new upcoming developments on the riverfront. Speakers will include "@Water lofts" developer, Dave Bing (Chene West), George W. Jackson, and others. | ||
E_hemingway Member Username: E_hemingway Post Number: 720 Registered: 11-2004 Posted From: 68.42.176.123 |
Speaking of Riverfront development, I have a feeling Trenton's loss of a riverfront development will only help drive up demand for the city's riverfront development. BTW, I'm glad to see that steel mill come back on line and bring in some more jobs. Old steel plant could reopen Riverfront project in Trenton halted www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/ar ticle?AID=/20060606/NEWS02/606 060354 | ||
Detroitduo Member Username: Detroitduo Post Number: 696 Registered: 06-2005 Posted From: 192.35.17.10 |
Honestly, Trenton can use the jobs. The last thing this region needs is more homes in outer suburbs. | ||
Nainrouge Member Username: Nainrouge Post Number: 3 Registered: 05-2006 Posted From: 209.104.146.146 |
What is the likelihood that a new steel plant would stay in business? Steel production is not really a growth industry in the US. | ||
Ndavies Member Username: Ndavies Post Number: 1885 Registered: 10-2003 Posted From: 129.9.163.234 |
It could be with the devaluation of the dollar and the increased demand by the building booms in China and India. There was a huge oversupply of steel 10 years ago. This oversupply has shrunk to being almost in balance. These plants will also benefit from the failure of the US steel industry and the severe hurt it placed on the steel worker unions. Most new plants have more lenient work rules than when these plants were previously in operation. It will allow much more automation than could have been achieved under previous work rules. It also depends on the product they are going to produce. If it's low cost standard steel they'll get crushed. If they can do the high end custom steel alloys they could do very well. If they follow the example set by Nucor, they just might make it. | ||
Jdkeepsmiling Member Username: Jdkeepsmiling Post Number: 100 Registered: 01-2006 Posted From: 208.50.91.234 |
Detroit Duo - I just wanted to point out to you that developing the riverfront in Trenton into homes and offices is nothing like the suburban sprawl you see in South Lyon or Oakland TWP. This is an older suburb with an aging housing stock. Yiou can be to Trenton via Jefferson Ave in about 20 mins from downtown, faster if you take I-75. While I am glad at keeping the jobs, the kind of development that was being talked about here was not bad. People need to realize that revitalizing the inner ring suburbs helps Detroit as well, by stemming off people moving further and further from the core. Those residents in Trenton are much more likely to come Downtown for a concert or a Tigers game then someone living in Clarkston. Juast a thought. | ||
Swingline Member Username: Swingline Post Number: 510 Registered: 11-2003 Posted From: 172.164.205.38 |
The keynote speaker at the event mentioned in the initial post of this thread is going to be John Norquist. Mr. Norquist is the executive director of the the CNU, the organization that was discussed on the forum a little while ago: https://www.atdetroit.net/forum/mes sages/5/73215.html. Mr. Norquist is a former politician (state legislator and mayor of Milwaukee) and has written extensively on urban issues (e.g. The Wealth of Cities) His take on how to maximize the potential of the riverfront will be very instructive. This kind of event should be mandatory for clueless city councilpersons and mayoral appointees. Other than George Jackson, it's doubtful any of them will be in attendance. | ||
Nainrouge Member Username: Nainrouge Post Number: 4 Registered: 05-2006 Posted From: 68.248.80.123 |
I received the following e-mail today. I did not factcheck it so caveat emptor and all that good stuff: I called the Trenton City manager and did some quick internet research, here is what I learned: The McClouth Steel plant will not be torn down and replaced with the Condos/shopping center that was touted as the answer to Trenton's problems. Instead the plant is being purchased by an Israeli investor who will re-open the steel plant. It is virtually a done deal. There is nothing that Trenton can do. They do not have the money. The condo developer had something like $97 million in tax credits to clean up the land, but did not offer enough to buy it. The Trenton people are clearly sick about this, but they are trying to put on a good face ("it will bring 200+ jobs and lots of tax money"). They are ignoring what it will do to Trenton real estate values and quality of life. A few hundred new jobs is a small benefit given the negative impact that it will have on 10,000 or so people. The buyer, Boris Bannai bought a manganese alloy plant in West Virginia in 2001 for $2 million. They apparently put $ 6 million into the plant in 2002. Mr. Bannai is apparently in a partnership with a Ukrainian group. In 2002 the plant opened with 140 or 160 employees. The employees were surprised when their paychecks bounced. The company also ended up in a dispute with the power company over unpaid bills. Eventually Bannai paid $179,000 in back pay to employees and the plant re-opened. In January and February 2003, Bannai failed to pay workers for at least two pay periods and got sued by the labor commission for the past due wages. Near the end of February 2003 the entire workforce walked out for non-payment. In early 2003, the DEP (Department of Environmental Protection) shut the plant down for environmental violations (massive air pollution discharge). Bannai had to rebuild portions of the plant to bring it into compliance. Mr. Bannai sold 13% to an undisclosed "wall street" group in order to keep the plant open. By July 2003 the plant had been closed for 5 months due to the steel workers strike because they were still not paid. The plant ended up in chapter 11 bankruptcy and eventually re-opened with 90 workers. It is unclear whether or how the dispute with the electric company was ever resolved. As early as 2003 a competitor, Murrieta Steel, was brought in to help Mr. Bannai run the plant and keep it open. In 2005 a fire destroyed a furnace and the bankruptcy was converted to Chapter 7 (liquidation). The plant was supposedly closed for good and all employees were terminated. It is unclear whether that plant re-opened. Mr. Bannai is reported as the owner of that plant in a 2006 article about his purchase of the finishing plant in Gibraltar. Maybe he managed to hang onto the plant. It is possible that the newspaper got the information wrong, or that someone misled them to believing that Mr. Bannai still owns the plant. It is also possible that he managed to buy or re-open his plant out of the Chapter 7 liquidation. However, if the plant re-opened, it probably would have been reported in the news. Mr. Bannai reportedly owns a steel plant of some kind in Ohio. He also owns or owned some mines in Africa. In 2002 and/or in 2003 newspaper reports reflect problems with employees of the mines angry over non-payment of wages and a series of judgments and/or claims by creditors, particularly suppliers. It is clear that the mines were insolvent. It is unclear whether those operations ever recovered, or were closed or sold. Earlier reports reflect that Mr. Bannai came to the towns with broad promises of new jobs and taxes. Ultimately, the government had to provide loans to Mr. Bannai to keep the operations from shutting down. In May 2006, Bannai bought a bankrupt steel finishing plant in Gibraltar for $20 million. Gibraltar is excited. Mr. Bannai made broad promises about payment of taxes and new jobs. If the creditors do not object, (they are owed about $33 million), the sale will be completed in June or July (I cannot remember which). If he buys the Gibraltar plant, he must buy this plant. Without this plant, he will not have any product to finish in Gibraltar. Without the Gibraltar plant, he does not want this plant. If the deal goes through, they are not going to tear down the existing buildings. Supposedly, they will spend $200 million to spruce them up. (Perhaps they meant $20 million, $200 seems a bit steep for Mr. Bannai, given his history and inability to pay $179,000 owed to workers). I have seen these types of promises many times before. In my experience this will eventually translate into a small portion of the promised rehabilitation of the buildings. They will probably have to turn to Trenton for some tax credits or loans in order to finish. That is what usually happens with these small(ish) flakey investor deals. They get part way through the project, run out of money, make excuses or blame the government and then tell the government that they have to give them tax breaks to make the project financially practicable. That is apparently what happened in Africa with Mr. Bannai's mining operations. The new plant will be a hot rolling mill. They will take scrap iron and/or steel ingots, heat them up and then run them through a roller. The sheet steel will then be sent to Gibraltar for finishing. A hot rolling mill is far less noisy than a foundry. The noise levels inside the plant normally reach 115 db. That is the same level as a car horn honking when you are 3 feet away. The pollution is less than a foundry, however they still use quite a few poisonous chemicals. They intend to put a galvanizing plant in one of the two locations. I did not research galvanizing. I seem to remember that galvanizing plants are environmentally very bad. Noise, the hideous buildings, and pollution are our major concerns. Apparently noise may not be a big problem, particularly if the plant is limited in its hours of operation. The McClouth plant comes with a license to pollute the Detroit River (my spin, not the official license title) until 2007. They have a treatment facility where they are supposed to treat the effluent prior to release into the Detroit River. The EPA has monitoring buoys that supposedly monitor the levels of pollution. None of this worked when McClouth was open and they ended up getting cited for overpolluting because they did not maintain their treatment facilities. Although fines for pollution provides funding for the EPA (now DEP), it does nothing for the now polluted waters and people who live on them. It appears that Mr. Bannai probably escaped from the fines for polluting West Virginia by using the bankruptcy process. Mr. Bannai's track record is not very good. He bought a bankrupt manganese operation and failed to pay the workers and failed to pay his vendors both there and in Africa. He was cited for substantial pollution violations and apparently did not pay the resulting fines. It does not appear that he has any experience in hot rolling or finishing. It does not appear that he has ever successfully run a steel operation of any kind. It does appear that he makes lots of promises and does not keep them. Why Bannai with his record of failure, expects to succeed with plants that have already failed is puzzling. He is less qualified and knowledgeable than the people who ran the plants before. He obviously does not have very substantial financial backing if he was unable to pay workers $179,000 in wages that were admittedly owed. That is peanuts in the scope of transactions that he is dealing with here. I think that both Trenton and Gibraltar are being led around by the nose by a developer who is very good at telling them what they want to hear and making promises that they want to see made. I hope that they get surety bonds to back up these promises. | ||
Gistok Member Username: Gistok Post Number: 2266 Registered: 08-2004 Posted From: 4.229.72.75 |
Good lord all those "italics" are hard on the eyes... sounds like a shifty character. If they do start up shop there, at least the workers will know the situation. Just watch... the first missed payday, and they'll probably go on strike right off the bad. Can't blame em. | ||
Nainrouge Member Username: Nainrouge Post Number: 7 Registered: 05-2006 Posted From: 209.104.146.146 |
Sorry for the italics. I just wanted to make sure that when Mr. Bannai tries to sue my ass that I can be clear that the info did not orginally come from me! I hate to think what tax breaks, grants, etc. he will get before they figure out that he is less than legit. | ||
Rocket_city Member Username: Rocket_city Post Number: 48 Registered: 04-2006 Posted From: 141.217.214.203 |
I attended the ULI event today. There really wasn't anything new that was discussed that anyone on this forum doesn't already know (I'd assume). Norquist was an audience-pleaser and provided a good finally with an explanation of what we've done wrong, what we are doing wrong, but what we can do right, especially with the tremendous amount of assets we have to work with (an urban core, historic quality, the riverfront, etc...) | ||
Gistok Member Username: Gistok Post Number: 2268 Registered: 08-2004 Posted From: 4.229.105.120 |
That's OK Nainrouge, I never realized that italics on this forum were so hard to read. Welcome to the forum in case no one told you so before! | ||
Ndavies Member Username: Ndavies Post Number: 1895 Registered: 10-2003 Posted From: 70.227.216.90 |
I did a quick Google on Mr. Bannai. His exploits appeared in a few newspapers. He also bought a bar steel company in Ohio in March. Seems he intend to have that plant up soon. | ||
Royce Member Username: Royce Post Number: 1626 Registered: 07-2004 Posted From: 69.220.34.39 |
Rocketcity, I'm curious as to what he said we did wrong and are doing wrong. Can you elaborate on these items? |
