The Swedish defense contractor Saab is planning to bring a new production facility to Grayling Township. That's with the help of state business incentives approved Tuesday.
The munitions facility would be operated under Saab Inc., the company’s U.S.-based offshoot.
Saab is in line to receive a $3.5 million grant and tax breaks via Michigan’s State Essential Services Assessment program worth around $30 million across a 15 year period.
In return, Saab is promising to spend up to $75 million on the project and create up to 69 new jobs.
Brad Barnard is Saab’s vice president and general manager of land systems. He said the company has already begun working with the local community college on workforce training.
“A lot of what we’re bringing on is going to be highly skilled touch labor. So, it’s going to be a combination of building that out, building a highly customized program with Kirtland, and also applying some of that expertise from the facility that we have in Sweden,” Barnard told the Michigan Strategic Fund Board Tuesday.
The project could break ground in the coming months.
Meanwhile, another project that received funding from the strategic fund board Tuesday could also lead to local training opportunities.
A German auto-supplier won approval of business incentives to help it turn an idled factory in Detroit into its new U.S. headquarters.
Production at the Mount Elliott Tool and Die facility has been halted since 2018.
But officials said the deal for Laepple Automotive US to receive a $3.5 million grant and tax breaks could bring in over $90 million in investment and create over 170 jobs.
CEO Oliver Wackenhut said he sees the plant as an opportunity for his company.
"Especially with the existing building and with the existing equipment, it would really help to launch our business in North America to supply our existing customers,” he said.
The company currently works with carmakers like Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, and Porsche, though Wackenhut said he’d like to see more business with General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis.
Thursday’s Strategic Fund meeting also saw some previous incentive deals revised.
That includes a request for an Ann Arbor-based autonomous vehicle company, May Mobility, to reduce its 2023 grant award and scale down deliverables like the number of jobs its Ann Arbor project planned to create.
Meanwhile, a housing project in midtown Detroit that received funding approval in 2015 could become a hotel.
That’s after owners of The Plaza Midtown told the MSF Board that the project could default on its loans without a change to its business model.
David Di Rita is with the real estate firm The Roxbury Group. He said that would in turn prevent it from repaying the state what it still owes from business incentives approved almost a decade ago.
“After evaluating a number of alternatives, we concluded that a conversion to a residential hotel under a licensing agreement with Marriott International and their new brand, apartments by Marriott, was the most viable approach,” Di Rita said.
He said the building typically hasn’t had trouble filling most of its 72 units, though he blamed taxes and delays with a partner project as some of the causes for the financial troubles.
The hotel conversion would mean residents in 15 of the building’s designated “affordable” units would need to relocate to The Roxbury Group's other properties.
