The Michigan Strategic Fund today approved economic incentives to several new projects in the state, including two in Southeast Michigan.
Walker-based Challenge Mfg. Co. LLC received approval of a $2.5 million performance-based grant toward a new 400,000-square-foot manufacturing plant in Pontiac.
The $50 million project is expected to create 450 new jobs at the former General Motors Co. Pontiac Assembly Plant at 2100 S. Opdyke Road, which closed in 2009.
Construction of the plant, which will assemble automotive components, will begin this summer, according to a press release. The site was chosen over a competing site in Ontario, Canada, said the Michigan Economic Development Corp.
The MSF board is also considering a brownfield tax-increment financing reimbursement of $2.2 million for the project. The city of Pontiac offered a brownfield tax increment financing reimbursement of up to $5 million over 16 years, according to the MEDC.
Challenge operates four plants in west Michigan and received a $1 million performance-based grant last year in a project to create an expected 180 new jobs.
Also granted at the meeting:
Green Box NA Michigan LLC, a subsidiary of De Pere, Wis.-based Environmentally Advanced Reclamation Technology HQ LLC, will receive up to $125 million in tax-exempt bond financing for two facilities in the state.
The proposed $200 million projects include a commercial-waste treatment plant in the city of Detroit and a processing plant in Cheboygan.
The commercial waste, mostly from the restaurant industry, will be turned into pellets in Detroit then shipped to Cheboygan, where it will be converted into bath, facial and napkin products, as well as biofuels and fertilizer.
Green Box expects to remove 22.7 million cubic feet of landfill waste annually through the Michigan locations.
The two projects are expected to create up to 331 new jobs.
Green Box originally was approved for financing for a facility in Romulus.
Another approved project is an expansion of Fairlife LLC in Coopersville, 20 miles west of Grand Rapids. MSF awarded a $2.4 million grant to the city toward the $96.3 million project, which will expand the company’s milk bottling operations.
