The project, if it happens, would involve 716 jobs new to Brookville, according to Port Authority documents.
General Motors officials have made no definitive announcement about plans for a possible expansion of the company’s plant in Brookville, even as site work begins on land the automaker purchased in late 2021.
But on Monday, trustees for the Dayton-Montgomery County Port Authority voted to set the stage for a capital lease agreement fueling an expansion of the DMAX plant in Brookville.
The project would add 1.1 million square feet of manufacturing and shipping space to the existing 250,000-square-foot plant at 101 W. Campus Blvd. in Brookville in a project Port Authority documents say would involve $281 million in GM internal funding.
The project is not definite. Instead of expanding in Brookville, GM may decide to expand an operation in Flint, Mich., Geraghty cautioned.
“It may not come here,” Geraghty said. “GM has not formally announced it.”
“GM is developing a business case for a potential future project,” GM spokesman Daniel Flores said in an email Monday. “DMAX continues to run its normal operating plan, and we have made no announcements that would impact that plan. We have no additional information to share at this time.”
Flores and another GM representative did not respond to questions about the future of the DMAX Moraine plant on Dryden Road.
Messages seeking comment were left with Michael Davis, Moraine city manager, and the IUE-CWA, which represents DMAX workers in Moraine.
Moraine leaders were in “good communication” with Brookville leaders about the project, Geraghty said.
Capital lease transactions are deals that allow the Port Authority to shield new construction projects from state and local sales taxes on the purchase of construction materials used in those projects, then leasing the improvements to an occupant company on a capital lease basis.
The port would become a “conduit-owner” of the expanded property in that arrangement.
Making powerful diesel truck engines for joint owners General Motors and Isuzu, the DMAX joint venture has thrived for years, continuing to operate through economic downturns, surviving even after a nearby former GM SUV-assembly plant, also in Moraine, shut down in late 2008.
When it was first announced in 2019, the Brookville DMAX plant was conceived as operating concurrently with the original DMAX plant in Moraine, sending the established plant-machined engine components for assembly there.
From Moraine, finished diesel engines go to a GM Flint, Mich., plant, where engines are built into Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra HDs (heavy duty) trucks.
From Flint, the newly assembly trucks — complete with Brookville- and Moraine-built engines — go to dealers across the nation.
DMAX in Moraine has usually had about 700 to 800 workers.
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