Last of former GM Moraine assembly plant readied for sale

“Everything on the one (north) side of Stroop Road is 100 percent leased,” Lichter said. “The only available space we have is on the other side of Stroop … which was the original paint plant.”

IRG never focused on that part of the plant. Until now, Lichter said.

“Now we’re going to start getting that building prepared to lease,” he said. “There’s still a lot of equipment in it. And we’ll be starting an effort to clear the building out and doing work in the building and modifying the building. It will be another good building to lease.”

Mike Davis, development director for the city of Moraine, said there has been some interest already in the three-floor former paint shop, and some parties have walked through the facility.

The building also has its own parking, Davis said.

“People are starting to take a hard look at it,” he said.

The paint shop was essentially a large automated facility for painting SUVs, said Dean Miller, IRG executive in Ohio. IRG envisions it will be a large mainly single-floor high-clearance facility after it’s readied for use, he said.

The paint shop has about 375,000 square feet of ground-floor space. “The building was basically one large piece of equipment,” Miller said.

IRG and Moraine have taken the overall complex from empty to mostly used in just five years. IRG took control of the plant in April 2011.

The biggest user in the complex, of course, is Fuyao Glass America, approaching 2,000 employees this year, double the number of workers GM employed when the company stopped assembling SUVs there in late 2008.

In late July, Fuyao announced it is leasing an additional 241,000 square feet of the plant in a 15-year agreement with IRG. That’s a “significant portion” of the plant, Lichter said.

That was the first section of the plant the company has leased, Moraine city officials said last month.

In May 2014, Fuyao global Chairman Cho Tak Wong paid $15 million for 1.4 million square feet of the plant.

The company now claims 1.5 million square feet of the plant and has invested more than $400 million into the plant and $700 million total in United States operations, including a glass supply plant in Mount Zion, Ill.