Ford site talks begin

02/06/2007

City task force gets to work; lawmakers poised to delay sale


BY TIM NELSON
Pioneer Press


St. Paul's long goodbye to the Ford Motor Co. began Monday night as a city task force met at the Highland Park truck plant to weigh what might become of the 125-acre site if the factory closes, as planned, in 2008.

"No one would want more than me for those 2,000 jobs to stay here," Mayor Chris Coleman told the inaugural meeting of the 25-member Ford Site Planning Task Force. "But the time to plan for that 'what if' is now."

The evening began what is scheduled to be an 18-month consideration of the future of the 82-year-old plant, the last of a storied history of auto manufacturing in the Twin Cities. It also brought word that St. Paul lawmakers would press for a state moratorium on the sale of the property in order to preserve its industrial use.

Task force members are expected to identify and winnow the options for the plant to fewer than a half-dozen by this summer. Both the city and Ford have hired consultants to provide technical expertise to planners and prospective developers. A second phase of the process will apply fiscal, environmental, legal and other analyses to each option and recommend a "preferred alternative" by fall 2008, when Ford says it will "idle" the Twin Cities Assembly Plant.

Little other than that is certain.

Ford land representative Jay Gardner said in a briefing before the task force meeting that the company walked prospective buyers through the factory's hydroelectric plant last week and expects bids in the next four to eight weeks. That facility is being sold separately. He also said the company is committed to taking a thorough look at any environmental hazards on the site.

"Whatever we find, we will deal with," he said.

But his remarks made clear that Ford's future in St. Paul is short. He said he doesn't expect the company to play a significant role in the redevelopment itself, as it did during the 1990s when it closed plants in Milpitas and Newport Beach, Calif., and rebuilt the sites as an owner-developer. The company's financial straits — it lost nearly $13 billion last year — make that an unlikely scenario in St. Paul, Gardner said.

"Our role here is to listen, to be actively engaged in the discussions of the alternatives," Gardner said in the briefing. "Clearly, we have a vested interest in the outcome, and we also want to make sure that our positive legacy is memorialized in some way. … We have a long and proud history here."

But any end, honorable or not, was shadowed by doubt Monday night. For one thing, the plant can only be "idled," and not formally closed, without an agreement between the United Auto Workers unit at the plant and Ford. The existing contract expires later this year.

The UAW, too, is pleading for a pre-emption at the state Capitol.

Sen. Dick Cohen, who represents the area around the plant, told the task force he will introduce a bill providing a statutory moratorium on the sale of the site. His House DFLcolleague, Michael Paymar, said it could be for as long as five years, in hopes that another manufacturer, perhaps even another automaker, might be lured to the site.

"We want to keep our options open here," said Lynn Hinkle, a UAW health and safety representative.

Workers at the plant worry, for example, that selling off the hydroplant might dim prospects for bringing a wind turbine maker, rail car manufacturer or other 21st-century industrial tenant to Ford Parkway.

Still, task force members moved ahead, offering a litany of suggestions and concerns to the consulting group the city has hired to work with Ford, the task force, the St. Paul Port Authority and others. They raised concerns about traffic in the neighborhood, about the economic viability of the proposed options and about public opportunity to participate in the planning.

"I think, from a practical sense, every one of us is going to want something figured out with those Ford Little League fields," said Angie Kline, a neighbor and task force member, referring to the company-owned land at Cleveland and Montreal avenues.

State officials plan to make an announcement Thursday on the efforts at the Capitol to address the Ford plant closing.


GETTING INVOLVED


The Ford Site Planning Task Force has planned regular public meetings, tentatively scheduled for Feb. 20, March 5 and 19, April 16, May 7 and 21, and June 4 and 18.

The meetings will be at 5:30 p.m. at the UAW-Ford Training Center, at the north end of the auto plant.