GM plant demolition to start this week

The walls of the former General Motors assembly plant in Janesville will start to fall this week, Janesville officials announced. In a news release Monday morning, the city of Janesville announced that demolition of the 4.8 million-square-foot former auto plant was slated to begin “on or around” Monday. The city said Commercial Development Company, the property’s owner, notified the city of its intent to start demolition this week.
Commercial Development, the St. Louis-based brownfield redevelopment company that bought the defunct plant property last year, has said it intended to begin tearing down the facility in April. The company said it will start on the west side of the property and work toward the east side.

Demolition, cleaning up and clearing the property could take a year to 18 months, the company has said.
Commercial Development said it plans to ready the site for multiparcel industrial redevelopment that would key on rail line infrastructure adjacent to the plant property. In its release, the city said Commercial Development completed asbestos and universal waste removal in the “main assembly plant” last week.
The city has said Commercial Development itself is doing about half of the demolition and clearing of the property and leaving the other half to a third-party contractor
By Neil Johnson njohnson@gazettextra.com