BUSINESS

Price tag of former General Motors plant in Janesville: $9.6 million

Rick Romell
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
The General Motors  Janesville assembly plant, shown in this 2008 photo, contained 4.8 million square feet of space under roof, on a 265-acre site.

An affiliate of a St. Louis firm that specializes in redeveloping mothballed industrial sites and other distressed real estate paid $9.6 million for the former General Motors property in Janesville, newly filed real estate records show.

Commercial Development Co. Inc. announced last month that it had purchased the idled GM plant and site.

Tuesday, the price became public as the deed transferring the 265-acre property was recorded with the State of Wisconsin.

Commercial Development has said the site holds potential for manufacturing, warehousing and logistics-related activity.

Since 1990, the company has bought and redeveloped or sold more than 200 pieces of problem real estate, including shuttered factories, power plants, quarries and chemical plants. The Janesville purchase marks at least the fifth former General Motors plant Commercial Development has acquired.

More than 5,000 employees of GM and its suppliers lost their jobs when the automaker began winding down production in Janesville in 2008 and shut the doors for good the following year. The idling of the sprawling plant — 4.8 million square feet under roof — hit Janesville’s economy hard and left a huge hole on the city’s south side.

RELATED:Ripple effect felt in closing of GM's Janesville plant

Now, though, optimism is on the rise, City Manager Mark Freitag said Tuesday.

He called Commercial Development “a perfect fit” to take on the rejuvenation of the General Motors site.

“It’s what they do,” Freitag said.

“We’re very confident in their past practice, what they’ve achieved and how that will essentially play out here in Janesville,” he said. “It’s an exciting time for the community.”

The GM property was purchased by Jaines LLC, a recently organized limited liability company. Jaines LLC has the same street address and office suite as Commercial Development, and it was organized by Michael J. Roberts and Tom Roberts, records filed with the State of Missouri show.

Michael J. Roberts and Thomas E. Roberts are the secretary and president, respectively, of Commercial Development and are the only members of that company’s board of directors, the records show.

Calls to Commercial Development Tuesday were not returned.