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If you’ve never been, General Motors’ Tech Center in Warren, Michigan, is an impressive sight to behold. The campus sprawls over 326 acres and features neat jet-age architecture, expansive water features, and the brand’s famous design dome. It’s also exceptionally old and in need of some renovations, and so GM has announced that it is dropping a full $1 billion on updates and expansions for its Warren campus. That’s a lot of coin.
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The Tech Center first opened in 1956, following seven years of construction, and its green spaces were shaped by landscape architect Thomas Church, while its buildings were designed by famed architect and vowel fiend Eero Saarinen. The grounds were inducted to the National Register of Historic Sites in 2014, and for good reason. Saarinen was also the man behind the TWA Flight Center at New York’s JFK airport, the still-wild-looking Main Terminal at Washington’s Dulles airport, and that little arch known as the Gateway in St. Louis.
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So the Tech Center has good bones, but 1956 was a long time ago, and it hasn’t ever been updated on this scale. Construction begins this month on a renewal that will bring renovations and updates to the campus’s R&D facilities, upgraded furniture and interior fittings, new design studios, and a new IT building. The expansion plans also call for additional testing areas for the Advanced Energy Center. According to GM, this project will pave the way for an additional 2600 jobs at the campus. If that sounds like a lot, well, it is, but be prepared to be blown away with this tidbit: 19,000 employees already report to the Tech Center daily. There’s no word on how many new “GM Vehicle Parking Only” signs the renovations will add; drive into the facilities today, and most of the lots closest to the buildings specifically ban non-GM vehicles from parking there. The updates call for an additional pair of new parking decks, so we imagine at least a few of the amusing signs are on order. Construction is scheduled to be wrapped up by 2018, but as with all large jobs, leave a little wiggle room for the completion timeline.
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P.S. We’ve totally parked a Porsche in one of GM’s special parking lots, because we bow to no signs.
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