Detroit/Hamtramck Assembly

Detroit/Hamtramck Assembly is a General Motors (GM) automobile assembly plant straddling the border between Detroit and Hamtramck, Michigan. It is located about three miles (five km) from GM's corporate headquarters. When the facility opened, it was built on the original Dodge Factory location that was built in 1910, which was closed in 1979 and demolished in 1981, and the new GM factory built vehicles for GM's "BOC" (Buick/Oldsmobile/Cadillac) Group. The first vehicle, a Cadillac Eldorado, rolled off the assembly line on February 4, 1985.It replaced GM's Detroit Assembly on Clark Avenue, south of Michigan Avenue (U.S. Route 12) in Detroit which was the main facility for all Cadillacs starting in 1921. It is about one mile west of the former Packard Automotive Plant.The plant currently builds vehicles for GM's Chevrolet, Cadillac and Buick divisions and has approximately 1,800 hourly and salaried employees. Since opening in 1985, more than 4 million vehicles have been built at the plant. GM announced the elimination of second shift and 1,300 jobs at the plant in December 2016, less than twelve months after the second shift was added.HistoryDodgeThe Dodge Factory, or “Dodge Main” as it became to be known, occupied 67acre on the edge of the village of Hamtramck, which is surrounded by the city of Detroit. Plant 4, on Conant Avenue, was separated only from the main plant structures by a railroad right-of-way, which was also the boundary line between the two cities. The plant started off as just a few buildings but it grew rapidly as needed, where it ended up as 35 separate buildings, to include a foundry, before it was demolished. The plant was originally designed by Albert Kahn Associates, when they were replaced by another architectural firm Smith, Hinchman & Grylls, due to a disagreement with the Dodge brothers starting in 1912. Reflecting an engineering philosophy the brothers shared, the plant was vastly overbuilt.