10/5/2018—Daniel Marsh, President and CEO of the National Development Council (NDC), will celebrate a new era of high-tech manufacturing in the City of Detroit by joining an important ribbon cutting on Monday, October 8. Flex-N-Gate will break ground on the largest auto supplier investment in the City of Detroit in more than two decades. NDC assisted in financing the development with $8.1 million in New Markets Tax Credits.
“At NDC we are eager to invest New Markets Tax Credits in projects like Flex-N-Gate that will have an important impact on the local community,” said Mr. Marsh. “Flex-N-Gate has committed to hire (at least) 50% of its workforce from the surrounding Detroit neighborhoods, this will provide living wage to hundreds of workers. That is exactly the kind of project NDC is enthusiastic to support.”
Dan Marsh will join Shahid Khan, owner, president and CEO of Flex-N-Gate, who will serve as host for the event that will feature numerous speakers that played a crucial role in making Flex-N-Gate Detroit a reality, including:
- Rick Snyder, Governor of Michigan
- Mike Duggan, Mayor of Detroit
- Scott Benson, District 3 Councilperson
- Burt Jordan, Global Vehicle & Indirect Purchasing and Supply Chain Sustainability, Ford Motor Company
NDC’s investment assisted Flex‐N‐Gate (FNG) with the construction of a new 494,000 SF manufacturing plant that will create 100 full-time construction jobs, and 500 permanent auto manufacturing related jobs that will increase to 800 at full capacity. FNG is a minority-owned business that has several existing operations near Detroit in Michigan, Ohio and Illinois and across the border in Ontario, Canada. Despite incentives to locate this new manufacturing plant in places where FNG already has a presence, the company chose to locate its new facility in Detroit, and has committed to awarding at least 30 percent of contracts to Detroit-based contractors or suppliers.