A California company has dropped its plan to buy the old Packard Electric plant in Warren. However Autoparkit, which builds robotic parking garage systems, is still planning to set up operations in the city.
West Coost entrepreneur Christopher Alan grew up in Warren. When he decided the old Packard plant back home would be a good place to make his automation he tried to buy it. Last month the deal fell through.
So Alan bought two old GE buildings in the same industrial area. He also still plans to hire locally, though he says contractors elsewhere will continue building the parts until Parkit is operational in Warren.
Because of the delays and lack of working space so far for distribution and testing, "orders that we were originally wanting to bring here and start doing ourselves, we’re going back to those groups of fabricators and doing the work through them right now." , i
Alan says Parkit can create a thousand jobs, directly and with supporting businesses in and around Warren.
