General Motors Lansing Delta Township Assembly Center: Industrial Private Development

• Author: Rebecca L. Kihslinger/James M. Mcelfish Jr.
• Pages: 72-83

chapter five

General Motors Lansing Delta Township

Assembly Center:

Industrial Private Development

As the owner of millions of acres of land, U.S. corporations have the opportu-

nity to establish and maintain habitats on their sites in ways that are benef‌icial

to wildlife. Since 2002, the General Motors Corporation (GM) has established

Wildlife Habitat-Certif‌ied habitat conservation programs for 10 of its more than

50 U.S. sites. The 75-acre Wildlife Habitat Area at its Lansing Delta Township

(LDT) Assembly Center near Lansing, Michigan, was certif‌ied by the Wildlife

Habitat Council (WHC) in 2006. WHC-certif‌ied programs are chosen by a panel

of WHC wildlife biologists and staff using a set of stringent criteria. Certif‌ied

sites must be active for at least one year and must develop a management plan

that lists goals, objectives, and implementation policies.1

The LDT facilities were constructed on 320 acres of a 1,100-acre greenf‌ield

site—leaving 780 acres virtually undisturbed.2From the beginning, GM set out

to “design and build the world’s most environmentally advanced auto manu-

facturing plant.”3Development of the LDT site began in the late 1990s with the

construction of the Lansing Regional Stamping plant, which started production

in 2003.4Shortly after startup, the Michigan Department of Environmental

Quality designated the stamping plant a Clean Corporate Citizen for demon-

strating environmental stewardship and a strong environmental ethic.5The entire

LDT site has since been recognized as a Clean Corporate Citizen.6

Site preparation and construction of the LDT assembly plant began in early

2004.7GM planned to have the LDT assembly operations and associated build-

ings achieve Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)

certif‌ication, and hired St. Louis-based Vertegy Consultants to guide the sus-

tainable design and construction of the site.8Compared to similar plants, the

LDT plant was designed to realize signif‌icant energy and water savings over

the life of the facility.9More than 25% of the construction materials used in

plant construction were composed of recycled content and more than 60% of

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