GM: Give Us Tax Credits Or We'll Lose The RenCen

The Freep is reporting that GM’s Renaissance Center headquarters could be at risk if so-called “retention tax credits” aren’t amended. GM is consolidating more of its workforce at its Warren Technology Center, and 1,500 of the RenCen’s 4,000 GM workers are reportedly making the move out of downtown. The remaining 2,500 workers would stay only if a Michigan Economic Growth Authority “retention” tax credit makes it worthwhile. The necessary amendments to this tax credit have been made, but MEGA still has to approve the package. A memo to the Growth Authority reveals the stakes:

2,500 is the maximum that they can also take for this portion of the credit. General Motors has submitted an application stating that the headquarters is at risk without this credit.

GM’s CEO Fritz Henderson adds:

We’ll have some people move from the Renaissance Center to the Warren Tech Center, but the Renaissance Center will still maintain a very sizable presence and this will be our headquarters

As long as the state of Michigan makes it worth GM’s while, anyway. But Michigan is hardly united in its desire to prevent the building named for unflagging optimism in Detroit’s future from becoming an ironically-named, abandoned husk. Warren Mayor Jim Fout tells MLive:

Let them keep Fritz Henderson and his secretary and his board down at the Renaissance Center and they can call that their world headquarters. But ultimately, everything else is coming to Warren. It makes no sense for them to stay at the Ren Cen. If they are going to survive, they are going to have to consolidate.

Car czarlet Steve Rattner recently laid into GM’s culture of executive arrogance, pointing out that top executives had a private elevator that whisked them from their private garages to the top of the RenCen, insulating them from their firm’s realities. Imagine what might happen if top executives were further insulated by being the only GM employees to occupy the RenCen. The mind boggles.