Demolition starts Monday at St. Paul Ford plant
City officials say the demolition of the factory buildings on the Ford Motor assembly plant in St. Paul will start on Monday.
The 150-acre site in St. Paul's Highland Park neighborhood dates back nearly a century as a Ford plant. The factory initially made Model T cars starting in 1925. It was making Ranger compact pickup trucks when it shut down in December of 2011.
Ford has told the city that it plans to tear down the factory, clean up the site and sell the land for redevelopment. The process is expected to take as much as three years, and will leave the site vacant and ready for construction as soon as 2016.
The city has held years of meetings and listening sessions on what should happen on the site, but nothing's been decided about what should replace the plant.
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City and Ford Motor company officials will mark the formal start of demolition at 8 a.m. on Monday morning.
AUDIO SLIDESHOW
The history of the Ford plant mirrored the development of the entire auto industry. Historian Brian McMahon takes us on a photographic tour, produced by MPR's Matt Sepic and Jennifer Simonson in 2011.
