Willow Run bomber plant: Museum short $4.7M to save portion from September demolition

As a September demolition date looms for the former Willow Run Powertrain facility in Ypsilanti Township, fundraising efforts to save a portion of the attached Willow Run bomber plant are about $4.7 million short.

With two weeks until an Aug. 1 deadline to come up with the funds, the Yankee Air Museum is pursuing large individual and company donors across the country to make up the difference.

The last Ford bomber, the B-24 "Liberator" rolls out of the Willow Run plant with Henry Ford II driving the tow in June 1945. The plant was built with an eye toward wartime production in 1940.

Eck Stanger | The Ann Arbor News

(The Willow Run bomber plant) was the focal point of the entire arsenal of democracy, Norton said. Detroit won the war and we cant let that story die.

Should the museum fail to reach its $6 million goal, the entire bomber plant will be razed with the rest of the Powertrain facility.

Renovation too costly

The entire facility contains 4.6 million square feet and was being marketed to industrial companies for reuse by its owner, Revitalizing Auto Communities Environmental Response, or RACER, Trust.

In the wake of General Motors' s 2009 bankruptcy, the RACER Trust was formed by the federal government in 2011 to liquidate GMs holdings and clean up the environmental contamination at its 89 sites across 14 states.

In Michigan, the largest of those sites is the Willow Run facility.

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Willow Run bomber plant: Museum short $4.7M to save portion from September demolition