Election puts support for a Flint-area megasite on shakier ground

• Michigan is in contention for a new semiconductor factory as federal officials try to close out CHIPS Act funding
• The recent election may have raised more roadblocks for a Flint-area property to be chosen
• The state has invested $260 million to create the ‘megasite,’ but the community is divided over development there

The Biden administration is reportedly trying to quickly close pending deals with about 20 companies — including one considering Michigan — under the CHIPS and Science Act, which offers subsidies to bring semiconductor manufacturing to the United States.

With time running out before the state and federal political landscape shifts, efforts are continuing this fall to turn about 1,300 acres near the Flint Bishop Airport into a megasite for a high-tech factory, even as new questions emerge about ongoing support for the project.

The Mundy Township property has been marketed to “those that are going to create at least 2,000 direct jobs and invest $2 billion or more,” Tyler Rossmaessler, executive director of the Flint & Genesee Economic Alliance, the economic development group leading the project, told Bridge this week.

Officials including Rossmaessler have not confirmed a deal in the works, but reports indicate negotiations have been taking place for a $55 billion operation for Western Digital semiconductor production. 

Yet other signs indicate new potential hurdles for the megasite, which is underwritten by $260 million in state funds allocated to the Flint & Genesee Economic Alliance for buying the property and preparing it for development:

• The township just elected a new supervisor, Republican Jennifer Stainton, who ran on an anti-megasite platform. 
• The state House will shift from Democratic control, leaving Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s administration just weeks to finalize additional large-scale economic development funding — something that lawmakers say they believe will be necessary for a megasite deal — as Republicans and her own party increasingly criticize the subsidy spending. 
• And President-elect Donald Trump, preparing to take office again in January, campaigned against the CHIPS and Science Act. Speculation continues about whether the funding could be dropped or modified. 

The Flint-area property, Rossmaessler told Bridge, remains “incredibly important” to the nation as policies shift toward bringing supply chains to the US. 

“As we're looking to diversify our reliance on foreign entities for these important supply chains that go into our phones and our cars and our guided missiles and drones in our everyday life, we have to have sites like this where we can produce those incredibly important products,” he said.

However, Stainton said she and other residents in Mundy Township were blindsided by the megasite plans, which involve assembling properties from dozens of homeowners, farmers, businesses and even a church and school. 

Stainton points to township non-disclosure agreements with the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, signed in 2022 by the township manager Chad Young and outgoing supervisor Tonya Ketzler, as “keeping pertinent information away from our township residents.”

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A year later, the township approved zoning for advanced manufacturing over a three-mile area that now coincides with the megasite. 

That step, Stainton said, was like “putting the red carpet” out for the kind of massive manufacturer that many expect could be imminently deciding to build on the property. 

Today, the community is divided over the megasite. Similar division arose in other areas of the state targeted for large-scale development, aided with state taxpayer incentives. They include Marshall, Green Charter Township near Big Rapids, and Eagle Township, west of Lansing. Eagle Township, in fact, just learned that an economic development group has scrapped plans to develop a megasite there.

In Mundy Township, the blowback resulted in the Nov. 5 election of Stainton and three new Republican trustees in a traditionally Democratic district, the new supervisor said. 

“We wouldn't be like this right now if they were just more truthful and honest and open with our community,” Stainton said of officials’ decisions to pursue the megasite.

The project,  she added, “will forever change the landscape of our whole township.”

Voters there also feel like decisions about the township property have been made by economic developers and state officials, Stainton said. 

Debate over subsidies, tariffs 

State legislators, meanwhile, are divided over large-scale incentives, including the $2 billion Strategic Outreach and Attraction Reserve (SOAR fund), which is not funded after this year. All megasite deals to date in Michigan have involved SOAR subsidies, including the $260 million for the Mundy Township megasite.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has said extending SOAR is a goal, and some Democrats proposed a 10-year funding plan, but the legislation does not have the votes in the party to pass. Undetermined is whether a compromise will be reached during “lame duck.”

State Rep. Matt Hall, R-Richland Township, and incoming House majority leader, told the Detroit News last week that the project does not yet have his support. 

Whitmer told the Detroit News that she’s hoping that the Mundy Township project — which she, like Hall didn’t name — will advance by the end of the year.

Whitmer also said she hopes she and Trump can find “shared priorities,” the paper reported. 

Trump blasted the CHIPS Act during his campaign, attacking the bipartisan law aimed at reducing America’s reliance on Asia for semiconductors, used in phones, cars and computers, among other essential products. The US produces about 10% of the world’s semiconductors. 

Trump said he preferred using tariffs over the subsidies to urge the manufacturing switch. Some experts now say he is more likely to retool the CHIPS Act than end it, but he has not yet announced a policy direction. 

As Biden’s term ends, about 90% of the $39 billion in CHIPS Act funding has been allocated. 

To speed the process, Biden in October signed legislation that exempts semiconductor manufacturing facilities that receive federal funding from environmental reviews. He made the law over objections of some Democrats and environmentalists. 

Amid all of the uncertainty, Stainton said that she and the community now have growing fears of adverse environmental impact from a semiconductor factory, including the release of PFAS, the so-called “forever chemicals” that have been linked to cancer, into wastewater or groundwater. 

“It is going to be our responsibility to protect our township residents,” Stainton said. “Our township needs to know that the companies, whatever they put in there, are not going to be hazardous to our environment.”

Over 1,000 acres in the township have been purchased for the megasite so far, Rossmaessler said, “and we’ve got hundreds more under our control.”

New land option agreements are still in progress, he added, with negotiations with some landowners continuing. Tree-clearing will start soon to get the property closer to development-ready.

MEDC spokesperson Otie McKinley said Genesee County has drawn national attention for development and redevelopment, including at the former Buick City factory site in Flint.

The MEDC will work with new leadership at the township and state level to keep the area’s resurgence possible, he said.

“We are committed to building upon that momentum to continue this good work together,” McKinley said.