DEGC has helped two manufacturing companies, Detroit Chrome and Detroit Chassis, extend their Renaissance Zone tax benefits from an updated state law. The legislature amended the statute to allow companies to extend their Renaissance Zone benefits provided they were making capital investments or increasing jobs to diversify their products. Both companies meet the guidelines, so DEGC helped facilitate extensions of Renaissance Zone benefits to them for the next 12 years.

Detroit Chrome processes parts for aerospace and defense customers. It has expanded its Detroit facility over the years from an 8,000 sq. ft. building to a 70,000 sq. ft. campus on the city?s northwest side. In the process, the company has revitalized several abandoned industrial properties.

Over the last two years, the company expanded its services to aircraft customers and hired 12 new employees. With more growth opportunities in front of it, the company expects to invest $5 million on its facilities and expand its present workforce from 44 to more than 60 employees over the next five years.

Detroit Chassis is a minority-owned, tier one automotive supplier that assembles large truck chassis for Ford Motor on a 33-acre site on Lynch Road. It has been a Renaissance Zone since 1998.  Since then the company has made substantial investments at the site and has spent approximately $30 million from local businesses over the last 10 years.

The company has launched a subsidiary, Detroit Custom Chassis, whose principal product is a proprietary low-floor chassis conversion used for transit and shuttle buses that serve limited mobility riders.

With expanded opportunities before it, Detroit Chassis is expecting to grow over the next five years, investing $1.25 million and creating 80-125 new jobs. The Detroit Workforce Development Department is expecting to help train Detroit residents so they qualify for some of those new jobs.

These projects demonstrate how DEGC is committed not only to new businesses, but established Detroit companies that have invested in this community, purchased and hired locally, and are looking to grow in the new Detroit economy.