GM to Move Units' Staff To Renaissance Center
April 03, 2011
DETROIT -- General Motors Corp. is relocating the administrative staffs of five of its car and truck divisions to its future downtown headquarters here. GM, which informed employees of the relocation plan last week, is ordering about 1,500 personnel from its Pontiac-GMC, Cadillac, Chevrolet, Buick and Oldmobile marketing divisions to move to the city's glass-towered Renaissance Center in the next five years, as many of the complex's current tenants leave to make way for most of GM's corporate personnel. In May, the No. 1 auto maker said it was buying the Renaissance Center to move out of its current world-wide headquarters at the 76-year-old landmark General Motors Building, located north of downtown. GM agreed to buy the Renaissance Center from Highgate Hotels, a Texas investment firm that recently agreed to buy the complex from its original owners, a group that included GM and major tenant Ford Motor Co.. Ford has yet to announce plans for leaving the complex. GM's decision to move the five divisions had been expected, because of continuing efforts to coordinate the five car and truck groups' operations, which historically have operated as separate fiefs at offices spread throughout southern Michigan. Earlier in the year, GM combined Pontiac cars and GMC trucks, making them one division, and more recently, it began marketing the groups under GM's corporate logo in a bid to strengthen the five brands' collective identity. However, a GM spokesman said the sales and marketing staff of its Saturn division, which tends to operate autonomously, will continue to operate independently at offices in nearby Troy, Mich.
