Chrysler to Say Goodby to Detroit : Automotive: Company will move headquarters to Auburn Hills, leaving only General Motors to call the Motor City home.
Chrysler Corp., which has made its home near the heart of Detroit since 1925, said Tuesday that it will consolidate its headquarters with other operations that already have moved to the suburb of Auburn Hills.
The move involves about 2,000 employees from offices in Highland Park, a city of 20,000 surrounded by Detroit, to the Chrysler Technology Center where engineering, manufacturing and other operations are centered.
Chrysler will build a new headquarters in Auburn Hills. It expects to complete the move by 1995.
Of the U.S. Big Three auto makers, only General Motors Corp. has a Detroit address. Ford Motor Co.’s headquarters are in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn. Chrysler will be the farthest from the city, about 40 miles north.
“Our situation has changed drastically since we broke ground for CTC in 1986,” Chrysler Chairman Lee Iacocca said. “At that time, we planned to maintain a separate corporate headquarters in Highland Park.”
But Iacocca said Chrysler has shed 12,000 white-collar workers since then and has reorganized its business into a team management system, in which engineers, designers, marketers and others involved in auto making work closely together.
Iacocca had hinted when the technology center was under construction that Chrysler eventually might consolidate its operations in Auburn Hills.
“Under this organization, it is essential for the entire team to be together in the same location,” Iacocca said. “We can’t have our executives traveling 50 miles back and forth for meetings two and three times a day.”
Chrysler earlier this year opened a new $1.2-billion, inner-city Detroit assembly plant to make Jeep Grand Cherokees. A previous plant on the site, across town from Highland Park, was closed in 1990 and razed.
Iacocca met with Highland Park Mayor Lindsey Porter on Tuesday morning and told him of the company’s decision, approved by Chrysler’s board last week.
