The UAW-GM Center for Human Resources on the Detroit riverfront has a new owner.
The sale of the 420,000-square-foot building on 18 acres closed last week to an investment group led by local real estate developers Dominic Moceri and Christos Moisides.
Crain’s Detroit Business, a sister publication to Automotive News, first reported on the pending deal last month.
Although the developers closed on the UAW-GM center, they failed to complete the purchase of the Roberts Riverwalk Hotel next door, which they had under contract.
The sale was part of an agreement reached last year between the union and automaker in their labor contract. An ongoing federal investigation enveloped the UAW-GM training center last year, when the Justice Department alleged that union officials on its board had collected kickbacks to steer lucrative contracts to certain vendors.
Joe Ashton, the UAW’s lead negotiator with General Motors in 2011 who also sat on the board of the jointly-run training center, pleaded guilty last year to money laundering and wire fraud. Jeffery Pietrzyk, a former assistant to Ashton who also had been a co-director of the center, pleaded guilty last year to charges of conspiracy and fraud.
GM and the UAW agreed to close and sell the training center, though some joint training activities will continue with GM controlling the funding.
The union has been the only user since the complex was built in the early 2000s.
The center’s purchase price was not disclosed in three separate news releases. Dominic Moceri said in a release that the building would be repurposed for “business, educational and/or governmental” users.
“We believe this property will provide a creative, inspiring and safe environment for a single or collaborative user,” Moisides said in one of the releases last week.
The Southfield, Mich., office of CBRE Inc. had the listing on the building after being hired by a joint venture between the UAW and General Motors earlier this year. Lino Realty Inc. of Clinton Township, Mich., represented M & M Iconic Ventures LLC, which is the joint-venture between Dominic, Mario and Frank Moceri as well as Moisides. The law firm of Kickham Hanley PLLC also worked on the deal, according to one of the news releases.
Automotive News contributed to this report.
