GM to sell casting plant in Massena

MASSENA — There is going to be a big "for sale" sign in front of the former General Motors casting plant here one of these days.

As part of the struggling corporation's bankruptcy proceedings, GM will sell its weakest assets, such as closed plants and surplus properties, to reduce its debts. Its strongest ones, such as plants in operation, will be sold to the "new GM" in court proceedings. No announcements on when the weak assets will be up for sale have been made yet.

"Our main focus right now is getting court permission to proceed" with the sales, said Daniel J. Flores, GM corporate spokesman. "Speculations on when it would go on sale, or how much it would cost or who would buy it, there's no way I could speculate on that right now."

The GM plant here is listed as a Superfund site with the federal Environmental Protection Agency. If the plant is sold, the purchaser might have to take on the responsibility of cleaning up the site. EPA officials could not provide an estimate of how much cleanup would cost. The corporation already has spent millions of dollars to fix up the polluted site.

Though GM officials could not guess who might buy the plant, one person who is interested in manufacturing wind turbines there wants the state to step up and help him begin using it.

"I've gone to the state and told them I want them to lead the way on negotiations with GM and come up with a good solution," said Michael C. Darcy, president and chief executive officer of the D'Arcinoff Group. "There's all sorts of possibilities."

Those possibilities include GM leasing the property directly to D'Arcinoff, or someone else buying it and leasing it to the company.

The D'Arcinoff group has proposed leasing 15 sites around the country, including the Massena plant and another in Syracuse, to build thousands of wind turbines. However, Mr. Darcy said his company would not be willing to buy the plant and take on the responsibility of cleaning it up, despite his interest in the Massena site.

"Last time I looked, like it or not, the site is in the state of New York," he said. "It should be the state's duty to clean up that site."

"I'm not in the real estate business," he said. "Twenty years from now, I'm not going to want to develop it and turn it into condos."

Despite that, the company is still "very, very interested" in using the plant to make turbines.

"To my mind, it's clear that GM is pulling out any way they can, which means, obviously, that the site is available," Mr. Darcy said. "We are still very active. We've got some very good feedback."

Sen. Kirsten E. Gillibrand, D-N.Y., has not heard any mention of the state buying the plant itself and leasing it to the D'Arcinoff Group, according to spokeswoman Bethany Lesser. However, the senator has asked the federal government to approve loan guarantee applications from the D'Arcinoff Group to help the project move forward.