Plan to save GM Shreveport facing long odds 


Amid the rubble of the General Motors crash and federal bailout of 2009 are 89 orphan GM properties—including the GM plant in Shreveport—for which a special trust is trying to find a future. Only the Shreveport plant still produces vehicles, and that’s scheduled to end by mid-2012. Although state officials haven’t given up on getting the new General Motors Co. to change its mind and keep the plant open, time is running short. The economy appears to be softening, unemployment is high and GM says it already has excess manufacturing capacity. Stephen Moret, Louisiana Economic Development chief, says his top priority is for GM to produce a new vehicle in Shreveport. But he says auto sales must climb to make that a reasonable possibility. The Shreveport plant, with about 800 workers left from a one-time payroll of about 3,000, is losing its GM mission. It once built the commercial Hummer, but GM dropped that line. The small pickups it now builds are not in high demand. Moret says the state is working on contingency plans if GM sticks with the plan to shut the plant. He says the plant could become a multitenant manufacturing plant, although that’s not “the optimal solution.” “We also have talked with a number of other prospects for the facility, but we’re reluctant to go with those as long as there’s a possibility of the GM option,” Moret says.