Formerly known as the “Industrial Park,” Port Huron’s downtown area, home to about 29 manufacturers, is getting a rebranding and reinvention.
In collaboration with the city and the St. Clair County Economic Development Alliance, the 275-acre site has been renamed the Technology and Advanced Manufacturing Park.
The park, which has employed thousands of St. Clair County residents since the early 1970s, has seen many changes over the past few decades, but as the products the park’s companies develop become more sophisticated, the park’s image needed to change, too, according to Mayor James Freed.
“You know, it used to be called the industrial park, and the level of sophistication and technology, it’s all advanced manufacturing,” he said. “These are high-wage, high-skill jobs.”
Port Huron Mayor James Freed;
Freed called the parks the “lifeblood” of the Port Huron area and home to many businesses, some established by foreign companies and some owned by local businesses.
The park is made up mostly of auto parts suppliers whose recent shift to producing self-driving cars has helped the city remain a hub for the auto industry.
“These jobs provide livelihoods, opportunity and prosperity for our residents,” Freed said, “and in the last few years, Port Huron has become a leader in automotive technology and autonomous vehicles, and we’ve become known for it.”
The full list of businesses included in the park, in alphabetical order, is:
ALD Thermal Treatment, Inc., Aludyne, Attica Manufacturing Inc., Auto Anodics Inc., Black River Manufacturing, Inc., Blue Water Glass, Buckland Global Trade Services, Inc., Earl Smith Distributing Co., Edison Manufacturing and Engineering, Eissmann Automotive Port Huron LLC, Gielow Pickles, Greene Group Industries, Huron Industries Inc., IAC Port Huron L: LC, Johnstone Supply, Lake Huron Storage, Michigan Industrial Products, Michigan Metal Castings Company, PJ Wallbank Springs Inc., Plastic Dress-Up Service, Inc., PMR Industries, Inc., Pregis (Port Huron), R&E Automated Systems, S&H Sorting & Packaging, Inc., Shawmut LLC, Tapex American Corp., US Farathane Port Huron, LLC, and Wirco Products, Inc.
Though it has seen rapid growth in recent years, Bruce Seymour, vice president of business services for the St. Clair County Economic Development League, said there is always room for more development at the park.
Bruce Seymour, vice president of business services for the St. Clair County Economic Development League;
His office meets regularly with park makers to understand their goals and future prospects, and if their needs aren’t being met, he works to connect them with the resources they need to succeed.
Seymour continues to be involved in rebranding the Advanced Manufacturing Technology Park.
“I think the rebranding is a great way to show that manufacturing has changed,” Seymour says. “It’s not the dark, dirty place that a lot of people thought it was 15, 20 years ago, where you just stand there and do the same thing over and over again.”
Like Freed, Seymour also attests to the advancements that have taken place at the park, such as the adoption of computer technology and artificial intelligence. He says this investment is meant to extend the lifespan of the companies within the park and keep them competitive with other industrial hubs both domestically and internationally.
While not everything about the park compares to other parks, Freed and Seymour said it surpasses them in some ways.
The park is designated an international trade zone, meaning goods from overseas can be brought into the U.S., assembled into products within U.S. borders, and then taken out of the country without paying taxes.
In addition to the International Trade Zone, the park is home to a Smart Zone, one of 21 smart zones in Michigan.
“It’s about us having a unique tool that other companies don’t have and we’re leveraging it,” Freed said. “We’ve now created over 2,000 new jobs and invested about a quarter million dollars in the last five years alone. It’s proven to be successful.”
An aerial view of the Technology and Advanced Manufacturing Park in Port Huron.
As for the potential for future success, Seymour said the outlook is good for most of the businesses based within the park, especially since it provides stable local employment for people living around St. Clair County.
The park is about three miles from the I-69 and I-94 freeway interchange and bounded by Petit and Dove streets on the city’s south side, which Seymour said makes it more accessible than manufacturing jobs in neighboring counties.
“One of the benefits of being located on the south end of Port Huron is that we’re on a bus route, so residents from the city and neighboring communities can hop on the bus and get to the businesses where they work,” Seymour said. “And we have a lot of people who carpool.”
While the effort to rebrand the park is meant to send the message that the park isn’t tied to the past, Seymour said the park remains connected in many ways to what it once was, keeping alive some of the manufacturers that have been there since the beginning.
The St. Clair County Economic Development Alliance and the City of Port Huron continue to emphasize what they believe is a modern and unique technology and advanced manufacturing park, and Seymour and Freed hope it will inspire residents to look at a familiar place with new eyes.
