Diversified global auto supplier Marelli said it will consolidate three offices in suburban Detroit into a new North American headquarters in Southfield.
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles last year sold parts unit Magneti Marelli to Japan's Calsonic Kansei in a $6.5 billion deal. The company, renamed Marelli, has spent months digesting its massive global combination of operations and cultures.
Both the former Magneti Marelli and Calsonic Kansei parts of the new Marelli are big plastics processors. In 2016, Magneti Marelli said it produced more than 21 million headlamps, 29 million rear lighting units and 4.7 million instrument clusters. In North America, Calsonic Kansei has two injection molding plants, with estimated sales of $130 million, according to Plastics News data.
"The integration of the two companies is the most important thing if we want to grow, if we want to have cross sales, if we want to have the right synergies," Marelli CEO Beda Bolzenius told Automotive News in February.
The office building offers a central location to automaker customers and has minimal impact on employees, spokeswoman Lisa Van Giesen said.
The move is expected to begin in late fall and be completed by March 2021, Marelli's statement said.
The new headquarters in Southfield is the former headquarters of auto supplier Federal-Mogul Corp. and will house 500 employees from the three offices. The company will occupy nearly 200,000 square feet at the new location.
Bringing everyone under one roof improves communication, collaboration and the integration of the two companies, Van Giesen said.
Marelli produces a variety of auto parts, from powertrain components to suspension systems along with climate-control, engine-cooling and exhaust systems.
Farmington Hills-based real estate development company Dembs Development Inc. and Southfield-based Pitt Investments purchased the vacant 360,000-square-foot former Federal-Mogul building at 26555 Northwestern Hwy. for $3.5 million in May 2017.
Built in the early 1970s, the property was owned by New York City-based Lexington Realty Trust, which paid $12.7 million for it in July 2004, according to CoStar Group Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based real estate information service. That deal amounted to $35.28 per square foot.
The property has been empty since 2014, when the automotive supplier moved about 750 employees into the former Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan office complex, also in Southfield.
— Crain's Detroit Business reporter Kirk Pinho contributed to this report.