Bay City — Over three decades after its closure, the former Prestolite Electric plant remains Bay City’s largest eyesore. The 275,000-square-foot hulk, built around 1935 to manufacture alternators and starter motors for Detroit’s booming auto industry, has decayed into a haunting shell of brick, steel, and shattered glass.
It stands as a symbol of economic transition and Michigan’s systemic failure to create an environmental cleanup framework.
At its peak, Prestolite employed approximately 350 workers and anchored a thriving industrial corridor. The factory shuttered in 1988 and hasn’t seen any official activity since.
Over the decades, it’s become an unofficial landmark for urban explorers, graffiti artists, and thrill-seeking teens. Its eerie interior, motion-triggered sirens, crumbling masonry, and rooms strewn with rusted alternator parts capture the imagination.
The site is more than a relic. It’s also a contaminated brownfield. Bay City’s 2017 Operations Digest documents a roof fire at 501 Morton St. in December. Another blaze in November 2020 caused part of a fourth floor to collapse, underscoring the building’s hazards and the strain on city resources.
Demolition, including asbestos abatement, would cost several million dollars. Industry averages suggest $9 to $28 per square foot for commercial or industrial teardown plus asbestos removal. At Prestolite’s 275,000 square feet, that could be $7.5 million. Even a comprehensive environmental assessment could run into the six figures.
Despite the hazards and legal risks, Prestolite has gained an underground following among urban explorers. On Reddit and photography forums, users have shared images of the plant’s interior—long corridors filled with debris, rusted machinery, and light filtering through shattered glass.
Graffiti covers nearly every interior surface, suggesting that many people have found their way inside over the years. It’s not hard to get in. There was no active security presence, no fencing around the property, and several open or damaged entryways visible from the street.
In online discussions, explorers describe the site as both dangerous and mesmerizing. Some mention boarded-up entrances and motion sensors; others claim the rear loading dock occasionally offers access when panels are removed. A few note how the silence inside the building feels almost cinematic, a place frozen between collapse and memory.
The building remains structurally unstable and legally restricted, with environmental hazards. Still, these accounts and visual records reveal how Prestolite has transformed a ruin into a site of fascination.
The site is eligible for cleanup under Michigan’s brownfield programs, but eligibility doesn’t guarantee action. City financial records show limited engagement.
Crucially, no public record shows a Phase II environmental investigation at the site—no soil borings, groundwater plume maps, or quantified asbestos inventories. Without this baseline data, neither grant writers nor developers can credibly estimate remediation costs.
In October 2020, the Bay City Planning Commission approved site plan SPR‑20‑03 for a marijuana grow operation at 503 Morton Street, immediately adjacent to Prestolite. The developer split off the parcel, bypassing the factory entirely, a signal that remediation and renovation costs likely rendered reuse infeasible.
A baseline Phase II study opens the door to EGLE Site Assessment Grants. Acquisition by the city or land bank could then enable adoption of a Brownfield Plan, aligning projected cleanup costs with future tax capture, potentially from the adjacent cannabis campus and other developments.
Funding would need to be stacked: EGLE brownfield grants, Strategic Site Readiness Program dollars, low-interest loans, and possibly federal grants if infrastructure upgrades are part of it.
Equally critical is vision for the site’s future. Flint’s Chevy Commons, reopened as a park in 2018 with $3.5 million in EPA brownfield grants, shows what’s possible when cities build multi-phase plans and coordinate funding across agencies. Bay City may not need a 60-acre park, but it does need a shared civic vision.
Prestolite is more than a decaying building. It’s a symptom of Michigan’s broader problem: industrial legacies too dirty for private capital yet not urgent enough for state or federal rescue. Until larger grants, forgivable loans, or bondable land-bank tools come into play, the cleanup queue will continue to grow.
The question for Bay City is whether to keep patching the past or finally lay the groundwork for a future that no longer includes a million‑pound shell on Morton Street.
Landen Taylor is a musician and explorer living in Bay City. Follow him on Instagram @landoisliving.
