Posted by – Steve Cohen, Director of Community Development

This past Monday night, the City Council approved plans from General Development Company to construct a 461,525 square foot light industrial facility for FANUC America Corporation on a 24.34 acre site located on the south and east side of West Entrance Drive.  The total investment is estimated at $51 million.

FANUC America Corporation is the world’s leading supplier of industrial robots.  The company also produces software, controls, and vision products that aid in the development of robotic systems. The company’s name is an acronym for Fuji Automatic NUmerical Control.  FANUC’s global headquarters is located at the base of Mount Fuji, which is about 60 miles southwest of Tokyo, Japan.

This new facility will serve as an expansion of their Americas Headquarters campus that is currently located in both the cities of Auburn Hills and Rochester Hills.  The company will consolidate and expand operations from other locations in the Metro Detroit area to this single facility.

Understanding that the project needed to meet a strict construction time frame to accommodate FANUC’s growth plans, all parties worked together to design this mammoth development.  Remarkably, it was reviewed and approved by the City in just 41 days, which is light speed for a facility of this complexity.  It was truly a team effort all around.  Construction is scheduled to begin on August 1st with completion anticipated by November 2019.

Once built, it will become the third largest industrial building in Auburn Hills with only FCA US LLC’s Headquarters and Technical Center and ABB’s North American Robotics Headquarters being larger in size.

With both FANUC and ABB now having their most significant facilities in Auburn Hills, we hope that we may soon earn the distinction of being the robotics capital of the United States.