A document I was given shows that in October 2023 the State of Michigan offered the University up to $400 million for this project — and that the laboratory it describes was going somewhere other than Textile Road.
The letter is dated October 27, 2023, from Quentin L. Messer, Jr., Chief Executive Officer of the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, to Dr. Santa Ono, then president of the University of Michigan. It copies the State Treasurer, MEDC’s chief operating officer and chief strategist, and Chris Kolb, the University’s vice president for government relations.
Read the full letter (PDF) — it’s two pages. Read it yourself rather than taking my summary for it.
It’s the earliest document I’ve seen on this project by more than a year. Everything else in the public record starts with the Memorandum of Understanding signed in November 2024.
The site was the American Center for Mobility
This is the part that matters most.
The letter commits state support for a laboratory to be located on the campus of the American Center for Mobility in Ypsilanti Township.
That is the Willow Run site. It is not Textile Road, and it is not a 144-acre parcel on the Huron River. It is an existing purpose-built research campus on land already developed for advanced technology testing.
Set that alongside what the other documents say, and the described location has moved three times:
| Document | Date | Stated location |
|---|---|---|
| MEDC commitment letter | Oct 2023 | American Center for Mobility campus |
| LANL / Regents Memorandum of Understanding | Nov 2024 | In proximity to U-M’s Ann Arbor campus |
| Strategic Site Readiness application | Dec 2024 | A 20-acre property in Ypsilanti Township |
| Public announcement | Aug 2026 | Textile Road, roughly 144 acres |
Projects move. Sites get looked at and dropped for reasons that are usually perfectly sound — cost, capacity, timing, a seller who won’t sell. I’m not suggesting otherwise.
But we’ve been told this site was picked after careful evaluation, and we’re entitled to know what the earlier candidates were and why they got set aside. The American Center for Mobility wasn’t a passing thought. It was the named location when the State committed $400 million.
What changed, and when, and why? That question has a documentary answer, and the University has it.
On the $400 million
I want to be careful with this number, because it’s easy to misuse.
The letter commits up to $400 million in state support through bonding and other state programs,
including the Make it in Michigan Competitiveness Fund. It is explicitly conditional: on agreed job creation, investment, federal re-investment, industry and state access, and a minimum 25% match from the University. It further states that funding depends on availability through the legislative budget process and on the project meeting state program requirements.
That’s a letter of intent, not an appropriation. Nobody should be saying the state handed over $400 million, because it didn’t. What actually got approved, fourteen months later, was the $100 million Strategic Site Readiness grant.
The contrast still matters. The December 2024 board packet lists, among the reasons Los Alamos picked the University, an indicative commitment by the State of $100 million in support of construction of the HPC.
Fourteen months earlier that commitment was four times bigger.
One of the conditions is also worth reading against current events: federal re-investment. Rep. Debbie Dingell wrote in September 2026 that her inquiries to the Department of Energy, the University and state appropriations officials indicate there is no federal appropriation and no binding federal financial commitment behind the $300 million attributed to Los Alamos. The state attached that condition three years ago.
It was described as a national laboratory
The letter’s subject is the establishment of a new U.S. Department of Energy Supercomputing National Laboratory, led by Los Alamos National Laboratory,
in conjunction with the University of Michigan.
Led by Los Alamos. In conjunction with the University.
Today the same project is presented to this community as a University research computing center that happens to have a federal partner. The 2023 framing puts the emphasis the other way around — and it matches what the University later told the State about capacity, 100 megawatts for Los Alamos against 10 for the University, and what the project leader confirmed aloud at the September 9 town hall: roughly a 90/10 split.
That’s more than word choice. Ypsilanti Township has no zoning authority here for exactly one reason: Article VIII, Section 5 of the Michigan Constitution gives the Regents supervision of the University’s institution. A new Department of Energy national laboratory, led by Los Alamos, is a harder fit for that description than a university research building.
Classified work was in the plan from the start
Among the conditions attached to the state’s money is industry and state access and utilization — qualified in parentheses as non-classified areas.
That qualification only makes sense if classified areas were contemplated. In October 2023. Three years before the University’s FAQ confirmed a 240,000 square foot federal building including classified research.
What I’m asking for
- The site selection analysis. Which locations were evaluated, on what criteria, and why was the American Center for Mobility campus set aside in favour of undeveloped land on the Huron River?
- The full correspondence between the University and MEDC from 2023 onward, including any revision or withdrawal of the October 2023 commitment.
- What state support is currently committed, beyond the $100 million Strategic Site Readiness grant, and under what programs.
None of this is secret. It’s correspondence between a state agency and a public university about a publicly funded project. It shouldn’t take a source and a records request to see it.
Source: letter from Quentin L. Messer, Jr., Chief Executive Officer, Michigan Economic Development Corporation, to Dr. Santa Ono, University of Michigan, October 27, 2023 (PDF). Provided to this site. I haven’t established how it entered circulation and haven’t found a public posting of it — if you know of one, tell me and I’ll link it. Comparison figures are from the December 2024 Michigan Strategic Fund board packet and the MEDC FOIA release, request 1068. See our sources page. If we have characterized this document unfairly, tell us and we will correct it and note the correction.
