May 24--In less than a year, the city of Fenton is seeing Chrysler's local presence quickly disappear.

First Chrysler made massive local layoffs and shuttered the minivan plant last fall. Then it told Fenton officials this month that the adjacent pickup plant will shut down this year. Now the bankrupt automaker says it may start marketing the properties this summer.

Soon the city will be left with two daunting challenges: what to do with two gigantic auto plants and how to re-create what Chrysler delivered in the last five decades -- thousands of high-paying jobs and millions of dollars in local tax revenue.

Replacing a major economic engine is a feat for any community. And with the Detroit Three closing dozens of plants in recent years, it's a situation that more and more cities have been forced to confront.

These cities could seek tenants for the former plants. But finding them could be tricky.

The major problem is the plants' massive size. Fenton's plants total 4.9 million square feet of floor space, roughly 86 football fields.

Another major automaker doesn't need or want the buildings, analysts say, because they have enough plants already.

And simply redesigning the space for another purpose is unlikely; the buildings need to be razed first, developers and local brokers say.

"It's difficult to convert an auto plant into something else because they're usually enormous sites and there's some specific layouts," said Kim Hill, who studies auto communities at the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich.

Even when a redevelopment is done, there's no guarantee that the new projects will yield as many well-paid jobs as the plants once did.

Last year, a Chrysler assembly line worker earned a base wage of $28 per hour. In contrast, area employees in the transportation and logistics sector earned a median wage of $13.90 per hour, while those in retail sales received $9.68 per hour, according to a May 2008 wage survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

RAZING THE PAST

Some past redevelopments have reused existing auto buildings.

-- A General Motors plant in Framingham, Mass., closed in 1989, was converted into an auto auction site several years later by Indianapolis-based auto auction company Adesa.

-- Starting in 1988, Clark Properties developed the former GM assembly complex at Natural Bridge Avenue and Union Boulevard in north St. Louis and has since converted the site into Union Seventy Center. The plant's main building is still in use.

Recent redevelopment of auto plants, however, seems to focus on razing the buildings and reusing the property mostly for distribution, manufacturing or other industrial uses. It's too early to see the effects on those cities.