VAN BUREN TWP. - With last month's topping out of the five major buildings that make up Visteon Village, the site is beginning to look a little more like a corporate headquarters campus and less like the abandoned gravel quarry at the 265-acre site.

On Aug. 25, iron workers from American Erectors topped out the village's "Building G," one of a series of structures at the site with a town center at the heart of the $300 million complex totaling about one million square feet. As many as 4,000 Visteon employees, currently housed in 15 scattered facilities, will be transferred to the new village.

Being built on a site east of I-275 and south of Ecorse Rd. under general construction contractor Walbridge-Aldinger, the new village "will centralize customer support functions, research and development, and some business operations," according to Visteon, the world's second-largest automotive supplier.

The buildings will reflect the feel of a village, with the building exteriors a mix of stone, brick and glass. The "village" will include a central square, cafeteria and a customer welcome center. No building will be more than four stories high and they will feature pitched roofs, dormers, chimneys and terraces. The structures are being constructed next to a 40-acre lake near woodlands and wetlands.

"We just felt a 10-story building wasn't the right look, or the right identity for us," said Stacy Fox, Visteon's senior vice president and general counsel.

The iron framework on the structures was erected in a very-fast 10-week period. "The people out here did a tremendous job," said iron workers general foreman John McGuire.

Available space will be dedicated to customer meetings and events, with additional facilities for training and product displays. Each customer will have a confidential area within the campus dedicated to developing systems and technologies to meet its requirements.

"We will gain by having essential customer and business activities co-located, and we are able to do it at less cost than we are spending on those activities today," said Mike Johnston, Visteon President and Chief Operating Officer.

Visteon Village is expected to open in mid-2004.

HERE ARE Iron Workers Local 25 members who helped erect and top-out "Building G" at Visteon's new headquarters campus in Belleville.