Devon Industrial Group

Devon Industrial Group is a Detroit-based construction manager and general contractor founded in 1998, when Devon Contracting formed a partnership with Walbridge Aldinger with Devon as controlling partner. The firm works out of 719 Griswold Street downtown and self-performs alongside its CM and GC work, taking on both large industrial packages and small-project construction. It is certified as a woman-owned business through the Great Lakes Women’s Business Council and WBENC, and is a member of the Michigan Minority Supplier Development Council. Devon delivered the design-build expansion of Ford’s Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Dearborn, adding roughly 335,000 square feet at the north and south ends of the plant, and built the University of Michigan’s Ford Motor Company Robotics Building in Ann Arbor.

Two capabilities sit outside the usual construction manager’s scope. Devon self-performs cast-in-place concrete – building and equipment foundations, pits and trenches, slabs on grade and elevated slabs – and it does rigging, including installation and commissioning of large process and building equipment. It also takes decommissioning work: utility relocation, environmental abatement, demolition, salvage and soil remediation.

The automotive client list is built on repeat work with Ford, Toyota, Honda, General Motors and FCA, plus other OEMs and tier suppliers. At Ford the relationship extends into Construction Commodity Management services at the Rouge and at the Research and Engineering Center – an embedded role rather than a project-by-project one.

Project scale is easiest to read off two jobs. The University of Michigan Ford Motor Company Robotics Building is a four-storey facility of roughly 140,000 gross square feet. The Toyota Plant PE Office Building is LEED Platinum certified, on a ten-acre site covering 230,000 square feet of plant area and 30,000 square feet of office.

Safety numbers back the industrial work: an Experience Modification Rate of 0.59 in 2025 through the first quarter, against a 1.00 industry average.

Recent recognition spans sectors. In 2025 the firm took a Michigan Concrete Association award for the GM Lake Orion EV Assembly and ASRS project and an NMAPC Zero Injury Award at GM Lake Orion Assembly. In 2024 it received an ESD Outstanding Achievement Award for the Bagley Mobility Hub and a CAM Outstanding Construction Project of the Year for the Elijah McCoy Consolidated Services Center. In 2021 Ford named it Diversity Corporation of the Year in its World Excellence Awards.

Market sectors are industrial, power, commercial education – K-12 and collegiate, including Detroit Public Schools and the University of Michigan – and commercial healthcare. President Jackie Burnley emphasises partnering with and mentoring smaller businesses, which is how the firm itself began.