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WQRS-fM mixes profit, Prokofiev PAGE 10 ~
Tiger tours bring in bucks PAGE 26
Windsor mayor: Cable car plan 'alive' PAGE 11
WEEK OF MAY 6 - 12,1985 VOLUME 1 0 NO. 14
Developer buying prime riverfront site BY JOYCE DAVIS ADAMS CRAIN'S DETROIT BUSINESS
Riverfront property the city of Detroit has been struggling to purchase since January for a Boblo steamboat dock is being sold to BetaWest Properties Inc., a Denver company that in previous conversations with city officials had expressed interest in putting an office building on the site. Calling BetaWest "a fantastic company and a fantastic developer," B. Michael Pipia, manager of the site owned by FEDNAV USA Inc., said the company's interest in Detroit "is not a whim, such as gambling is. It's a definite deal."
BetaWest spokeswoman Adrienne Thiele said the company has signed a purchase agreement for the property, which had a commercial price of $5.5 million, and the final papers for the sale will be signed in a few days. Thiele said, however, she was "not at liberty at this point" to discuss details of company's development plans. BetaWest is the real estate subsidiary of U .S. West Inc., one of the seven holding companies spun off when American Telephone & Telegraph was dismantled last year. U.S. West, a 14-state regional holding company formed from Mountain Bell, Pacific Northwest Bell and Northwestern Bell,
posted revenues of $7.3 billion last year. BetaWest went public last December, which allows it to acquire, develop and lease office buildings to clients outside the holding company. The former Federal Marine Terminal site lies in the midst of three multimillion dollar waterfront developments. Renaissance Center is just to its east, and Stroh's River Place and American Natural Resources Co.'s Harbortown development are to the west. The city's ultimate goal for the site, once acquired, was to sell it to a developer capable of designing and financing a multi-use project on the scale of its neighbors. This is why, insiders say, somewhat of a
skirmish over the site erupted when Ross Roy Advertising Inc. and Kirco Development Ltd. jointly sought the property for a single-tenant, high-rise office building. According to Pipia, the two companies cosigned a purchase agreement for the property last October, but were forced to scrap the deal when "the city wouldn't give them building permits." Last summer, the city told FEDNAV it wanted the site for a passenger terminal for two Boblo steamships that provide a scenic, 1 1I2-hour ride to Boblo Island amusement park. At least 300,000 visitors to the island See RIVER, PAGE 30
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Highland Park mall may be built
Detroit lures land investors
BY JEAN HALLIDAY
CRAIN'S DETROIT BUSINESS
BY MARY SOLOMON SMYKA
Special to CRAIN'S DETROIT BUSINESS
An empty lot sits on the corner of Woodward Avenue and Manchester Street in Highland Park. A sign proclaims that the lot is the future home of the Town Center Shopping Mall. What the sign doesn't say is that plans for the mall date to the early 1970s, and that the city had to return an unused federal Urban Development Action Grant (UDAG) for the project in the early 1980s. Is the shopping center project the pipe dream it appears to be? Not according to Highland Park Mayor Robert Blackwell and developers. They say the city is gearing up to resubmit a request in the next two months for $2.5 million in UDAG money to help finance a $13 million, 165,000-square-foot strip center. The developer, Town Center Associates, is negotiating with Borman's Inc. to build what the developer says will be a 50,000-square-footFarmer Jack supermarket in the Highland Park mall. Borman's is the largest supermarket chain in Michigan, with some 85 Farmer Jack supermarkets and 16 Food Fair Mini Mart convenience stores. Borman's Vice President Ted Simons confirmed that the company is discussing locating in the proposed shopping center. "If it can be pulled together by developers, we hope to be a part it," he said. Borman's is conducting a market study on the feasibility of a Farmer Jack supermarket at the site, according to Simons. He says the developers may have had a problem See MALL, PAGE 30
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RICK LIEDER
~on Lutheran of Lutheran. Brothers Inc. writes on the inventory control board at the
Import-export company office -
soon to be part foreign trade zone.
Area companies get U.S. nod to become foreign trade zones BY BRADFORD WERNLE CRAIN'S DETROIT BUSINESS
Part of Joseph Lutheran's 300,000square-foot warehouse on Howard Street won't be part of the United States much longer - at least in the eyes of U.S. Customs officers. Lutheran Brothers Inc. and two other Detroit area businesses - Detroit Marine Terminals Inc. and W.F. Whelan Co. - have recently been designated by the United States Department of Commerce as general purpose foreign trade zones. The three corporations hope local companies will rent space from them to import parts duty free until they are assembled into finished products.
Detroit's experience seems to be part of a renewed national interest in foreign trade zones, created by Congress in 1934. From 1970 to this year, the number of general purpose zones has risen from seven to 109, according to a recent article in the Journal of Commerce. There is no active, general purpose foreign trade zone in Detroit now, although Lutheran and others hope to change that soon. The companies need the approval ofthe U.S. Customs Office in Detroit, according to Ben Anderson, U.S. Customs supervising inspector at the Detroit office. A general purpose foreign trade zone can be a warehouse, vacant lot or other property See TRADE, PAGE 30
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The nation's largest real estate developers and syndicators, who avoided the Detroit area during the recession, have begun swarming here during the last year to invest their real estate dollars. Although details about big new developments are often sketchy until the deals are inked, the local real estate community has been buzzing in past weeks about the newest out-of-town developer or investor who may be willing to sink cash into Detroit. The latest announcement came Friday from BetaWest Properties Inc. in Denver, the real estate development arm of U.S. West Inc. that has signed a purchase agreement for prime Detroit riverfront property. (See related story this page.) Hal Koss, partner in the mortgage banking firm of McCoppin & Koss in Birmingham, said two Texas savings and loans and a California savings and loan want to find investment properties in southeast Michigan. Another outstate investor that looks to spend more in southeast Michigan is Union Mutual Life InsurSee LAND, PAGE 25
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COLLEEN FITZGERALD
Though competitors. in the produce business, Chris Billmeyer (left) and Herbert Abrash co-own the thriving Detroit Union Produce Terminal. Story, Page 22~