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Steel plant courts Japanese car business
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Marketing pros say Coke hit gold PAGE 11
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The woman behind Weight Watchers Group PAGE 22
WEEK OF JULY 22 - 28, 1985 VOLUME 1
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NO. 25
Hotel rooms hold key to Cobo use BY AMY BODWIN CRAiN'S DETROIT BUSINESS
The $180 million Cobo Hall expansion will give Detroit one of the country's five largest convention centers, but big associations around the nation say the city needs thousands more hotel rooms before they can convene in Detroit. Ed Launzel, executive director of the National Shoe Fair of America in New York City, said, "Having 750,000 square feet of space is terrific if you have the hotel rooms to go with it. Even 15,000 to
20,000 hotel rooms isn't nearly enough for a major show that's going to use that kind of space." About 19,370 hotel rooms are in hotels and motels of 35 rooms or more in Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties - about 2,800 in Detroit's central business district and another 1,900 within the city limits, according to the Detroit Convention & Visitors Bureau. Mayor Coleman Young pushed the 350,000-square-foot expansion to the 400,000-foot Cobo as mandatory to enable Detroit to compete for convention
business it now loses to cities with larger convention centers. The city hopes to begin construction soon and build the addition in 21/2 years. But convention industry and association executives around the country say a lack of downtown hotel space will hamper Detroit's chances of attracting many large conventions. Dennis Miriani, executive vice president for convention sales at the Metropolitan Detroit Convention & Visitors See COBO, PAGE 25
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Hotel rooms in convention cities New York City: Las Vegas: Chicago: Atlanta: Detroit:
100,000 56,000 22,000 12,000 4,700
Rooms within city limits, according to convention and visitors bureaus In each city. The five cities listed will have the largest convention centers In the nation after construction or expansion projects are finished.
Real estate trust aims at Michigan properties BY MARY SOLOMON SMYKA CRAiN'S DETROIT BUSINESS
DWIGHT CENDROWSKI
Cindy Summers is assistant manager of the BoRics hair salon at 131 S. Livernois in Avon Township, one of 24 Detroit-area Bo Rics hair care shops.
Haircut chains build business on quick service, lower rates BY KATHY JACKSON CRAiN'S DETROIT BUSINESS
They've clipped their way across the Canadian border, edged a path from Tennessee, and now they're curling a trail from California. They are quick-service, inexpensive haircutting chains, and they're cropping up in Southeast Michigan. The shops cater to the unisex crowd, and many of them are open until 9 in the evening, some even on Sundays. Since 1981, when BoRics Inc. of Windsor opened four of its salons in Detroit, two other large national chains have jumped on the bandwagon. Now there are nearly 60 such establishments in the area. Fantastic Sam's has opened 33 hair salons in Detroit in the past year and a half. Fantastic Sam's shops are individually-owned
franchises run by SMR Enterprise Inc. of Memphis, Tenn. "We have another 10 under construction that should be open within the next 10 weeks," said SMR regional director Susan Liss. She said the company plans to have 80 shops in metropolitan Detroit by year's end. BoRics has 24 stores in the area, and the new kid on the block is the San Rafael, Calif.-based Supercuts Inc. Supercuts opened a shop in Ann Arbor June 17 and is anxious to add more in the near future. ''We have overall plans for a number of stores in the Midwest, and Detroit is certainly one of those markets," said Harold Krieger, vice president of the company's Midwest division. The cost for a basic haircut at BoRics and Fantastic Sam's is $6, about $2 below the industry average, according to Sherry See HAIR, PAGE 25 ~
A $35 million real estate investment trust (REIT) is being formed to buy properties exclusively in Michigan. Oxford Development Corp., the large, Maryland-based firm setting up the REIT, expects to buy Fairlane East Apartments in Dearborn for $12.1 million from the trust. Oxford was last year named by Builder magazine as the third largest builder of rental housing units in the United States. It has a regional office in Lansing and manages 3,500 residential units in Michigan. On May 30, Oxford Development gave Ford Motor Land Development Corp. a letter of intent for the purchase of Fairlane East's 244 garden apartments and townhouses, a clubhouse and swimming pool on 40 acres at Rotunda Drive and Greenfield Road, said Mark Schifrin, vice president of Oxford National Properties Corp., the acquisition arm of Oxford Development. Negotiations are continuing, and the deal could close in about 10 days, Schifrin said. Ford Land Development Corp. , which owns Fairlane East, downplayed the talks, saying that Oxford is one of many companies to express interest in the complex
Interstate? As Ohio and Indiana become the first Great Lakes states to permit interstate banking, Michigan banks may lose the jump on the nationwide trend. For a look at interstate banking and the major . players in the Great Lakes league, turn to pages 12 and 13.
and that the deal is far from sealed. Ford Land is the real estate development subsidiary of Ford Motor Co. Oxford Development filed papers with the U.s. Securities and Exchange Commission July 12 to establish Oxford Realty Equity Trust. After it is completed in six to eight weeks, the REIT will be sold nationally by Paine Webber Inc. , Schifrin said. A real estate investment trust pools the money of small investors to buy into large real estate ventures. About 40 percent of the proposed REIT will be invested in Michigan commercial properties, and the remainder in residential properties in Michigan, Schifrin said. According to the SEC papers, Oxford Realty Equity Trust "expects to invest approximately $6 million to $12.5 million in each property it acquires." The properties will be sold off in eight to 12 years, and the REIT will be terminated by Dec. 31, 2000. Richard Routh, public relations manager for Ford Land, called Oxford "a first-class operation that would fit in nicely with our scheme of things in Fairlane." The Fairlane development in Dearborn is 2,400 acres which Ford Land is developing into a residential, retail, commercial and industrial community. COB
Manufacturers' stock soars after teen's offer BY CHARLES CHILD CRAiN'S DETROIT BUSINESS
The stock market is a psychological animal. Executives of Manufacturers National Corp. are wondering whether it might also be a touch bizarre. The price of Manufacturers stock jumped more than $5 per share in just three days after a teenage executive apparently made a "frivolous" tender offer for controlling interest of the bank holding company. In the July 11 edition of The Wall Street Journal, Mark Anderson, the 18-year-old president of a Detroit company called Eastern See STOCK, PAGE 25 ~