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Smokestack rules won't hit area hard
PAGE 15 ~Produce
stands produce profits
PAGE 26
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Racquet clubs become offices
PAGE 12 WEEK OF AUG. 5 - 11, 1985 VOLUME 1
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NO. 27
Detroit poised for big building boom See related stories and photos in real estate section, pages 12-13.
Nonresidential construction
BY MARY SOLOMON SMYKA CRAIN'S DETROIT BUSINESS
RICK LIEDER
Former Tiger Jim Northrup, left, and Larry Osterman, who do Tiger games on the PASS cable network, will be replaced by auto racing, Japanese baseball and other programs if major league players strike.
OUT! Players' strike worries businesses BY BRADFORD WERNLE CRAIN'S DETROIT BUSINESS
The average major league baseball player earns $363,000 a year, according to the office of the commissioner of baseball. The average hot dog vendor at Tiger Stadium is a part-time employee who might earn $25 to $30 a ballgame. If those $363,000-a-year ballplayers go out on strike, it's those $30-a-game hot dog vendors and all the other people making a liv-
ing on the periphery of the game who are going get hurt most. Neil Heffernan, manager of Sportsland USA, a souvenir store adjacent to Tiger Stadium on Michigan Avenue, has paid off all the companies that supply his store with hats, jersies, pennants and other paraphernalia. August is the time of year he can usually start counting his profits - profits that put food on his table and a roof over his head for the
See BOOM, PAGE 28
winter. But Tuesday's baseball strike deadline looms like a dark cloud over Heffernan's business. "The effect on us here? It would be disastrous," said Heffernan, who said he stands to lose more than $100,000 if the players go out for the rest of the season. Businesses all over Detroit are making contingency plans for Tuesday's strike deadline, which has See STRIKE, PAGE 30
Detroit is rebuilding itself at a pace "equivalent to the big building boom of 1928 and 1929, when buildings like the Guardian, Penobscot and Fisher buildings were built," said Philip Meathe, president and CEO of Smith, Hinchman & Grylls Associates Inc., a national firm of architects, engineers and planners. Meathe and other construction industry officials predict that construction in the Detroit area will continue to be active through at least 1986. "Generally, I think it's conservative to say that the balance of 1985 and 1986 will be one of the biggest building booms in the city of Detroit's history," Meathe said. That boom is not yet reflected in dollars spent for construction, since most of the big projects in the city are still in the planning stages.
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First half of 1985 compared to first half 1984 OAKLAND COUNTY Up 75% $268 million compared to $153 million MACOMB COUNTY Up41% $111.3 million compared to $79 million WAYNE COUNTY No change $221 million WASHTENAW COUNTY (5 months) Up 69% $18.2 million compared to $10.8 million
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Source; F.W. Dodge Division McGraw Hili In'ormatlon Systems Co. Source 'or Washtenaw County; U.S. Bureau the Census.
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News could lose in ENA sale BY KATIE LANE-WILKE CRAIN'S DETROIT BUSINESS
Wall Street analysts and investment bankers say a sale of the Evening News Association could mean a spinning off of The Detroit News, the death of the state's largest newspaper, or a joint operating agreement with arch rival the Detroit Free Press. If the privately-held ENA is sold to two Los Angeles television producers who made a hostile $453 million tender ofTer last week, or to another company, Detroit's lively
newspaper battle could come to an end. The offer by a company formed by producers Norman Lear and Jerrold Perenchio notes that cash flow from ENA could not retire the loan needed to buy the company at $1,000 a share. They expect to consider selling some assets. ENA's broadcast properties - five television stations and two radio stations "make it hot," said John Morton, a media See ENA, PAGE 30
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Auto suppliers look to Tenn. Michigan will gain 2,500 jobs by 1995 as a result of General Motors Corp.'s placement of its Saturn Corp. headquarters and engineering facilities here, says a University of Michigan analyst. See Page 28. BY JANE WHITE CRAIN'S DETROIT BUSINESS
Michigan auto suppliers are certain to get some of the business generated by the Saturn Corp. plant in Spring Hill, Tenn. But many of the estimated 10,000 jobs with suppliers will be in nearby Southern plants - some built right on the Saturn site, analysts say. "Seats and dashboards, components that are relatively bulky, will probably be made close to the point of assembly,"
said David Cole, director of the Office for the Study of Automotive Transportation at the University of Michigan. Ann Arbor-based Hoover Universal, already a supplier to the General Motors Corp.-Toyota joint venture in California, would be an ideal supplier candidate for Saturn, Cole suggested. "It already has a plant in Tennessee and would be right next door," he said. A spokesperson for Hoover's parent company, Johnson Controls Inc. of Milwaukee, said, "It's too early to talk about our plans" regarding Saturn. GM announced its plans last week to locate the $3.5 billion, 6,000-job complex in Spring Hill, a community of 1,000 people 30 miles south of Nashville. The complex will assemble between 400,000 and 500,000 cars a year, generating about $12 million in annual contracts for suppliers. Don Postema, manager of news relations for GM's Detroit See SUPPLIERS, PAGE 28
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Billboards on Detroit freeways aren't hyping fitness centers. They're aimed at Motown's auto executives. Story, Page 3.~