NEWSPAPER
© Entire contents copyright 1985 by Crain Communications Inc. All rights reserved .
Crain's
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Ford Hospital p1ans another merger
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Racing fuel pumps up oil company profits
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An employer decrees: no more smoking PAGE 3
WEEK OF SEPT. 9 - 15,1985 VOLUME 1 0 NO. 32
SUI'vey shows Trappers Alley is hot BY PETER BROWN AND KATHY JACKSON
J Trappers Alley ..
IPatron Opinions I
CRA IN 'S DETROIT BUS IN ESS
Trappers Alley is serving as a magnet to attract a young, upscale crowd from all over the metropolitan area to downtown Detroit, according to a Crain's Detroit Business survey of patrons of the new festival marketplace. And once downtown, those shoppers from Wayne, Oakland, Macomb and Washtenaw counties feel overwhelmingly that Detroit is improving as a place for entertainment and fun . Of 253 people surveyed, only four said they would not return to Trappers Alley. The festiva l marketplace, which has 45 retail shops and 25 food outlets, opened in May. The CDB survey shows that it has benefited from its li vely Greektown location, but that it is a big draw in its own right and has added t raffic to the traditional Greektown restaurants and merchants. In the survey done in late August, 253 people were interviewed as they left Trappers Alley during different times of the
1" Is Detroit getting better for fun things to do?" I 100% t--- Better
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50% 5%
Same
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t - - - Worse
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10.7%
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week. People ages 16 to 79 were interviewed from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. a nd from 6 to 9 p.m. on a Tuesday, from 8 to 11 p.m. on a Saturday, and from 1 to 4 p.m. on a Sunday. The survey, commissioned and paid for by Crain's Detroit B usiness and Trappers Alley, was conducted by Charles N. Hakes Marketing & Research of Southfield. City officials hailed the results of the survey as proof that downtown is alive and that See TRAPPERS, PAGE 26
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JOE WILSSENS
A young , upscale clientele is making Trappers Alley a lively downtown center.
Cut-rate auto loans hurt area credit unions
Greektown gets the spillover o Related stories and pbotos, Pages 16-18. BY HARRIET NOLAN Specia l to CRAiN'S DETROIT BUSINESS
Business generated by Trappers Alley is spilling over into the rest of Greektown. Most traditional Greektown stores are remodeling, hiring more help, and getting more daytime business. "Now we have lines outside during the day," says Georgia Memos, hostess at the Old Parthenon restaurant. Trappers Alley, she adds, "has brought a whole new crowd." Trappers Alley, a five-level shopping showplace filled with 45 stores and 25 food outlets, draws about a third of a million tourists and visitors a week, according to general manager Wendy Peczkowski. It opened May 10. About half come between 10 a .m. and 3 p.m. Visitors to Trappers Alley include seniors on bus tours and suburban civic groups looking for a new location to pep up their monthly meetings. But the visitors are also discovering the traditional Greektown businesses of Monroe Street. They're moving outside the $20 million man to take in the other sights, See GREEKTOWN, PAGE 16
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BY CHARLES CHILD CRAiN'S DETROIT BUSINESS
DWIGHT CENDROWSKI
Miriam Kotsonas and baker Dimitrios Pehlivanidis of Stemma Bakery stand outside of the the Monroe Street business.
City firm may benefit from Khadafy loan BY NADINE EPSTEIN CRAiN NEWS SYNDICATE
A Detroit manufacturer of personal care products is one of five minority-owned firm s around the country that will participate in a black self-help economic program touted by Black Muslim leader Louis Farrakhan and fin anced by Libyan President Muammar Khadafy.
Austin W. Curtis Laboratories at 46 Selden St. in Detroit, a 35-year-old firm with 15 employees, is one of five national firms that have agreed to manufacture a line of consumer products for an ambitious, private-label manufacturing and marketing program called POWER - an acronym for People Organized and Working for Economic Rebirth. See KHADAFY, PAGE 25
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Credit unions in the Detroit area are being hurt by the cut-rate auto financing offered by four American car manufacturers to boost sales of 1985 models. Credit Union One, based in Ferndale, made only 99 new car loans in August, down from 237 in August 1984, said Kevin McCarty, the credit union's public relations manager. The automakers "have cut into our sales dramatically, " he said. "Our new-car rates are 11 percent. How can you compete against 7.7 and 7.5 percent?" Since mid-August, General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. have loaned money at 7.7 percent annually, while Chrysler Corp. and American Motors Corp. have offered an annual rate of 7.5 percent. Banks have lost business as well. Competition from the auto companies' low rates has reduced new car loans about 35 percent in recent weeks at Manufacturers National Bank of Detroit, said Patrick McQueen, senior vice president, consumer loan department. The volume of auto loans during August at SOC Credit Union, based in
Madison Heights , was 69 percent lower than in a typical summer month, said Eldon Thompson , treasurer and general manager. "Our marketing approach is that we can't compete with those rates," Thompson said. SOC offers new car loans at 10.75 percent. "We've stopped advertising new car loans and are promoting other types of loans, such as home equity lines of credit." New car loans at Detroit Teachers Credit Union have dropped, too. In August, it financed 149 new cars, compared to 235 last August, said Bernard McMaster, the credit union's loan manager. At stake in the competition with the auto companies is an important segment of a typical cred it union 's bu siness . In Michigan, a u to loans comprise 29 percent of an average credit union's loan volume , said Karen Stewart, director of public relations for the Michigan Credit Union League, a trade group based in Southfield. Nationally, credit unions have 19 percent of the auto-loan market, she said. Banks have 50 percent of the national market, and finance companies, See LOANS, PAGE 25
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