Crain's Detroit Business, February 26, 2024

WEED RACERS

Getting a local marijuana license in Michigan is supposed to be a competitive process. Municipalities are required under state law to make the selections based on a competitive process that typically takes the form of a scoring system — of-

ten revolving around an applicant’s ability to invest in curb appeal or sustainable operations.

But in Harper Woods, the process devolved into a show of athletic prowess, much like issues are settled on the play-

Train station sets reopening schedule

By Kirk Pinho

Ford Motor Co. will begin reopening Michigan Central Station almost six years after the automaker announced it bought the building from the Moroun family.  e hulking former train depot that for years served as a symbol of the city’s rise and fall over many decades will reopen starting June 6, Ford announced Feb. 20.

In a statement, Michigan Central — Ford’s name for the district where the train station and its other properties are located — said: “We know Detroit and the world are eager to see how we’ve brought Michigan Central Station back to life. We are excited to show the rst glimpse of the station on June 6, 2024, as we open its doors once again.”

See STATION on Page 21

ground. With a footrace.

e outcome of that mad dash has created controversy as applicants who lost prepare potential lawsuits while the municipality moves forward with reviewing the race winners’ documents at a Feb. 28 planning

Harper Woods’ cannabis licensing day devolved into a footrace. Now it may turn into legal ghts.

By | Dustin Walsh

commission meeting. Licenses could be issued soon thereafter.

e wild scene in Harper Woods is emblematic of a cannabis licensing regime where each municipality can create its own rules to allow some or many cannabis businesses.

Now, several years into legalization, fewer and fewer towns are opening up to legal weed, and that has amped up competition when licenses do become available.

See CANNABIS on Page 19

By Michael Lee

In 2023, the biggest deals got less big — by quite a bit.

e number of mergers and acquisitions valued at more than $1 billion involving Michigan companies declined to just four deals last year, compared with 10 in 2022, according to Crain’s annual list of biggest deals.

Deal values at the high end declined as well. On this year’s

Crain’s List of largest mergers and acquisitions, the 10 largest deals were worth a combined $8.6 billion.

at’s a major decline from 2022, when total value for the 10 largest M&A transactions was $27.5 billion.

None of the Michigan deals in

This screen capture from a video on Nov. 1 shows would-be cannabis licensing applicants racing to be rst in line in Harper Woods’ rst-to- le application system. One would-be applicant at the top left has fallen down.

Marrow Detroit Provisions to open in Birmingham

By Jay Davis

A woman-owned Detroit specialty butcher shop and restaurant is expanding into the northern suburbs.

Marrow Detroit Provisions this spring will open a new butcher shop in downtown Birmingham, according to a news release. e shop will take over a 1,400-square-foot space at 283 Hamilton Row previously occupied by Axis Music Academy and Morrey’s Fine Jewelry.

Marrow Detroit Provisions in Birmingham will carry a full range of fresh meats, aged steaks, sausages and deli items. e company’s rst location outside of Detroit will also serve an elevated casual menu of sandwiches, snacks and co ee available for dine-in or carryout.

building a agship store and processing facility on Riopelle Street in Eastern Market in Detroit. Construction there is slated to begin in the coming weeks.

“We are excited to be in our rst location outside of Detroit,” Ho said in the release. “Our products were so well-received at the Birmingham Farmers Market that we were inspired to open a permanent outlet. Now Oakland County will have a convenient neighborhood store to enjoy a delicious lunch and shop for the locally-sourced meats that our iconic Detroit establishment is known for.”

“We are excited to be in our rst location outside of Detroit.” Marrow owner Ping Ho, in a release

Marrow owner Ping Ho announced the plan Feb. 19. Ho also owns Marrow Detroit in West Village, Mink Detroit in Corktown and e Royce wine shop and wine bar in downtown Detroit. All of those properties operate under Ho’s Backbone Hospitality Group company. Ho is also working on

e Birmingham butcher shop and restaurant will feature café seating with hot and cold sandwiches, freshly made sausage rolls, and a variety of salads and soup. e menu will be spearheaded by the culinary team led by Marrow’s executive chef and partner Sarah Welch.  e shop will have three to ve employees, Ho told Crain’s in an email. She declined to disclose investment information.

Marrow launched in fall 2018 in West Village and is a four-time James Beard Awards nominee, including the Best Chef nalist nomination in the Great Lakes region for Welch.

Plans to expand in Eastern Market are coming to fruition, Ho told Crain’s in an email Feb. 20. A

groundbreaking is set for March 5 on a agship store and production facility inside a 14,000-square-foot building at 2442 Riopelle St. at the Fisher Freeway Service Drive that was once home to Capital Poultry. Ho, a 2022 Crain’s Notable LGBTQ in Business honoree, purchased the building in 2022. Plans originally called for the space to be operational by sometime in 2023, but increases in construction costs held up the project. Ho previously told Crain’s that the cost of the project has increased by $1 million over an initial $3 million investment.

e new Eastern Market production facility will help provide fresh meats, aged steaks, trademark sausages, and handcrafted deli o erings for the Birmingham store.

Black Tech Saturdays founders meet with Commerce deputy

By Anna Fifelski

U.S. Deputy Secretary of Commerce Don Graves visited Newlab at Michigan Central in Corktown on Feb. 21 to speak with entrepreneurs about bringing diversity and inclusion to the technology industry.

Graves also met with the founders of Black Tech Saturdays, Johnnie and Alexa Turnage, who established the organization in 2023, which aims to promote diversity and inclusion in the technology industry with a focus on empowering and supporting Black professionals and entrepreneurs.

“ e work that Johnnie and the entire team here is doing to help create opportunities, pathways for entrepreneurs who haven't had that in the past is fantastic because it's exactly the sort of thing that we need to replicate around the country,” Graves said. “It's really gratifying for me, having spent so much time trying to get the city back up o of its knees onto its feet again, going through the bankruptcy, investing in rebuilding the infrastructure, rebuilding the connective tissue that allows entrepreneurs to take their talents and turn them into real export opportunities, good paying, family sustaining jobs. at's what we're all about in

the administration as well.”

Graves toured the mobility garage at Newlab, which housed projects from several startups, including Tubular, a startup that has created an electric system that moves goods underground using AI robotic shuttles; GoodPluck, a startup aiming to bring fresh produce to food-scarce neighborhoods via EV; and more.

“We're under a year old with Black Tech Saturdays and it's a dream to see entrepreneurs get that spotlight and with that curiosity (we can) gure out how we can continue to foster that and how we

can grow it around the country,” Johnnie Turnage said.

Black Tech Saturdays organizes free events, workshops and programs designed to enhance technical skills, foster professional growth, and create opportunities for all in the technology eld.  Programs are open to tech founders, entrepreneurs, tech talent and professionals looking to shift industries and tech-curious individuals trying to learn about the sector.

Once a month, Black Tech Saturdays has youth-dedicated programing as well, Johnnie said.

Graves said the work of Newlab

is tied directly to the investments from the Biden Administration to develop successful technological ecosystems around the country.

“We know that there are technologies like biotech, like semiconductors, like AI that are going to be growing by leaps and bounds over the course of the next few decades,” Graves said. “We have to make sure that we're providing the support systems for entrepreneurs, for companies that want to advance in these industries, in the critical technologies that are going to lead the world so that we can attract more of the jobs here.”

In October, the Detroit-Ann Arbor Mobility Tech Hub led by Michigan Central was passed over for a federal Tech Hub designation, alongside four other regions in the state of Michigan. If the Detroit-Ann Arbor Mobility Tech Hub had been chosen, it would have been eligible to receive between $40 million and $70 million for implementation funding.

However, Graves said becoming a tech powerhouse is more than just a federal title.

“We've also invested with our Build Back Better Regional Challenge our Good Jobs Challenge (and) we've invested through our capital readiness program on

minority businesses, socially and economically disadvantaged businesses, supporting things like the Minority Business Development Center right here in Detroit,” Graves said. “All of these investments are coming together at the right time to provide that supportive ecosystem. It's not just about one particular investment. It's building the infrastructure that's needed.”

e Global Epicenter of Mobility, led by the Detroit Regional Partnership Foundation, received a $52.2 million grant as part of the $1 billion Build Back Better Regional Challenge in 2022 to  “transform the Detroit area’s legacy automotive industry into a highly competitive advanced mobility cluster,” according to a news release.

Graves will return to Newlab at Michigan Central Wednesday evening to participate in a roundtable discussion with representatives from JustAir Solutions, e Lab Drawer, Hush, Trip Slip, Bedrock, Rocket Community Fund, Detroit Voltage, Esspi and other startups. Ford Motor Co. plans begin opening the nearby Michigan Central Station on June 6, nearly six years after the automaker announced it bought the building from the Moroun family and embarked on a massive renovation.

e opening of the Birmingham shop is part of what looks to be a big year for Ho’s company.

Marrow Detroit Provisions in Birmingham will carry a full range of fresh meats, aged steaks, sausages and deli items. | BACKBONE HOSPITALITY GROUP

A 1,400-square-foot space at 283 Hamilton Row in downtown Birmingham will be the site of a new Marrow Detroit Provisions butcher shop. COSTAR GROUP

From left: Luke Polcyn, senior executive for development and economic transformation for the city of Detroit; Carolina Pluszczynski, Michigan Central COO; Alexa Turnage, co-founder of Black Tech Saturdays (BTS); Don Graves U.S. Deputy Secretary of Commerce; Johnnie Turnage, co-founder of BTS; and Katie Soven, head of membership at Newlab. ANNA FIFELSKI

Whitmer’s pension plan may be in doubt

By David Eggert

LANSING — Past Republicaninitiated moves to pay o unfunded pension liabilities more quickly could free up $670 million for Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to use for education priorities like free preschool and tuitionfree community college.

But to redirect that funding, the Democratic governor needs a change in law — something Republican lawmakers are resisting and school groups are raising questions about.

Support from some Republicans would be required to put the change into e ect at the start of the 2024-25 scal year. Otherwise Democrats could not implement the provision, a linchpin for Whitmer’s budget proposal, until roughly halfway through the scal year, poten-

tially cutting in half the amount she hopes to put to other uses.

At issue is the Michigan Public School Employees’ Retirement System’s unfunded actuarial accrued liability, the shortfall between its assets and future pension and other post-employment benet or OPEB costs.

Under Republicansponsored laws that were enacted in 2017 and 2018, annual payments toward the debt can be no less than the prior year until it is paid o . e “ oor” rule essentially ensures the obligation is paid down sooner regardless of a stronger stock market and other reasons that might otherwise reduce the yearly recommended contribution rate.

combined with factors like a 2012 decision to pre-fund retiree health care and the 398,000-member system seeing fewer health expenses during the COVID-19 pandemic — has led to 99.2%

By law, annual payments toward the debt can be no less than the prior year until it is paid off.

funding of the OPEB portion of the debt as of 2022. e Whitmer administration says it soon will reach 100%, or probably already has, but that will not be con rmed until an actuarial review is completed following this scal year.

Mobile home ght pits industry against residents

By David Eggert

LANSING — A push to crack down on alleged predatory actions by mobile home park owners has led to a clash in Michigan’s Capitol, where the industry and residents are squaring o over sweeping regulatory changes including a bid to curtail rising lot rents.

e Senate Housing and Human Services Committee held an initial hearing on the legislation Feb. 20 and plans another one this week. A vote does not appear imminent as talks continue.

“Because of the nature of how the mobile home business works, sometimes (residents are) trapped in a situation where they’re getting squeezed,” Democratic Sen. Je Irwin of Ann Arbor, the panel’s chair, said after the meeting. “So we’re going to take a close look at the rules and the laws that govern how these things operate and try to make sure that people have a fair shake.”

Senate Bills 486-490 would, among other things, limit lot rental increases to the rate of ination unless park owners submit documentation to the Manufactured Housing Commission showing that increases in operating and capital expenditures require a larger increase “to maintain a reasonable rate of return.”

e makeup of the 11-member Manufactured Housing Commission would also change. e number of park owners would drop from three to one, residents on the panel would fall from two to one, and three new members would be added: a representative of a legal aid group, a representative of a housing advocacy organization, and a state department director.

tional investors, led by private equity rms and real estate investment trusts and sometimes funded by pension funds, swoop in to buy mobile home parks. ey have shaken up a oncesleepy sector that is home to mostly low-income people. ere is also a growing industry surrounding mobile home parks, featuring how-to books, webinars and even a mobile home university that o ers tips to attract small investors.

e lead sponsor of the legislation, Democratic Sen. John Cherry of Flint, said manufactured housing communities traditionally have o ered accessible lots and a ordable units, but “bad actors” have entered the market across the U.S, including in Michigan.

“ ese bad actors, coupled with antiquated regulations, have left manufactured housing home owners and community residents vulnerable to unfair practices and poor housing conditions,” Cherry said. “Homeowners and residents have been exposed to unsafe living conditions, environmental and health hazards, unresponsive ownership ... all with astronomical increases in rent.”

Indeed, the requirement —

See PENSION on Page 21

e measures come as institu-

Despite pop-up success, Traf c Jam

Jay Davis

Despite a successful pop-up recently, the owners of a popular Midtown restaurant that was closed by a re nearly two years ago aren’t looking to reopen anytime soon.

Tra c Jam & Snug co-owners and spouses Carolyn Howard and Scott Lowell have no plans to set up shop again in the near future, according to an email from a spokesperson.

e nearly 60-year-old Detroit business has been closed since an early-morning re on May 27, 2022, badly damaged the restaurant. Shortly after the re, the couple vowed to reopen, but they have not announced any

plans to do so.

Howard ran a pop-up Feb. 18 out of Grosse Pointe Park grocery

e Sprout House Natural Foods Market, o ering the spinach vegetarian lasagna that was a favorite at Tra c Jam. In a social media post following the pop-up, the owners called the Feb. 18 event “a smash” and said they will do it again in early April.

Naturally, some commenters on the post asked if the beloved restaurant would reopen.

e cause of the Tra c Jam re was not disclosed. Detroit Fire Department spokesperson James Harris told Crain’s shortly after the re that it was not considered suspicious. Harris did not respond to a Crain’s request

for comment Feb. 19.

Lowell, a local developer, has experience with restoring burnedout buildings. He put $10 million into restoring the 70-unit Forest Arms apartment building in 2016. Forest Arms, also in Midtown, was severely damaged by re in 2008.

Established in 1965, Tra c Jam & Snug operated in a 1928 building at 511 W. Can eld St. at the end of a popular block of stores and restaurants on West Can eld Street, including Shinola Detroit, ird Man Records and Jolly Pumpkin Pizzeria & Brewery. e restaurant initially was known for its homemade cheese and in-house bakery and became Michigan’s rst licensed brewpub in 1992.

See MOBILE HOME on Page 20

reopen soon

won’t

The

damaged the building.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s proposal to cut payments toward health-care related unfunded liabilities in the Michigan Public Schools Employees’ Retirement System because it is almost 100% funded is drawing opposition.

OF

A push to crack down on alleged predatory actions by mobile home park owners has led to a clash in Michigan. BLOOMBERG

Adeveloper who has worked on hotels in downtown Royal Oak and elsewhere is taking a swing at Detroit’s Midtown neighborhood.

Namou Hotel Group Inc., based in Madison Heights, has purchased a funky-shaped 3.1-acre site immediately across from the Detroit Medical Center with an early vision to build a pair of new hotels there.

e site at 4 E. Alexandrine St. at Woodward Avenue would house a lifestyle hotel and an extended stay/multifamily concept, said Shawn Namou, an executive with the company. e lifestyle hotel would have things like a rooftop bar, co-working space and a tness center, and the extended-stay hotel would have fully-equipped kitchens, communal lounges and recreational areas, Namou said in an email.

Namou said his company sees a market for both visions.

“In the initial phases of planning, our group recognizes, through internal data, a distinct need for our unique concepts that are currently absent in Detroit,” Namou said. “Our prime site, centrally located around hospitals, universities, and major entertainment hubs, positions us strategically. Detroit’s demand for new rooms is escalating with the in ux of national events and developments. Our optimism is particularly strong regarding the drivers within Midtown, making it a focal point for our bullish approach.”

Mind you, it’s early in the development stages — Namou nalized the purchase from the Koza family’s South eld-based Group 10 Management late last year for a shade over $2 million, according to real estate information service CoStar Group Inc. — so timelines are pretty squishy right now.

Namou said a conservative estimate would be to have both hotels

open by early 2027, although that could change.

In the fall of 2018, Namou Hotel Group opened the Hyatt Place hotel in downtown Royal Oak with 120 rooms at 422 N. Main St., Crain’s reported at the time. Namou operates the hotel, and it was developed by Trailhead RO LLC, registered to Akram Namou. Namou Hotel Group worked on the project with Versa Development, now based in Royal Oak.

New hotel space would ll a need in the area, particularly for people needing to stay near the Detroit Medical Center hospital system, said Brandon Leversee, a locally based director for hospitality research company HVS Inc.

While there are options in the New Center area with the Hotel St. Regis and downtown, those aren’t especially convenient if you have a loved one staying in, for example, the Rehabilitation Institute of

Michigan or Harper University Hospital.

e site is immediately north of where a development team has long envisioned building high-rises with multifamily and hotel space, although that project has been beset by delays and tax incentive extensions.

Royal Oak-based AQRE Advisors LLC coordinated the online auction during which the site was sold.

Ford calls most salaried workers back to the of ce 3 days per week

By Kurt Nagl

Ford Motor Co. is bringing most of its salaried employees back to the o ce three days a week, formalizing a hybrid work model that some at the Dearborn-based automaker have already been following.

“People in several Ford functions have been working in-person three days a week for more than a year,” Ford spokesman TR Reid told Crain’s on Feb. 20. “Additional teams have joined them along the way and, yes, others will formally start hybrid schedules in March. Details vary based on the work each group does. e benets from additional on-site collaboration are apparent.”

e company did not specify which groups are next to formally move to the policy, but come March 1, “most o ce-based Ford people will be back in the o ce as part of a hybrid work arrangement, and three days a week is overwhelmingly typical,” Reid said.

It marks the latest move for the automaker to formalize in-o ce work since the COVID-19 pandemic upended the traditional daily commute starting in March 2020.

Ford, which has about 28,000 white-collar workers in the U.S., primarily in metro Detroit, joins

rival General Motors Co. in its preference for three days in the ofce. Detroit-based GM issued a mandate to salaried workers to be on-site three days per week starting at the beginning of the year. at marked the end of CEO Mary Barra’s “work appropriately” model, which gave employees more exibility.

A year after the pandemic began, Ford told salaried employees they could work from home if their positions were not site-dependent. In early 2022, the company rolled out its return-to-o ce plan without requiring a speci c number of in-o ce days for employees. Since then, there’s been a progression toward three days in the o ce, Reid said.

“ is largely completes a pro-

cess that started a long time ago,” he said. “ is is where we’ve been pointed, and we understand we can do what we need to best in a way that has people working together in person while at the same time having the exibility to do so remotely.”

Stellantis NV is still operating under a model established in 2021 calling for 70% remote work and 30% on-site for its o ce workers, spokeswoman Jodi Tinson conrmed.

Ford has sold o dozens of metro Detroit properties in recent years while building out new ofce space in Dearborn as well as the Michigan Central campus in Detroit’s Corktown neighborhood, where Ford plans to begin reopening the iconic train station June 6.

Namou Hotel Group is working to build a pair of new hotels on this Midtown Detroit site at 4 E. Alexandrine St. at Woodward Avenue. Bicentennial Tower apartments are to the right in this image. | COSTAR GROUP

Ford Motor Co. is moving toward a hybrid work model calling for most salaried employees to work three days per week in the of ce. | BLOOMBERG

EV pullback is good for business: American Axle CEO

By Kurt Nagl

American Axle & Manufacturing Holdings Inc. took a $33.6 million net loss last year due largely to the UAW strike, but the industry’s biggest worry now — the electric vehicle pullback — could play in the supplier’s favor.

e electri cation angst that’s thrown a wrench into automaker production plans is a positive for the Detroit-based manufacturer, CEO David Dauch said.

“If there’s a delay in EV programs, that’s good for our business,” Dauch said Feb. 16 on a call with investment analysts. “Any delay in EV is only going to ask for more ICE (internal combustion engine) to get the inventories to where they need to be.”

at was the bright side of an earnings report with a lot of red.

AAM closed the fourth quarter with a $19 million net loss. Net sales ticked up 5% year over year to about $6 billion, with fourth-

quarter revenue rising at roughly the same clip to $1.5 billion.

AAM’s (NYSE: AXL) mixed results were met with a stock value dip to $8.38 per share as of Feb. 16.

At the same time, the Feb. 16 earnings call was marked by a bit of a change in tone by analysts — that is, the previous concern of how the historically ICE-tethered supplier was preparing for an EV future ipping to how it would protect against EV exposure.

e company has a $600 million backlog through 2026, with about half of that tied to EV programs — up from 40% last year.

e backlogged business is “obviously subject to volume estimates by our customers,” CFO Chris May said.

Should an automaker pivot to hybrid, as has been signaled by General Motors Co. — American Axle’s largest customer — the supplier could pivot along with it e ciently, Dauch said.

e UAW work stoppage im-

Taft law rm adds six partners from

Jay Davis

Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP has hired six partners from Troy-based Dinsmore & Shohl LLP to work in its Detroit and Chicago o ces.

Gus Andreasen, Joe DeVito, Ian Larkin, Tom Walters and Evonne Xu will work out of Taft’s Detroit o ce, adding to its business and litigation practice groups. Jane Hahn will be based in Chicago.  e new hires bring Taft up to 132 attorneys in Detroit.

“ ese talented attorneys are highly regarded as leaders in their eld and carry an impressive track record of success that aligns with the Taft approach to client service and bolsters our deep bench of business and litigation expertise,” Mark Cooper, partner-in-charge of the Taft Detroit o ce, said in a news release. “ e addition of this outstanding group of professionals underscores Taft’s strong position as a leader in the Detroit legal market.”

Cooper told Crain’s that the new hires are part of a new pattern for the rm. Last year, Taft brought on three partners from another competing rm. In late 2022, Taft merged with South eld-based Ja e Raitt Heuer & Weiss PC.

Taft operates as a full-service business law rm with practice areas including mergers and acquisitions, tax advice, commercial real estate, nance, litigation, intellectual property, and bankruptcy and restructuring.

Taft, established in 1885, has 875 attorneys across nine U.S.

pacting the Detroit 3 automakers late last year took an $84 million bite out of sales in the quarter, May said, but the company is “cautiously optimistic” that the supply chain has reached a point of stability unseen for the past two years. Commodity costs, shipping schedules and production levels (minus EVs) have leveled out.

Labor remains the big pain point for the supplier industry, Dauch said. AAM, like other suppliers, is turning more heavily to automation to o set labor costs.

“We’re investing heavily in automation and robotics right now to address any shortfalls that we might have on the labor side,” he

Dinsmore

markets: Detroit (including an o ce in South eld), Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Indianapolis, Minneapolis and Washington, D.C.  e rm’s attorney count has increased by 250% since 2017 and its revenues have increased by 325% over that same time, though Cooper declined to disclose Taft revenue gures.

said. “It’s demanding a lot of time and a lot of attention. It’s not an issue that’s going away.”

Key new business awards highlighted by the company include programs to supply Chinese OEM DongFeng with nal drive units for a plug-in hybrid SUV, eLocking di erentials on a Mahindra SUV program and components for a VinFast EV.

e CEO said commercial negotiations continue with customers regarding EV investment and exposure. Many suppliers were left holding the bag after GM delayed its EV production plans and Ford Motor Co. cut its F-150 Lightning EV volume expectation

by half this year.

“Clearly every time you have a program adjustment, whether its ICE or hybrid or EV, and investments are being made and (sales) aren’t being realized or programs are being delayed, there’s commercial discussions that need to take place,” Dauch said. “Those are taking place with all the suppliers that made investments to support the OEMs.”

AAM said it is targeting revenue of between $6.05 billion and $6.35 billion in 2024, with adjusted EBITDA projected to be in the range of $685 million to $750 million.

Samaritas lists three buildings

Detroit-based human services agency Samaritas plans to consolidate hundreds of its employees in the region to a new leased site in the city’s downtown area by late summer.

e nonpro t has listed for sale three buildings it owns on the city’s far east side and plans to relocate employees from those sites and a leased location in Troy to a new o ce and client service location. e new space has not yet been identi ed.

e moves will reduce operating costs and bring new revenue from the sales while improving the experience for clients and employees, said Kelli Dobner, chief strategy and advancement o cer for Samaritas.

Samaritas, which reported a loss of just less than $13,000 in 2022 and net assets/fund balances of about $24.8 million, hasn’t nalized its numbers for last year, Interim CEO Dave Morin said. “But we anticipate a pretty signi cant improvement in performance.”

Last spring, the nonpro t said it would exit operation of senior living communities after more than 50 years of operating sites around the state, cutting its $100 million budget by about half and focusing on programs for refugees, children and families in areas including adoption, foster care, family preservation, behavioral health and substance abuse counseling and a ordable housing.

ree of ve senior living communities have been sold, and Sa-

maritas expects to sell the remaining two this summer, Dobner said.  e organization is operating on an $81 million budget, she said, down from $107 million last year.

“We’ve done a great job of recovering from those both in terms of how we operated and expanded,” said Morin, who took the interim CEO role in late 2022 after the organization’s former top executive Sam Beals retired.

Samaritas last year saw its largest growth and expansion in refugee services with more than 1,000 people coming into its care and behavioral health services expanding across the state, Dobner said.

In the hunt for new space in Detroit, Samaritas is looking for 14,000-16,000 square feet of modern space large enough for classrooms and large gatherings, shared spaces for remote employees and o ces, Dobner said. It’s seeking a location with heavy foot tra c, access to public transportation, outdoor space for children and families and amenities for employees.

“ ere will be o ce space. It’ll (also) be where we gather clients in group settings and individual meeting opportunities, family visitations. Our refugee clients, our child and family services families, they will all be a part of this of this building,” she said. “We’re looking to ... meet people where they’re at and create a nice working experience for our employees as well as we navigate this new hybrid model of working from home with the desire to be back in the o ce with each other.”

Samaritas’ lease at 2170 E. Big Beaver Road in Troy ends May 31, she said, and won’t be renewed, as the new owner plans to use the entire building for physical rehabilitation. Samaritas plans to continue leasing monthly until it can move into a new space in Detroit.

Samaritas also operates an ofce in Dearborn and Warren and service hubs in Lansing and Grand Rapids where it undertook a similar o ce consolidation a couple of years ago, Dobner said.

Sherri Welch

Samaritas is selling 8115 E. Jefferson in Detroit as part of a plan to consolidate regional operations. | COSTAR GROUP

Top row from left: New Taft Detroit partners Tom Walters and Ian Larkin. Middle row: Joe DeVito and Gus Andreasen. Bottom row: Evonne Xu and Mark Cooper, partner-in-charge of the Taft Detroit of ce.

American

On prevailing wage,

Democrats in Lansing restored Michigan’s prevailing wage law last year, even taking it further in areas of pay, bene ts and enforcement.

e move was a step backward for Michigan businesses, which supported the repeal of the 1960s-era law in 2018 when Republicans had control of the state’s legislative and executive branches, a scenario the Democrats reversed last year.

Now, some Democrats want to make a burdensome and anticompetitive law even worse. If they get their way, it would represent an excessive government intrusion into private business that would be signi cant even by the standards of the Democrats currently running Lansing.

On Feb. 15, Democrats held a hearing on legislation that would expand the new prevailing wage law, which went into e ect just two days earlier.

Senate Bill 571 was heard in a brief committee hearing, where business groups voiced their opposition while unions showed support, Crain’s senior reporter David Eggert reported.

e legislation would require contractors to register with the state to bid on prevailing wage jobs. It would also force them to send payroll records for prevailing wage jobs to the state for inclusion in a new database that would be open to public view and show information about each worker’s classi ca-

COMMENTARY

make a bad law worse

tion, wages and hours worked.

Democrats and a union lobbyist who testi ed said the provisions are needed to hold companies accountable.

We disagree and hope this legislation is allowed to die in committee.

e new prevailing wage law already puts enough burden on private business. ese new provisions, with their bureaucratic red tape and intrusive government overreach, would truly hinder the ability of companies, especially small businesses, to compete.

As if this new legislation wasn’t bad enough, it would also bring wind and solar facilities under the scope of the prevailing wage law, even if they are privately funded and do not receive state money.

State Sen. John Cherry, the Flint Democrat who sponsored the bill and chairs the

Labor Committee where it was heard, said the legislation will be amended to exempt residential rooftop solar installations.

at is an obvious concession on a provision that has no place in this proposal in the rst place. Prevailing wage requires higher wages and bene ts on state-funded projects, such as construction of buildings, schools and roads. Bridges and roads projects that receive funding from Washington are also covered by a federal prevailing wage law.

To include wind and solar projects that do not receive state money in prevailing wage is not within keeping of the law’s intent.

“ is goes beyond the conventional prevailing wage mandates by e ectively mandating a higher minimum wage on a particular industry for projects that are not

underwritten by the state,” said Michael LaFaive, senior director of scal policy for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy in Midland.

Beyond that, if your goal is to increase construction of wind and solar projects, making them more di cult and expensive to build is just going to make that goal more di cult to achieve. e new prevailing wage law that took e ect Feb. 13 already is having negative e ects even without these changes proposed by Cherry.

Ken Misiewicz, CEO of Michigan-based contractor Pleune Service Co., wrote in a recent guest opinion column for Crain’s Detroit Business that his company will no longer bid for publicly funded state projects because of the new law. He said the law will raise construction costs, increase the burden on taxpayers and hinder economic growth.

Furthermore, Misiewicz noted the new law allows the state to penalize general contractors if a subcontractor makes an underpayment, even if by mistake.

e new law will cost work for a company that is 100 percent employee-owned and already pays premium wages to its people.

e new prevailing wage law is already risky enough in terms of damage it could do to Michigan’s economic competitiveness. Democrats shouldn’t make it worse by pushing forward Senate Bill 571.

Real change in education will require real changes

The Michigan business community needs an educated workforce if it is going to survive and thrive in a hyper-competitive, disruptive, technologically driven, knowledge economy where jobs and ideas can and do move around the globe e ortlessly.

e problem is evident; Michigan does not have one.

Sheila Alles was interim state Superintendent of public instruction and chief deputy superintendent of the Michigan Department of Education and served for decades as a school administrator and classroom teacher. Tom Watkins served as state superintendent of schools from 2001 to 2005.

In articles that appeared over the past couple of months on these very pages, the Business Leaders for Michigan proclaimed the time is now for Michigan to “initiate action to support knowledge economy jobs.” One article included a call to “come together to ensure that Michigan can compete and win no matter what obstacles are faced.”   e speci cs in these articles focus on holistic, long-term strategies and emphasize collaboration and bipartisanship. We agree with and support many of the points included in them with one major exception. When listing those who should come together to collaborate and build consensus around solutions, the education community was not included and should have been.

e states that are growing faster than Michigan are those who have capitalized and focused on the link between education and income, including Great Lakes states.

e 2022 Kids Count Data Book provides state trends in child well-being including education. Wisconsin, a Great Lakes state, outperforms Michigan in every category and is listed as one of the top 8 states in education.

On the ip side, Michigan lags toward the bottom half in every category and is included in the bottom 10 states in education.

Michigan could learn much from examining the education system in our neighbor state and conducting a gap analysis to determine the components that Michigan should emulate and then revamp our education system to incorporate them.

If we are serious about improving the education level in Michigan, we must include the education community in these conversations. Michigan would be far better o if business leaders reached out and partnered with key leaders in the education community along with community leaders, legisla-

tors, and policymakers to solve this problem.   e focus should be on the design and implementation of systemic changes to improve the education system and eliminate redundancy and waste within it.

We continue to propose bold structural changes such as:

◗ Design a statewide public education human resources department which would eliminate time, e ort and costs to negotiate individual district contracts and provide a universal statewide salary contract with regional di erences based on appropriate local cost of living metrics.

Create one retirement system for sta who work at the Michigan Department of Education (MDE) and employees who work in public education.

Consolidate school districts and reduce the number of public school academies (PSA/charter schools). According to the MI School Data website, student enrollment has dropped by almost 200,000 from the 2009-10 school year to the 2023-24 school year with a reduction of only 10 schools.  While the number of PSA/charter schools has grown from 240 in 2009-10 to 295 in 2023-24. E orts should be made to consolidate school districts and PSA/charter schools to reduce the administrative overhead.

◗ Radically reshape the high school experience and start with the elimination of senior year. We propose that at the end of the ju-

nior year, students would be required to develop an action plan on how they will spend their senior year of high school which could be renamed “gap year.” e gap year could include such things as skill building, volunteering, attending a university, community college, trade school, apprenticeships, working, travel, improving skills needed to advance a career and additional educational attainment.

Restructure and realign leadership within the state beginning with the governor followed by the state legislature, state superintendent of schools, ISD/RESA superintendents and local district superintendents. As it stands now, everyone is in charge meaning no one is held accountable for student outcomes.

Provide the governor with the authority to appoint the state superintendent of schools and make him/her accountable to the governor.

Our schools are the bedrock of our democracy and a functioning society. e business and education communities along with community leaders, policymakers and legislators must come together to develop a shared vision and common agenda on aligning educational governance, directing more resources to the classroom and improving educational outcomes that prepare ALL students for their future, not our past.  is is what it will take to stop Michigan from its backward slide.

Wind farms and solar arrays developed by private developers could be subject to prevailing wage law under a new proposal being debated in Lansing. | GETTY IMAGES

If your business accepted Visa and/or Mastercard between 2004 - 2019, you’re now eligible to claim your share of a $5.5 billion Settlement. Claim your share now.

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Auto supplier Aptiv slashes headcount

Kurt Nagl

Aptiv plc is reducing its headcount of salary and hourly workers in a restructuring move aimed at cutting overhead costs while increasing investment in advanced technologies.

e automotive software and electrical components supplier, whose North American base is in Troy, cut nearly 4% of its global employee count from the end of 2022 to the end of 2023, according to a disclosure in the company’s annual ling to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission earlier this month.

e company employed 154,000 people globally as of Dec. 31, down 1,000 salaried employees and 5,000 hourly workers from the year prior. During that time, the supplier spent $211 million on “employee-related and other restructuring charges.” About $68 million of that was for a program started in the fourth quarter and focused on reducing salaried employee count in North America and Europe, while $75 million of charges is expected for the program in 2024.

“We expect to continue to incur

Lambert Global acquired

By Jay Davis

A Grand Rapids-based strategic communications rm with o ces in Detroit and elsewhere is being acquired by a European company.

Madrid, Spain-based LLYC — a global corporate a airs and marketing consulting rm with o ces in 12 countries — has acquired an initial 70% stake in Lambert Global for a price based on EBITDA performance in the next two years, according to a news release. LLYC made a payment of $18.2 million on the nal price in advance in a deal nalized Feb. 16.

Five current Lambert partners will maintain a 30% stake in the company, founder and CEO Je Lambert told Crain’s on Feb. 19.

“(LLYC) has grown signi cantly in Europe and Latin America, but the largest global marketing sector in the world is still the U.S.,” Lambert told Crain’s. “To be a global leader, LLYC needed a presence in the U.S. ey’ve done a couple of smaller acquisitions and have established a home base in Miami, but they wanted to be able to serve their European and Latin American clients doing business in the U.S. is will bolster their presence. We as a Lambert team wanted to be in play on the international stage and add to

additional restructuring expense in 2024 and beyond, primarily related to programs focused on reducing global overhead costs,” the company said in the ling. “ e Company plans to implement additional restructuring activities in

the future, if necessary, in order to align manufacturing capacity and other costs with prevailing regional automotive production levels and locations, to improve the eciency and utilization of other locations and in order to increase

our digital and AI depth, and LLYC is world-class in those areas.”

Lambert, which specializes in public relations, investor relations and integrated marketing, will now go by the name Lambert by LLYC.

Along with its Grand Rapids headquarters and Detroit o ce, Lambert has o ces in New York City, St. Louis and Phoenix. In January 2023, Lambert added a second o ce in Grand Rapids and acquired Detroit-based Roy Public A airs Management LLC.

Lambert, 52, will stay on as chair and CEO of Lambert by LLYC. He will also serve on the LLYC global executive committee. Lambert and company President Mike Houston will also serve on a U.S. executive committee.

All Michigan Lambert sta will stay on through the transition.

e company has 25 employees at a Detroit o ce and 35 in Grand Rapids. Lambert, who founded the rm in 1998, said he expects the company sta to grow by 10%-15% percent each year for the foreseeable future.

LLYC partner and global CEO Alejandro Romero said the move

is a logical next step for his company, which has U.S. o ces in Miami, New York, San Diego and Washington, D.C.

“LLYC has been operating in the United States for ten years and has always considered it a crucial growth market,” Romero said in a news release. “With the acquisition of Lambert, the company has taken a signi cant step towards becoming a leading consulting rm in the country. is acquisition expands LLYC’s presence from coast to coast. Lambert is a perfect partner, and its integrated communications platform is an ideal t for LLYC’s philosophy, enabling the company to make the quantitative leap it has been seeking.”

e acquisition is the largest in LLYC’s 29-year history, according to the release. e U.S. is now LLYC’s second-largest market after Spain. LLYC will have a team of about 130 employees in the U.S. e acquisition is expected to bring about $35.1 million in revenue to LLYC. Lambert’s annual revenues are around $22 million, Je Lambert said.

country, 1,300 work at the Troy Technical Center, according to the Aptiv website.

“Aptiv continues to optimize its business foundation and focus its investments in areas that will enable us to help our customers across industries power the software-de ned future,” a company spokesperson told Crain’s in an email. “To that end, we are making changes that will impact employees within some business units and corporate functions.”

Aptiv competitor Continental announced plans this month to cut 7,150 jobs globally in its automotive unit by 2025. Continental also declined to detail the impact in Michigan, where the supplier employs 1,500 people, mostly at its North American base in Auburn Hills.

investment in advanced technologies and engineering.”

e company declined to share with Crain’s the impact on employees in Michigan, home of its largest site in the U.S. Of the company’s 3,650 employees in the

Automotive suppliers producing everything from software and electrical connectors to axles and seats are relying more heavily on automation in factories as labor scarcity and wage in ation persist. Aptiv CEO Kevin Clark told investment analysts earlier this month that the company was on a path to achieving more than 50% automation in its plants by 2030.

McGregor Fund exits longtime Detroit space

By Sherri Welch

e McGregor Fund is moving out of its longtime home in downtown Detroit and into a new space with another prominent Detroit foundation.

After operating from space at

333 W. Fort St. for 40 years, McGregor is subleasing space from the Skillman Foundation in the riverfront Talon Centre about two miles east in the Rivertown Warehouse District.

e desire for a new o ce conguration, new location and shared meeting space were the primary drivers of the move. Finding space with foundation peers was a bonus, President Kate Levin Markel said.

e expiration of its longtime lease provided an opportunity to look for space that better meets the needs of its employees, board members and grant partners who might need free meeting space from time to time, McGregor Fund President Kate Levin Markel said.

“We did not have a renewal conversation with the landlord. We felt ready for a change, so we did not ask for a proposal,” she said.

e foundation’s small sta of six, who are still working in hybrid format and from separate o ces when they are in the o ce, really wanted spaces where they could be together, she said.

“People really enjoyed having quiet time working at home,” Levin Markel said. “However, what (they) were yearning for was to have an o ce where there were

spaces designed for folks to work together.”

On Feb. 20 the foundation began moving its base from the 20th oor in the West Fort building to a compact space with shared o ces for its sta and common spaces shared with Skillman at the Talon Centre.

After decades in its downtown space, “it seemed like a great opportunity to start fresh post-pandemic and to make a change that suited the way people work now,” said Levin Markel, who was named among Crain’s Most In uential Women in 2021.

“It feels like a wonderful opportunity to share spaces we don’t need every day, to be on a beautiful river setting … and to have our Skillman peers … so close by and to be rubbing elbows with them.”

at’s something McGregor’s team enjoyed at the West Fort building, with the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan across the hall and the Hudson-Webber Foundation elsewhere in the building.

Lambert Global founder and CEO Jeff Lambert (right) and LLYC partner and global CEO Alejandro Romero nalize their deal on Feb. 16. | LAMBERT BY LLYC

Troy-based Aptiv celebrated the 10th anniversary of listing on the New York Stock Exchange on Dec. 2, 2021. NEW YORK STOCK EXCHANGE

The McGregor Fund is subleasing space from the Skillman Foundation in the Talon Centre about two miles east from its longtime home. COSTAR GROUP

NOTABLE WOMEN IN LAW

Crain’s Notable

Women in Law champion justice, set precedent, manage high-pro le cases and facilitate mergers and acquisitions. They are beacons in their industries and communities.

These Notable

Women in Law were nominated by their peers, colleagues, friends and family. A team of Crain’s Detroit Business editors then selected the honorees based on their career accomplishments, track records of success and impact.

METHODOLOGY: Notable

Women in Law was managed by Special Projects

Editor Leslie D. Green. The pro les are based on information provided in their nomination forms. For more information about Crain’s Notables reports, contact Ashley Maahs, DetroitRecognitions@crain. com.

Jennifer Andreou

Partner, Medical Liability Practice Group, Plunkett Cooney

Scope of work: Jennifer Andreou defends physicians, dentists, nurses and other health care professionals against medical malpractice suits and licensing issues and serves as a trial attorney for liability insurance providers.

Biggest professional win: She successfully defended a Michigan hospital physician being sued for allegedly failing to diagnose an impending stroke that caused a 38-yearold mother to become paraplegic. The jury returned a nocause decision for the physician after a 20-day trial.

Other contributions: Andreou is a past member of the Port Huron General Hospital ethics committee and a past member of the Detroit Barristers Society board. She donates time and money to several organizations, including Macomb Meals on Wheels.

Kelly Burnell

Member, Bodman PLC

Scope of work: As co-chair of Bodman’s high-net-worth practice group, Kelly Burnell advises on estate planning, trust administration, wealth transfer tax strategies, succession planning and more. She recently helped resolve a dispute between siblings over equity shares in a family-owned industrial service company.

Biggest professional win: Burnell spent 10 years managing the affairs of a high-networth client after the passing of their spouse. She assisted the family with wealth transfer planning and the design of custom, multigenerational strategies that aligned with the family’s goals.

Other contributions: Burnell is a member of the Financial and Estate Planning Council of Metropolitan Detroit, the Washtenaw Estate Planning Council and the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation Network of Professional Advisors.

Celeste Arduino Member, Bodman PLC

Scope of work: Celeste Arduino manages 35 accounts as co-chair of Bodman’s Exempt Organization and Impact Investing practice group. Recent work focused on helping large nonpro ts protect their endowments from legal liabilities by drafting policies for endowments and gift agreements and tax-exempt status applications and creating title holding companies.

Biggest professional win: Arduino worked with the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation on international grantmaking to support humanitarian causes in Ukraine. She also provided integral legal support to Mott during the Flint water crisis.

Other contributions: Arduino advises the Vista Maria board and serves as director of Vista Affordable Housing. She co-chairs the nonpro t corporations committee for the State Bar of Michigan and is a member of its exempt organization committee.

Amy

Clark

Vice president of legal services and general counsel, Henry Ford College

Scope of work: Amy Clark oversees the school’s legal matters, including litigation, operations, compliance, board governance, contracts, corporate culture and diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.

Biggest professional win: She oversaw a $20 million litigation case, which she settled for less than $1 million. Clark negotiated with the liability insurance carrier, selected the attorneys and oversaw the case progress.

Other contributions: She donates time and money to the college, mentors young female leaders and advocates for DEI and belonging efforts. As a mother of three children, she gives special attention to DEIB practices for mothers trying to balance their professional duties.

Elise Arsenault

General counsel, Trinity Health Oakland Hospital, Trinity Health-Michigan

Scope of work: Elise Arsenault handles legal issues surrounding contracting, ministry management and governance, signi cant transactions, medical staff and regulatory compliance. She also counsels Trinity Health on provider operations issues.

Biggest professional win: In 2022, Arsenault helped establish a joint operating agreement between Trinity Health and C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital that provides joint pediatric specialty care and increased access to pediatric cardiology, urology, general surgery and orthopedic surgery for patients living close to Trinity Health Oakland Hospital.

Other contributions: She serves on the State Bar Health Care Law section and the American Health Law Association. During the pandemic staf ng crisis, Arsenault cleaned hospital rooms between patient stays to support the front-line workers.

Jennifer Consiglio

Shareholder, Butzel Long

Scope of work: Jennifer Consiglio guides businesses in venture capital, securities regulation, secured and unsecured nancing, restructuring, corporate governance, partnerships and mergers and acquisitions.

Biggest professional win: She recently helped a nationwide IT health care consulting company complete several transactions in a short period. This led to its acquisition and saved the company and several hundred employees. She also closed a $50 million private equity nancing deal and helped an international polymers manufacturer acquire several U.S. companies.

Other contributions: She is a member of the Business Law section of the American Bar Association, the State Bar of Michigan business law section and the Oakland County Bar Association.

Mischa Boardman Shareholder, Zausmer PC

Scope of work: Mischa Boardman focuses on business disputes, commercial litigation, and eminent domain matters. She also serves on Zausmer’s executive and marketing committees.

Biggest professional win: Boardman led Michigan’s acquisition of more than 500 parcels of land in Detroit’s Del Ray neighborhood for the construction of the Gordie Howe International Bridge. She navigated several legal challenges, particularly from the Moroun family, to construct the crossing and customs plaza. Other contributions: Boardman serves on the University of Michigan’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Leadership council and its CEW+ leadership council. She is also a charter member of Michigan State University’s College of Social Science consortium on female leadership.

Tanya Cripps-Serra

Associate general counsel, Olympia Development of Michigan

Scope of work: Tanya Cripps-Serra supports real estate development, property acquisition, construction, tax incentives, zoning and joint ventures related to the District Detroit development project. Her skills include managing the formation and governance of corporate entities, ensuring regulatory compliance and protecting corporate interests. Biggest professional win: She helped facilitate the development of the University of Michigan’s Center for Innovation, a $250 million, 200,000-squarefoot academic installation in District Detroit.

Other contributions: CrippsSerra is chair of the 7,500member Young Lawyers section of the State Bar of Michigan, where she was named “star of the year” for the 2022 to 2023 bar year. She is also a member of the State Bar’s Board of Commissioners.

Julie Fershtman

Shareholder, Foster Swift Collins & Smith PC

Scope of work: A leading practitioner in equine law, Julie Fershtman also focuses on business, personal injury, contract law and insurance coverage litigation.

Biggest professional win: Fershtman successfully tried cases before juries in four states. She has been retained as out-of-state counsel in state and federal courts in 10 states and invited to speak in 29 states on topics such as liability, agribusiness, insurance, equine law and risk management.

Other contributions: Fershtman was the 77th president of the State Bar of Michigan and served as vice president of the Michigan State Bar Foundation. She has authored more than 400 articles, eight American Bar Association articles, two blogs and four books.

Monique Field-Foster

Executive partner, Warner Norcross + Judd LLP

Scope of work: Monique Field-Foster leads the rm’s day-to-day operations and co-chairs its Government Affairs practice group.

Biggest professional win: She served as deputy legal counsel for Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s transition team and as deputy director of legislative affairs for now-former Gov. Jennifer Granholm, where she crafted new procurement policies for minority and women-owned businesses.

Other contributions: FieldFoster encourages people without legal representation to join the policymaking processes. She serves on the boards of the Sparrow Foundation and Peckham Inc. She is a council of the Henry Toll Fellowship, a fellow of the Big Ten Academic Alliance Leadership and a member of the National Black Professional Lobbyists Association.

Jevona Fudge

Assistant prosecutor, Macomb County Prosecutor’s Of ce

Scope of work: Jevona Fudge, who is a member of the child support unit at the Macomb County prosecutor’s of ce, prosecutes people who owe but do not pay child support and arranges co-parenting agreements.

Biggest professional win: She has helped families reach co-parenting agreements, where both parties feel invested and has facilitated many consent orders for those families as a result.

Other contributions: Fudge is a member of the Legal Aid & Defender Association board and several fatherhood advocacy groups. She also owns the Detroit Sip coffee shop in northwest Detroit, where she advocates for anti-gun violence awareness, anti-domestic violence measures, striking United Auto Workers and childhood literacy.

Danelle Harrington

Partner, Warner Norcross + Judd LLP

Scope of work: Danelle

Harrington guides estate plans, probates and trusts and succession plans for family businesses. She also counsels her clients on entity formation, succession planning and real estate issues.

Biggest professional win: Harrington has helped several organizations, including Star of the West Milling Company, transfer company ownerships to the next generation, form tax-reduction strategies, structure equipment and land acquisition deals and create corporate governance policies.

Other contributions: She is a member and past of cer of the Northeastern Michigan estate planning council. Harrington also serves on the board of trustees at Hidden Harvest and is a representative on the executive council of the Stevens Center for Family Business.

39% of U.S. lawyers were female in 2023, according to the ABA National Lawyer Population survey. In 2013, that number was 34%

“Your service and commitment to community, clients, and the Kitch firm are an inspiration to us all. An honor well deserved.”

Mark A. Wisniewski Chair and CEO

Congratulations Jenna Wright Greenman on being named a Notable Woman in Law

Holli Hart Targan

Partner, Taft, Stettinius & Hollister LLP

Scope of work: Holli Hart Targan is the founder of the rm’s paytech and payment systems practice group. She represents credit card companies, payment processors and nancial institutions in the payment solutions space. She also guides nancial technology companies in mergers and acquisitions.

Biggest professional win: Targan became president of the Electronic Transactions Association, allowing Taft, Stettinius & Hollister to attract talent to Detroit and help clients to gain a bigger foothold in the ntech industry. She also recently helped a client complete an $80 million deal.

Other contributions: Targan founded Paytech Women, a 7,000-member networking group, and co-founded the Taft Detroit Women’s Caucus. She also mentors younger female attorneys at the rm.

Laura Johnson

Shareholder, Butzel

Scope of work: As chair of Butzel’s Corporate and Real Estate practice groups, Laura Johnson focuses on corporate governance, entity formation, mergers and acquisitions, venture capital and private equity.

Biggest professional win: Johnson was selected to be the new chair of Butzel’s corporate and real estate groups. She also led the completion of a $200 million deal for the rm.

Other contributions: Johnson helped organize several lunch programs at Crossroads of Michigan. She has also worked with teachers at underprivileged schools to provide them with supplies such as books, art tools and winter clothes. She is a member of the business law section council for the State Bar of Michigan.

Amy Johnston

Principal, practice group co-leader, Miller, Can eld, Paddock and Stone

Scope of work: Amy Johnston leads the Litigation and Dispute Resolution group and serves clients in energy, automotive, nancial, manufacturing and real estate sectors.

Biggest professional win: While defending a client in a $300 million pricing dispute in which a supplier claimed it was underpaid, Johnston uncovered fraudulent activity by the supplier’s general counsel. She was able to disqualify the supplier’s expert witnesses and secure a successful outcome for her client.

Other contributions: She is co-chair of the Federal Bar Association committee for Law Day and serves on the Michigan Supreme Court committee on Model Civil Jury Instructions. She is a fellow at the Michigan State Bar Foundation and the American Bar Foundation.

Gjina Lucaj

Partner, Foley & Lardner LLP

Scope of work: Gjina Lucaj focuses on private equity transactions, including mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, nancing and public and private debt and equity offerings. She serves middle market clients in the aerospace, manufacturing and information technology industries. She is chair of the Detroit of ce Business Law/ Transactions team.

Biggest professional win: Lucaj advised a private equity rm in its acquisition of a specialty equipment platform. She also co-led the formation of partnerships for a private equity rm and represented Meridian Health in a multibillion-dollar sale.

Other contributions: Lucaj participates and speaks at Albanian American events in the city and is a member of the Detroit Albanian-American Bar Association. She founded the University of Michigan Albanian American Student Organization.

Vanessa Miller

Partner, Foley & Lardner LLP

Scope of work: Vanessa Miller is a litigation partner and chair of Foley & Lardner’s Manufacturing Sector-Automotive. She was interim general counsel for a $1 billion tier-one supplier where she obtained a dismissal of a Jeep cyber-hacking class action lawsuit.

Biggest professional win: She authored the book, “Law of the Automotive and Manufacturing Supply Chain: A Handbook for Success” in 2023 using her nearly two decades of experience in the automotive and manufacturing industries.

Other contributions: Miller is a member of the Automotive Women’s Alliance board and the Federal Bar Association. She is a presenter and speaker for organizations such as the Council of Manufacturing Organizations and North American Association of Food Equipment Manufacturers.

Martha Olijnyk

Executive partner and general counsel, The Miller Law Firm PC

Scope of work: Martha Olijnyk has led the rm’s Automotive Supplier Dispute Resolution and Litigation Practice area. Her role includes complex litigation, complex contracts, automotive supplier counseling and litigation, shareholder and partnership disputes, class action litigation and bankruptcy.

Biggest professional win: Olijnyk successfully defended a Robinson Patman Act price discrimination case with equitable relief tried before a judge. Copycat suits made the case more challenging. Her efforts included co-leading a team of nine attorneys from three rms. Other contributions: She is president of the Rochester Bar Association, past chair of the Oakland County Bar Association’s Business Court and Counsel Committee and a member of the Paint Creek Trailways Commission.

Alison Orlans

President and CEO, Orlans PC, eTitle, Revlegal

Scope of work: Alison Orlans integrates lean processes and technology with legal knowledge and expertise. An example of her work includes verifying ownership to qualify more than 2,500 elderly Detroit residents for American Rescue Plan grants toward necessary home repairs.

Biggest professional win: She views creating an enriched workplace experience for individuals as her biggest win. A staunch advocate for human rights, she strives to develop an inclusive culture for all people with diverse talents, skill sets and abilities.

Other contributions: Her team worked with a development team and multiple lenders to provide title insurance for the construction of the Benjamin O.

Davis Veterans Village Apartments, a 50-unit building in Detroit for homeless veterans.

Linda Orlans

Founder and executive chair, Orlans PC

Scope of work: Linda Orlans founded this multi-state law rm, which now has more than 200 employees. She is responsible for innovation, strategic direction and community relations.

Biggest professional win: Her most signi cant win was successfully transferring power and leadership of Orlans PC to her daughter and seeing it thrive.

Other contributions: Orlans has been a trustee at Michigan State College of Law for 20 years and is chair of the board. She champions human rights and sits on the advisory board at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Carr Center for Human Rights. She also has leadership roles with the Detroit Institute of Arts, Michigan Opera Theatre, Junior Achievement, THAW and Beyond Basics.

Patricia Perez Fresard

Chief judge, Third Judicial Circuit Court

Scope of work: Patricia Perez Fresard oversees operations at the largest court in Michigan, which has a budget of $159 million and 600 full-time employees.

Biggest professional win:

Since her appointment as chief judge in January 2023, she has focused on identifying and attaining top talent and credits her team for optimizing resources. The criminal case backlog has been reduced from over 3,500 cases to under 500, a reduction that was expected to take four years. Expungement les are down from 2,200 to 500.

Other contributions: Fresard sits on the boards of La Sed, the Detroit Bar Association Foundation and the Mediation Tribunal Association and is a member of Wayne County’s Gun Violence Reduction Task Force.

NOTE WORTHY

79% of U.S. lawyers were white in 2023, according to the ABA National Lawyer Population survey. The percentage of white lawyers decreased from 88.7% in 2013.

Other races in 2023:

6% Hispanic

6% Asian American

5% Black

3% Multiracial

1% Other

Archana serves as vice president and system general counsel at HAP (Health Alliance Plan) where she oversees and provides strategic guidance on corporate legal and regulatory affairs. With over 25 years of professional experience, she uses her legal background to support HAP’s mission to address health inequities in Michigan.

Crain’s Detroit Business’ Notable Women in Law

Cinnamon Plonka

Shareholder, Zausmer PC

Scope of work: Cinnamon

Plonka specializes in civil litigation, covering no-fault and third-party automobile negligence, employment litigation and insurance fraud at the trial and appellate levels. She often serves as the go-to counsel for insurance carriers.

Biggest professional win: Plonka secured a series of “No Cause of Action ‘’ verdicts, most notably in Valerie Zavala, Next Friend for Auturo Zavala v. Trinity Inc. where plaintiff sought $12.1 million in damages in an automobile negligence case. After less than two hours of deliberating, the jury returned a verdict for the defense.

Other contributions: She sits on the board of directors for Forgotten Harvest and is a past president of the Black Women Lawyers Association of Michigan

Archana Rajendra

Vice president, deputy general counsel, Health Alliance Plan

Scope of work: Archana

Rajendra oversees corporate legal and regulatory affairs, risk management and government affairs. She leads efforts with HAP’s community partners to address health inequity and disparities, particularly in patients with prominent health issues. She works with partners to sponsor and host events encouraging dialogue and educating underserved residents.

Biggest professional win: Rajendra was instrumental in leading the implementation and nalization of HAP’s partnership with CareSource, an Ohio-based nonpro t and managed care health plan with members in seven states. She is reimagining the of ce of general counsel toward innovation, integration and collaboration while helping address racial health disparities.

Other contributions: She’s on the Ele’s Place governing board.

Amanda Rice

Partner, Jones Day

Scope of work: Amanda Rice practices before the U.S. Supreme Court and other appellate courts and serves as Jones Day’s pro bono partner. She and her team won a unanimous opinion reversing the fee award and holding for a client in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Previously, she clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan.

Biggest professional win: The U.S. Supreme Court appointed Rice to brief and argue a case about Fourth Amendment protections for criminal suspects who ee the police and was commended by Chief Justice John Roberts for her service.

Other contributions: She works with human-traf cking victims with The Joseph Project in Detroit and serves on the Michigan Bar’s Public Outreach & Education committee.

Julie Robertson

Partner, Honigman

Scope of work: Julie Robertson is an insurance partner focused on alternative risk nancing. She is also vice chair, leader of the insurance practice group and a member of the executive committee, board of directors and the compensation committee. As such, she leads and drives rm and practice group strategy and supports talent development, retention and recruitment initiatives.

Biggest professional win: She doubled the insurance practice group to 150 captive insurance companies. Robertson also attracted top talent and transformed the group into a full-service practice for alternative risk with tax lawyers, coverage litigators and legal expertise in new jurisdictions.

Other contributions: Robertson is a member of the Insurance Managers Association of the Cayman Islands.

Congratulations to Holli Targan being recognized among the 2024 Notable Women in Law by Crain’s Detroit Business

Holli

Wendy Saigh

Chief counsel, Army Materiel Command-Detroit Arsenal

Scope of work: Wendy Saigh provides oversight, guidance and direction to more than 70 Army military and civilian-attorney advisers and support personnel.

Biggest professional win: Saigh helped develop legal strategies for addressing legacy system issues that helped the Army save and recover millions of dollars in the form of cost avoidance, contractual and administrative remedies and funding returned to the Army or U.S. Treasury. Her team also established a procurement fraud program, including a mandatory awareness training program, to further maximize and avoid recoveries.

Other contributions: She is a member of the League of Women Voters, Grosse Pointe, represents the LWVGP Observer Corps, and serves the 100+ Women Who Care, Motown Chapter, which contributes to local charities.

Rachel Smith

Shareholder, Brooks Kushman

Scope of work: Rachel Smith is a registered patent attorney focused primarily on domestic and foreign patent prosecution. Her practice includes drafting opinions related to patentability, noninfringement, validity and freedom to operate. She also consults clients on various litigation and licensing matters.

Biggest professional win: Working with her clients to provide the best service and business outcome possible and effectively communicate and understand complex legal and technical issues. For example, she devalued a nonpracticing entity’s patent portfolio being asserted against her client to drastically lower the licensing costs.

Other contributions: She is an active member of the Leadership Counsel for Legal Diversity and a member and past president of the Michigan Intellectual Property Law Association.

Kimberley Ann Ward

Commercial counsel, Axiom@ Google

Scope of work: Kimberley Ann Ward provides counsel on a wide range of commercial agreements and risk management, most recently related to devices, services, health and research. She has extensive experience with government agreements in aerospace and defense.

Biggest professional win: Taking on a large-scale high-pro le project and supporting a multi-disciplinary team while in multiple time zones. The project resulted in double-digit multimillion-dollar savings.

Other contributions: Ward regularly serves as a bipartisan Michigan Election Protection Volunteer attorney with the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and has facilitated expungement clinics, town halls, scholarship programs and fundraising initiatives for residents. She is vice president of the National Bar Association.

Sarah Wixson

Partner, Varnum Law

Scope of work: Sarah Wixson serves clients with a variety of business, litigation, health care and real estate services. She is also co-chair of the rm’s health care practice team. She defended the largest Black, female-owned beverage distributor in the U.S., obtaining summary disposition on all counts and successfully settling counterclaims.

Biggest professional win: She has been one of the “Ones to Watch” by Best Lawyers and was named to the 2023 Class of “Women in the Law” by Michigan Lawyers Weekly.

Other contributions: She is a fellow with the Litigation Counsel of America, a recent graduate of Leadership Detroit Class XLIII and a member of the American Bar Association, Litigation Section and Young Advocates Committee.

Jenna Wright Greenman

Principal and shareholder, Kitch Attorneys & Counselors PC

Scope of work: Wright Greenman is the Medical Malpractice practice group leader and Birth Trauma practice Group Leader.

Biggest professional win: With three weeks’ notice to try a case involving the suicide of an adolescent after discharge from a mental health facility, she joined a team of attorneys who had been on the case for four years. She mentored the attorneys, took the case to trial and showed a jury that the facility and providers used all their resources to properly care for the patient.

Other contributions: Among several other organizations, she is a member of the Michigan Society of Risk Management and a member of the State Bar of Michigan Negligence Section council.

Laura You

Partner, Warner Norcross + Judd LLP

Scope of work: A litigator, Laura You advises automotive suppliers in commercial contract negotiations, prelitigation disputes, and all stages of litigation. She is chair of Warner’s Supply Chain Litigation Group and is a member of the rm’s Litigation Steering committee.

Biggest professional win: An OEM attempted to defer You’s client’s receivables until 2024 while still requiring the client to perform. You quickly shortcircuited that effort and got her client paid in full on all invoices without litigation.

Other contributions: You is a fellow at the Federal Bar Foundation, a member of the American and Federal bar associations, State Bar of Michigan and Detroit Bar Association. She serves on the board at Inforum and its Corporate Partners committee.

The Modern Law Firm.

Taft Detroit Welcomes

Six New Partners.

Gus Andreasen, Business Partner

Joe DeVito, Business Partner

Jane Hahn, Business Partner (practicing in Chicago)

Ian Larkin, Business Partner

Tom Walters, Litigation Partner

Evonne Xu, Business Partner

Taftlaw.com

1 KIMCO REALTY CORP. Jericho, N.Y.

2 REVOLUTION

MEDICINES INC.

Redwood City, Calif.

3 HOLCIM LTD.

Zug, Switzerland

RPT REALTY New York, South eld Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz LLP; Venable LLP; J.P. Morgan Securities LLC; Equiniti Trust Co.; Latham & Watkins LLP

EQRX INC. Cambridge, Mass.

Morrow & Co. LLC; Equiniti Trust Co. LLC; Guggenheim Securities LLC; Latham & Watkins (London) LLP; Latham & Watkins LLP

DURO-LAST INC. Saginaw Bank of America Corp.; BofA Securities Inc.

Lazard Freres & Co. LLC; Goodwin Procter LLP; Innisfree M&A Inc.

Goodwin Procter LLP; MacKenzie Partners Inc.; Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC ; Continental Stock Transfer & Trust Co.; MTS Securities LLC; MTS Securities LLC

Closed Aug. 2023

Sold by: State Street Corp.; BlackRock Inc.; The Vanguard Group Inc.; Wellington Management Group LLP; Macquarie Group Limited; CenterSquare Investment Management LLC. Kimco Realty Corp. completed the acquisition of RPT Realty from a group of shareholders on Jan. 2, 2024.

Closed Aug. 2023

Raymond James Financial Inc.Closed

Sold by: Arch Venture Partners, L.P.; Nextech Invest Ltd.; The Vanguard Group Inc.; Arboretum Ventures LLC; GV Management Co. LLC; Andreessen Horowitz LLC; Corvex Management LP; Casdin Capital LLC; Boxer Capital LLC; Mubadala Capital; Bain Capital Life Sciences Investors LLC; Jameel Investment Management Co.. Revolution Medicines Inc. completed the acquisition of EQRx Inc. from a group of shareholders on Nov. 9, 2023.

$1,586.6

7

8

SOURCE:S&PGlobalMarketIntelligence,(Marketintelligence.spglobal.com)andCrain'sresearch|Insomecases,morethanoneestimatedvalueofatransactionexists.Inthosecases,Crain'shas chosenthevalueitbelievestobemostaccurate.S&P guresmaydifferfromotherpublished gures,whichsometimesexcludeassumedliabilitiesorotherfactors.Fordealsinvolvingcompaniesgoing publicviaaspecialpurposeacquisitioncompanyreversemerger,thesurvivingcompanyislistedastheacquirerandthecombinedvalueofthecompaniesisusedforthedealvalue.Thelistdoesnot includeall2023transactions,onlythosevaluedat$10millionormore.Itisnotacompletelistingbutthemostcomprehensiveavailable. e. Crain'sestimate. 1. Greaterthan$200million. 2. Over$100 million.

Want the full Excel version of this list — and every list? Become a Data Member: CrainsDetroit.com/data

2 manufacturers land $710M in federal nancing

By Kurt Nagl

Two manufacturers in Michigan are lined up to receive a total of $710 million in federal nancing as part of the national clean energy agenda.

SK Siltron CSS has received a conditional commitment for a $544 million loan from the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs O ce, while the conditional commitment to American Battery Solutions is $165.9 million.

e loans, made available through the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program, will enable the creation or support of hundreds of jobs in Michigan and beyond, o cials said.

Jigar Shah, director of the DOE’s Loan Programs O ce, told Crain’s that he’s seen a surge in applications over the past two months.

“We’re excited about just the sheer diversity of folks who want to use our program,” Shah said in an interview. “We lost our mojo for a while. A lot of Americans thought, ‘We can’t manufacture here, manufacturing happens in Asia and we import it back.’ And I think a lot of folks are going, ‘Wait a second, we can actually do that here.’”

e loans are generally 10 to 15 years in length with more favorable terms than commercial banks, including interest rates commensurate with the U.S. Treasury, Shah said.

e new Michigan projects are conditional, not nal, meaning that the department intends to -

nance them, but the companies still must meet certain technical terms before a de nitive agreement.

In June, the DOE loan o ce announced a record $9.2 billion in nancing for Ford Motor Co. and SK On to build a pair of EV battery plants in Kentucky and one in Tennessee. It also issued a $2.5 billion loan in 2022 to Ultium Cells LLC, a JV between General Motors Co. and LG Energy Solution, to help build EV battery plants, including near Lansing.

Shah said he isn’t worried about any potential increased risk on the loans due to EV sales growing slower than expected or automakers pulling back production, including Ford freezing its second

battery plant in Kentucky.

“People generally have a hard time seeing the 10-year trend line, and we’re funding across the 10year trend line,” he said. “Electric vehicles sales are up 385% since 2019, and internal combustion vehicle sales are down 14% ... We let the private sector lead, and we’re here to enable.”

American Battery Solutions

e EV battery manufacturer announced plans in 2021 to triple the size of its Orion Township base with a $7 million investment expected to create 100 jobs.

e company, launched in 2019 with the purchase of a Bosch battery lab, also plans expansion in

PEOPLE ON THE MOVE

FINANCE

Live Oak Bank

Benjamin VanDerWeide III

joined Live Oak Bank in 2024 as vice president of small business lending. Benjamin has been involved in commercial, business, and SBA nancing since 1995. He has facilitated SBA lending since 2010, working in diverse markets such as New York City, San Francisco, Detroit and Grand Rapids, Michigan. He specializes in nancing business acquisitions, partner buyouts, and owner-occupied commercial real estate.

FINANCIAL SERVICES

Sentinel Group

HUMAN RESOURCES

Sigred Group

Springboro, Ohio. e DOE loan would support 460 jobs and help nance the company’s expansion of “an advanced battery pack assembly facility to support light-, medium- and heavy-duty electric vehicle and industrial equipment,” the department said.

American Battery Solutions, which is focused on products for commercial vehicles, was acquired late last year by Japanese manufacturing giant Komatsu Ltd., which is working to electrify its industrial equipment.

SK Siltron CSS

e South Korean producer of silicon carbide wafers laid out plans in 2021 to build a $300 mil-

lion semiconductor plant and create 150 jobs in Bay County.

SK Siltron, a subsidiary of SK Group — a $120 billion conglomerate based in Seoul — was founded in 2019 through a purchase of DuPont’s silicon carbide wafer business for $450 million.

e loan would support ramped-up production of semiconductors used in EV drivetrains, inverters and electrical distribution systems, including onboard chargers and DC-to-DC converters. e wafers are distinct from regular silicon computer microchips, whose COVID-19 pandemic-induced shortage caused a crisis in the auto industry, though silicon carbide wafers are still critical for the EV transition.

SK Siltron’s growth is expected to generate up to 200 construction jobs for the build-out and up to 200 more inside the factory at full production.

e federal loans are made available through the In ation Reduction Act, which also allows for billions of dollars in incentives for production of electric vehicles, hydrogen systems and other clean energy applications.

“ is project supports President Joe Biden’s Investing in America agenda to onshore and re-shore domestic manufacturing of technologies that are critical to achieving the clean energy and transportation future,” the department said in a news release. “Onshoring battery manufacturing is critical to reducing America’s reliance on our economic competitors…”

NONPROFITS

Life Directions

Sentinel Group, an employee bene ts rm, announces the hiring of Ed Maga, a dedicated and experienced professional in the group insurance space. Ed brings more than 30 years of expertise and will play a crucial role in Sentinel’s delivery of comprehensive bene t programs in the Michigan area. He strives to meet the unique needs of employees and employers alike and consistently demonstrates his commitment to making group health bene ts easier for his clients.

Sigred Group, LLC, recruiting and leadership consultants, is pleased to announce that Shannon Allen has joined the rm as a Senior Client Advisor. Shannon brings over 20 years of experience specializing in talent management and development. Prior to joining Sigred Group, Shannon was a talent management specialist and career development leader for a global OEM. Shannon’s focus is on individual coaching, developing training, and mentorship programs to help people and companies reach their goals.

Gregory J. Chancey has been appointed Executive Director of Life Directions, a nation-wide, community-based organization founded in Detroit fty-one years ago. Life Directions motivates and mentors youth and young adults ages 13 to 35 in Public Schools and their surrounding neighborhoods. Board Chair, Luke Jacobi of Benzinga told Crains, “Greg’s decades of leadership experience in both industry and professional services will allow us to grow while staying true to our vision and mission.” Board and Corporate Treasurer, Judge Thomas Hathaway (ret.) added, “Greg’s nonpro t and startup acceleration knowledge will be highly bene cial to Life Directions.” The national Board of Directors and local Board of Trustees welcomes our new executive.

ARCO National Construction arconational.com

Industry-leading general contractor, ARCO has expanded its nationwide presence with the opening of an of ce in Detroit. As the 3rd largest design-build general contractor in the U.S., ARCO Detroit offers the strength and presence of a national builder with the personalized attention of a small company. ARCO’s local team of experts provides new and existing

throughout the region with turnkey solutions on projects spanning all industry types, regardless of complexity or scale.

American Battery Solutions, launched through the purchase of a Bosch battery lab, was acquired by Komatsu in 2023. | AMERICAN BATTERY SOLUTIONS

Whether the footrace abides by state rules that forbid “arbitrary” licensing processes is up for debate. A city hall employee who did not give her name told Crain’s by phone that the city did not host a sanctioned footrace to determine whose planning documents would be reviewed and that the process was simply a first-to-file system.

But to those who participated, those who sprinted from the parking lot to the back door of Harper Woods City Hall that day, it was only the fastest who are being rewarded.

Emails sent to the mayor, every City Council member, the city manager and both economic development officials were not returned. Attempts to reach the mayor, city manager and economic development office by phone were not successful.

‘A total ruckus’

The event that turned into a race started with Harper Woods City Council’s decision to limit cannabis licenses and the method by which it would decide who received those licenses.

The city settled on three available dispensary licenses and decided it would abstain from scoring applicants and instead settled on the seemingly simpler approach of choosing those that filed their planning documents first.

It’s not a new method. Other cities, including Garden City and Westland, used the first-tofile method as their competitive process as well, seemingly without a hiccup.

But there was no footrace in Garden City. Instead, applicants secured their spot in line outside city hall days before the city took review documents, like concert ticket buyers of old.

Harper Woods, however, didn’t want applicants “loiter-

the process incentivized participants to run, not walk, to secure a spot in line.

Pandemonium ensued.

“I’ve never seen anyone going for a business, trying to establish a business anywhere where a footrace is involved to get your doors open,” said Maj Dabish, owner of real estate development firm Heavy Industrial LLC.

“You usually show your plans, you show your financials, you show things you’ve done in the past. That’s how these things get done. But instead there was running and people shoving and a total ruckus.”

Dabish has applied for a local marijuana license with intention of leasing out his property at 19950 Kelly Road to a marijuana dispensary operator.

Dabish’s son, who joined him on that day, landed in the sixth spot in front of the city hall door after being pushed aside by other applicants, Dabish said.

Another applicant, who spoke to Crain’s on the condition of anonymity, finished fourth, just out of the running for planning commission review.

“This wasn’t a competitive process like the state demands,” the applicant said. “It was running a race. There was an elderly man there. That guy can’t run. This was a joke.”

The state Cannabis Regulatory Agency declined to comment on the happenings in Harper Woods.

‘It was pure chaos’

Security video obtained by one of the applicants through the Freedom of Information Act and shared with Crain’s shows a chaotic scene of applicants sprinting with their planning documents in arms and crashing into each other as they reached the city hall door. One applicant even fell in the parking lot and got up limping.

Some applicants realized ahead of time that running speed would wind up being a factor.

Cannabis lawsuits over the selection process have embroiled several municipalities across the state.

ing” on city grounds, as it said in a list of rules for filing obtained by Crain’s. Instead, it chose to squeeze the first-to-file process into one morning — on Nov. 1 last year.

The city’s rules ordered applicants to arrive and line up in a specific way at a specific time. Participants were not allowed to enter the city hall parking lot until 8 a.m. Once there, they had to wait until 8:30 a.m. to line up at the city hall’s back door.

The first three applicants to that line, marked by chalked numbers on the sidewalk, would have their documents reviewed for licensure by the planning commission.

While a seemingly innocuous method to determine winners,

shoves and jostling to get a space in line. One applicant had run from the side of the building, not the designated parking lot, per the rules, to secure the third spot in line, the video showed.

Crain’s has been unable to verify the identity of the first three applicants in line.

“I broke the rules every single way possible,” said an applicant who did not make the top three and asked not to be named due to their company still seeking a license in Harper Woods. “They gave us guidelines that said if the rules were broken, they’d do a random draw from a hat. We wanted that, because this clearly wasn’t a fair process. But they must have liked the outcome of the lineup because they didn’t even question the wrongdoing.”

Dabish said when people complained to Lindley about the process, he told several applicants they had weeks to prepare and that they could have had a faster runner show up. Dabish said Lindley said this to an elderly applicant.

Lindley did not return an email on the matter, and calls to city hall would not be connected to Lindley or the city manager.

“To walk away after years of negotiating for properties and dealing with rules changes, realizing you’ve lost all of that in 30 seconds, I’m at a loss for words,” DiLaura said. “Harper Woods put together a process that was doomed to fail. I’ve seen less malfeasance in this industry and more just dumbass decisions. It’s not bad faith, but bad lawyering and bad advice.”

Lawsuits threatened

Travis Copenhaver, a partner at cannabis law firm Vincente LLP in Ann Arbor, said he warned the city about using an “arbitrary” selection process.

for a shot at a license just doesn’t make sense for us.”

Those potential lawsuits will likely be filed sometime after the Harper Woods planning commission holds its Feb. 28 meeting and licenses are distributed. If one of the first three to file is denied a license, the city would move to the next applicant in line, which is why some of the applicants asked to speak off the record.

Cannabis lawsuits over the selection process have embroiled several municipalities across the state.

The city of Detroit’s launch of recreational marijuana licensing was delayed by two years due to lawsuits over its selection process. Royal Oak, Warren, Pontiac and others also remain tangled in lawsuits.

“The driver of all of this is from probably the worst decision that the drafters of the adult-use statute made — requiring that competitive selection process,” Lance Boldrey, partner and cannabis attorney at Detroit-based law firm Dykema Gossett PLLC, told Crain’s last year. “It all sounds well and good from a policy standpoint, trying to eliminate picking favorites, but it is the longest process and most expensive process for applicants to follow, and you end up with these lawsuits that can tie applicants up in court for three or four years.”

Harper Woods’ marijuana ordinance, only allowing for three dispensaries, is largely based on a rule dictating a 1,500-foot buf-

fer between all marijuana businesses. The small city near Detroit’s east side is only 2.61 square miles. But the city was also taking heat for its selection process.

To avoid litigation, the acting city manager recommended the city eliminate its 1,500-foot buffer, which could open the city to unlimited licensure that would effectively eliminate the need for a competitive process.

However, residents pushed back, gathering to support the buffer at an August council meeting. The City Council voted 4-3 to keep the buffer and limit the number of licenses, WDIV-TV reported.

But the city chose not to create a more advanced competitive structure than the lineup in November.

The city of Roseville, for example, uses a scoring system to determine whether a medical marijuana license is issued based on scores from several factors, such as sufficient application information; whether a proposed facility is consistent with land use; physical improvements to the property; whether applicants have any criminal record; sufficient financial resources; proximity to existing facilities; reasonable size; sufficient operating experience, and more.

“I’m $100,000 into this already, and it’s been nothing but a joke,” said the applicant who requested anonymity. “We’re getting blackballed because I didn’t run to the front of the line fast enough? Come on.”

House of Dank, which operates nine dispensaries across the state, sent three runners, all with duplicate materials, to secure a top 3 spot in line. It didn’t happen.

“We sent them down there early to scope the place out and figure out a strategy,” said Mike DiLaura, House of Dank’s chief corporate officer and general counsel. “But it’s awkward. No one knows when a race is supposed to start unless there’s a starting gun or something. It was pure chaos.”

Stephen Lindley, the city’s economic and community development deputy director, stood in front of the door, according to the video obtained by Crain’s. Numbers were chalked on the sidewalk to his right, according to three people there that day who spoke to Crain’s.

Once the rest of the applicants reached the door, there were

Copenhaver represents Altum LLC in its application for a dispensary in Harper Woods. Altum operates a single dispensary in the state, Pure Canna in Lansing.

“We’ve been telling them there needs to be a merit-based system, but they kept sticking with this first-come, first-serve selection process,” Copenhaver said. “My clients have written why they have a problem with this, and I don’t think it’s too out of our way to say that if this method officially gets used, my clients will seek legal proceedings.”

Dabish also said he plans to sue the city if licenses are distributed based on the footrace results.

“We will definitely 100% take legal action as soon as they follow through and issue the licenses,” Dabish said.

House of Dank isn’t as sure it wants to pursue legal action, DiLaura said.

“Absent a clear path to a license, I don’t think we’ll sue,” DiLaura said. “ ree or four years ago, everyone was primed to ght for every license in every municipality. ings have changed. To spend $100,000 or more ghting

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer | BLOOMBERG

State offers $125M to battery operators to leverage funding

By David Eggert

LANSING — Michigan will give $125 million in matching grants to advanced manufacturers and battery makers to help them leverage federal funding available under three major laws signed by President Joe Biden, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced Feb. 22.

e Democratic governor said applications are open for the state’s new “Battery and Advanced Manufacturing Challenge.” e money is a portion of $350 million that she and lawmakers allotted to the nascent Make it in Michigan Competitiveness Fund in the current budget, a pot designed to land projects via the federal Infrastructure and Jobs Act, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the In ation Re-

MOBILE HOME

From Page 3

e industry, represented by the Michigan Manufactured Housing Association, opposed the bills, warning of “unintended consequences” for the state’s roughly 250,000 people living in nearly 1,100 mobile home parks.

Marge Burns, owner and president of Livonia-based Germano Management Co., which operates two parks with about 800 home sites, formerly served on the commission that regulates the industry. She criticized the proposals to “dangerously expand the commission’s authority into rent-setting” and to change the 11-member body’s composition.

“Given that the proposal requires only two members that have any industry experience or knowledge, it is unlikely that commissioners who are unfamiliar with the industry will be able to determine whether certain capital expenses, operating costs or main-

duction Act.

In a statement, Whitmer said the challenge “will help us secure our position as a clean energy and future mobility powerhouse.” e goal is to use the $125 million to bring home at least $200 million in federal funds for battery and advanced manufacturing projects.  e announcement came the same day the U.S. government said two manufacturers in Michigan, SK Siltron CSS and American Battery Solutions, are lined up to receive $710 million in federalnancing through the IRA.

Speci c funding opportunities supported by the “challenge” include:

Battery materials processing and battery manufacturing grants; Domestic manufacturing con-

tenance expenses necessitate a rent increase,” she said.

“Much like doctors are best suited to serve on a board regulating other doctors, industry members are best suited to know whether a community is being operated properly and whether investments are reasonable and appropriate.”

Burns also questioned a provision that would tie license renewal to an “extraordinary” seven-year look-back on rent hikes, deeming applicants ineligible unless past increases above the consumer price index are authorized by the commission.

Residents weigh in

During the hearing, current and former mobile home residents from Warren, Clarkston and Swartz Creek, near Flint, testi ed in support of the bills.

Holly Hook, who lives in Swartz Creek Estates, said the manufactured home community charged reasonable lot fees until 2018, when it was bought by Havenpark

Ford, UAW avoid Kentucky Truck Plant strike

By Michael Martinez, Automotive News

Ford Motor Co. and the UAW on Feb. 21 reached a tentative agreement on a local contract at the Kentucky Truck Plant, avoiding a potential strike at the Dearborn-based automaker’s most pro table facility.

Todd Dunn, president of UAW Local 862, con rmed the tentative deal. He said the rati cation vote is tentatively scheduled to take place Feb. 28 to March 1.

Details of the proposed local deal, which must be rati ed by members of UAW Local 862, were not immediately available.

e union had said core issues in negotiations involved health and safety within the plant as well as “Ford’s continued attempts to erode the skilled trades” there. e two sides had gone more than ve months without a local

contract when the union this month announced it would strike at 12:01 a.m. Feb. 23 if no deal was reached.

Ford has said Kentucky Truck is its most pro table plant and generates about $25 billion in annual revenue. Workers there build Super Duty pickups as well as the Ford Expedition and Lincoln Navigator large SUVs.

e union set the strike deadline a day after Ford CEO Jim Farley cited last fall’s national strike at Kentucky Truck as a “watershed” moment in which the company realized its formerly strong relationship with the union had changed. He said the company “has to think carefully about its footprint” as it transitions to electric vehicles.

UAW President Shawn Fain later shot back, questioning whether the company needed new leaders.

version grants;

e heat pump domestic production act program;

e advanced manufacturing production credit; and

e advanced manufacturing investment credit.

Applications can be led online. Phase one will close March 14. Phase two will remain open until May 1.

e Michigan Infrastructure Ofce said projects will be chosen based on their ability to bring federal dollars to the state as well the potential to deliver “good jobs,” benet disadvantaged communities and advance competitiveness in a key strategic sector. Whitmer encouraged applicants to o er fair pay, good bene ts and skill bene ts, and to protect their union rights.

Capital Partners. Rents jumped 25% in a month, she said, and additional increases followed over the next year while maintenance was cut.

“ e higher the lot rent goes, the harder it is to move because who wants to buy a home and pay these ridiculous fees?” she said. “And what it makes even worse is it’s hard or impossible to move our homes. It costs ve gures to move our so-called mobile homes to a di erent lot in a di erent park. And if we do manage to sell our homes to somebody else so we can get out, we have to have our buyer approved by the community. is leaves us trapped as we can’t move nearly as easily as other renters. And there’s no free market when residents are trapped.”

e legislation would restructure the licensing system for mobile home parks by reducing the license term from three years to one, boosting fees and likely requiring more state enforcement sta . Park owners would be barred

from engaging in certain deceptive practices and be mandated to notify governments and residents of an intent to sell or make other moves. ere would also be new tools to target unlicensed park owners.

Whitmer, affordable housing advocates in favor

Others backing the measures include Northwest Michigan Community Action Agency, which said a source of a ordable housing is facing increasing pressure due to “unjusti able rent increases.”

Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s administration, via the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory A airs, supported the main bill and two others, saying they would help it to better enforce rules and contact out-of-state owners that cannot be reached.

Esther Sullivan, an associate sociology professor at the University of Colorado Denver and author of the book “Manufactured

Insecurity: Mobile Home Parks and Americans’ Tenuous Right to Place,” said “the truth is we simply don’t often know who owns these parks.” Residents have to tolerate escalating rents, arbitrary fees, nontransparent billing and disinvestment in maintenance, she said.

“ is bill addresses several of these issues and it provides a modest set of basic protections that’s similar to what other states have enacted,” Sullivan said.

John Lindley, president and CEO of the Michigan Manufactured Housing Association, said the organization supports a bipartisan manufactured housing package in the House around which there is more consensus.

“However, many of the proposals within this package will only cause unnecessary and unintended harm to community residents. Further, provisions within this package and other proposals risk signi cantly sti ing the additional housing growth our state so badly needs,” he said.

Ford Motor Co. has said Kentucky Truck is its most pro table plant and generates about $25 billion in annual revenue. | FORD MOTOR

M&A

From Page 1

2023 topped $2 billion.

e decline in deals, especially at the high end, is a major e ect of high interest rates and tighter lending that has caused buyers like private equity rms to pull back on major deals, especially those involving leverage.

e largest deal on the 2023 list by dollar value was Kimco Realty’s acquisition of shoppingcenter owner RPT Realty, long based in South eld and previously known as Ramco-Gershenson Properties Trust, a deal that topped out at $1.98 billion. RPT owned 56 open-air shopping centers, including eight in Michigan – the West Oaks developments in Novi and Winchester Center in Rochester Hills among them. Real estate, housing and -

PENSION

From Page 3

Rather than continue contributing an "excess amount" in the next budget year, Whitmer wants to revise the law to remove the OPEB oor rather than waiting until it automatically goes away in the 2025-26 scal year following an actuarial review, said Caleb Buhs, chief deputy director of the Michigan Department of Technology, Management & Budget. One of its divisions is the O ce of Retirement Services, which administers MPSERS. e oor provision would kick in again if funding drops below 100% down the line, Buhs said.

"We know with this year's contributions we're going to reach 100%, but the actuary won't verify that until after the '25 budget cycle," he said. "So we would end up contributing again in '25 to the fund, which would now be well over 100% funding."

e pension portion of the liability is 64.3% funded and is scheduled to be fully funded by 2038.

Republican Sen. omas Albert of Lowell opposes Whitmer's plan. He sponsored the 2018 law that includes the latest oor rule and said it does not delineate be-

nance acquisitions made up four of the top 10 in 2023, a shift from the large manufacturing deals that typically dominate the largest M&A deals in Michigan.

Among those was the acquisition of Ann Arbor-based mortgage lender Home Point Capital by Mr. Cooper Group for $327.2 million, something of a bargain brought on by tough times in the mortgage business caused by the interest rate spike of the past two years.

By contrast, in 2022, eight of the top 10 deals involved manufacturers, with the other two being in life sciences and health care.

e slowdown in dealmaking wasn’t con ned to Michigan.

Nationwide, private equity investing in 2023 declined for the second straight year to 7,346 deals with a combined value of $645.3 billion, according to PitchBook.

e 2023 deal activity was the

tween pension and health care.

"It was just always understood that it was one, that the UAAL meant both of them," he said, questioning the administration's analysis of the law. Retirees, he said, "don’t di erentiate, they want the bene t they were promised. We could try to split hairs over the accounting mechanisms in the background, but at the end of the day it's all obligations that we have to pay.”

Albert's broader point is that the $670 million should still be put toward the pension debt — in part, he said, to save the state, K-12 districts and other public employers from bigger payments as 2038 nears.

"We can either pay these liabilities now or we can pay back with interest later," he said. "We can pay for something that's cheaper now or we can pay for something that's more expensive later. I understand the governor's proposing these new initiatives, which could be bene cial to kids in the short term depending on how they're rolled out. I guess I'd need to see the actual proposals. But in the long run, we're just not going to be able to sustain this funding."

e law caps, at 20.96% of payroll, what school districts, community colleges and libraries pay toward unfunded liabilities. e

STATION

From Page 1

Additional details on the opening plans were not released.  Michigan Central Station, designed in the Beaux-Arts style, opened in 1913 and has about 500,000 square feet across 18 oors. Amtrak service at the train station was halted in 1988.  e restored building is to include a mixture of Ford and other employees as part of its autonomous and electric vehicle campus, and part of the plan includes turning some of the top oors into hotel space.

District book depository building, which reopened last spring after a yearslong renovation, plus, in later years, other properties around the area.

In the old Albert Kahn-designed book depository — which was once a U.S. Post O ce building — Newlab has built its new Detroit headquarters and its Mobility Studio, where tech and mobility companies can set up shop. Some 1,100-1,400 people are expected to work out of that building.

slowest since 2016 and o sharply from the 2021 peak of 9,967 deals for $1.18 trillion.

However, private equity rms in the U.S. have a record amount of capital on hand to invest — more than $2.3 trillion at the end of last year, according to S&P Global — attorney Andy Newton of Honigman LLP expects investment activity to hold steady and maybe pick up in 2024, he said at an event in Grand Rapids earlier this month.

“ ere are records amounts of dry powder that just has to be spent,” Newton said. “At bare minimum, there’s going to be a baseline level of activity this year that will probably look like last year. It’s just a matter of whether some of these other factors can make this year look a little more like 2019, for example.”

Crain’s reporter Mark Sanchez contributed to this report.

state covers the rest.

Under Whitmer's proposal, it would pay $1.1 billion in the next budget rather than nearly $1.8 billion. Of the $670 million, $100 million would be used to temporarily cut employers' payments to 20% of payroll.

e rest would "restructure the budget in a transformational way," state budget director Jen Flood told lawmakers this month. She mentioned free breakfast and lunch for students, before- and after-school programming, tutoring, an increase in base K-12 funding, an expansion of publicly funded preschool and a new tuition-free community college initiative.

"Now is the time to inject those resources into our schools," she said.

Ford nalized its $90 million train station purchase from the Morouns in May 2018. Matthew Moroun con rmed the purchase a month later, on June 11, and then about a week later, on June 19, Ford held a large event in front of the building formally revealing plans to turn it into the anchor of the campus, the most recent price tag for which was close to $1 billion.

Contractors on the project include:

Christman/Brinker, a joint venture between Lansing-based e Christman Co. and Detroit-based Brinker Group; subcontractors include Livonia-based RAM Construction Services and Detroitbased Grunwell-Cashero Co.  Quinn Evans, architect of record on the building restoration;

Hannah-Neumann/Smith, architect of record on post-restoration and ground- oor activations based in Detroit;  Detroit-based engineering rm Gi els Webster; and  Boston-based Mikyoung Kim Design, landscape architect.

Ford also bought a former Detroit Public Schools Community

Michigan. "It's a start of a conversation, certainly not the end of a conversation."

Peter Spadafore, executive director of the Michigan Alliance for Student Opportunity, said the organization has "some concerns."

"We are more interested in talking about ways to shore up ongoing revenue for the school aid fund to ensure increases for classroom spending happen year over year," he said.

“In the long run, we’re just not going to be able to sustain this funding.”

e Michigan Education Association, the state's biggest public employee union and an important political ally for the governor, supports the pension shift. But groups representing school districts and administrators are not on board.

Republican state Sen. Thomas Albert of Lowell

Ford has also purchased other properties in the area recently, including a portfolio that includes 1.1 acres and three buildings totaling nearly 29,000 square feet, as well as the Assemble Sound portfolio that consists of a historic church dating back a century and a half plus two other properties at 17th Street and Rose Street.

e Dearborn-based automaker’s arrival in Corktown has been one of the catalysts for a slew of new development in the area.

Developers have built new restaurants, a brewery, hotels and multifamily housing such as apartments, townhomes and condos, and the city received a large grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to help fuel the development of more than 800 units of new rental housing — primarily a ordable housing — in the neighborhood and to the north.

ere have also been concerns about gentri cation as rents and real estate prices have increased in anticipation of Ford completing the depot project and bringing several thousand employees to the area, both its workers and others.

Well in advance of its opening, it had already started altering the landscape of Corktown and the broader southwest Detroit area.

what you thought it was going to be," iel said.

"We want to make sure that if that type of a proposal were to move forward that it's not going to have any longer-term impacts negatively on school funding,” said Robert McCann, executive director of the K-12 Alliance of

Craig iel, research director for the nonpartisan Citizens Research Council of Michigan, said that without the statutory change sought by Whitmer, he interprets the law to say that contributions made by employers and the state cannot drop until all liabilities — pension and health care — are paid o . Directing $670 million to the pension portion would be like making an additional principal-only mortgage payment, he said.

"It would de nitely reduce what amount you have to pay towards paying this o going forward from

If the oor is nixed or revised, he said, an alternative approach could be to further lower K-12 schools' contributions to MPSERS rather than what the state pays. at would mean the equivalent of an extra $408 per student on average for schools, which typically advocate for more direct say and exibility over education funding as opposed to the state shaping how it is spent or allotting some for preschool and college.

To put the pension change in place by Oct. 1, the start of the next budget, Whitmer will need six Republicans in the Democratic-led Senate to agree. at, unlike procedural votes for omnibus spending bills to take e ect, is in doubt.

Senate Minority Leader Aric Nesbitt has called the idea "irresponsible" and akin to "shell games."

Whitmer, however, told legislators in her budget presentation that the early paydown toward health care liabilities means "we've got dollars that we don't have to continue to pay toward that. … We can use these freed-up resources to deliver for Michigan students today without shortchanging our retirees (while) maintaining our scal discipline."

The Winchester Center retail plaza in Rochester Hills is owned by RPT Realty, which was based in Farmington Hills until 2018. COSTAR GROUP

Karen Burton works for more diversity in architecture eld

Karen A.D. Burton wanted to be an architect since she was a kid who loved to draw and sketch. After nishing architecture school at the University of Michigan, she began her career in Flint and then ended up in Detroit, doing freelance work on large projects in the city and elsewhere. Today, she runs SpaceLab Detroit, a co-working space company, and Noir Design Parti, which documents the work of Black architects in the city, along with Saundra Little, who is principal director of diversity and inclusion for Quinn Evans Architects, including a podcast series called “Hidden in Plain Site.” Burton spoke with Crain’s about her career, diversity in the architecture eld and her co-working space business.

Let’s talk a little bit about your career trajectory.  I wanted to be an architect since I was in the fourth grade. I went to the University of Michigan and started my career in Flint at a couple small architecture rms, and then made my way here to Detroit. I started freelancing as an architectural designer, a technical person in an architecture rm, doing CAD work and production, working on construction documents. I got to work on a lot of great projects here in the city — the Compuware Building, which is now One Campus Martius, and also with SmithGroup on some great projects. (I also worked with) Hamilton Anderson on the CityCenter project in Las Vegas. I was freelancing as an architectural designer and I wanted a place where my colleagues and I could collaborate on projects together, share resources and bounce ideas o each other and that’s how SpaceLab came about.

You received a grant for Noir Design Parti several years back from the Knight Arts Foundation. Can you talk a little bit about what came out of that grant?

Noir Design Parti highlights the work of Black architects in Michigan. We started out focusing on architects in Detroit and then we discovered that within some of our trailblazer generation — that’s what we call the rst Black architects in Detroit — there were some outside the city of Detroit. We received that grant that sort of kicked o our projects, and then we started doing architectural tours in downtown and Midtown. We did talks with AIA (the American Institute of Architects) and other organizations to highlight the work of, to introduce people to the works of Black architects in Detroit. Most recently, we received a grant from the Michigan Architectural Foundation. My partner, Saundra Little (of Quinn Evans), and I, in Noir Design Parti, started a podcast called “Hidden in Plain Site.” We are interviewing contemporary Black architects in Detroit and Michigan. We’ve completed one season and we’re starting our second season pretty soon. ose grants help us keep the podcast going, and we’re also

Read

By | Kirk Pinho

looking forward to doing books and stu . It’s on Apple, Spotify, Google Play and Amazon Music.

What else is on Noir Design Parti’s plate?

We have most of our interviews for the second season completed. ey are being edited and we are looking forward to getting Season No. 2 out there, promoting that.

We started focusing on the trailblazer generation when we rst started our work. Architects like Nathan Johnson, Howard Sims and Harold Varner. We decided with the podcast, we wanted to start with the younger generation and move backward.

We started with architects and designers like Damon Dickerson; Kimberly Dokes, the rst Black woman elected president of the national AIA; Bryan Cook, who designed the rst 3D-printed house in the Midwest here in Detroit. ere are 10 episodes there and 10 episodes moving back a generation for Season No. 2. Our last season will probably be talking with the family members of our trailblazer generation.

The commercial real estate industry is dominated by white men, and architecture and design are no exception.

What should be done to change that, to bring more women and people of color into the industry?

ere weren’t a lot of people who looked like me in architecture school.

When I started my career, I didn’t think I really had a mentor or someone to guide me through all the steps that need to be taken to become a licensed architect.

While I really don’t regret not becoming licensed, I think if I had that mentorship early on, I may have gone in that direction. My path has guided me to help other people to understand, or to not feel as alone in the architecture and commercial real estate professions. I want to highlight the work of the people who came before me and who I’m working with now. ... (I want to help) bring awareness that architecture is a profession that young Black students, and Black girls in particular, that’s

a career path they can move into. Or even if they want to get a degree in architecture and do something closely related. When I started college, there were no licensed Black women architects in Michigan. I didn’t realize that then. I didn’t realize that until we started this Noir Design Parti project. Just bringing that awareness that architecture is a great profession, it teaches you a lot of skills that are transferable to other careers. I work with the National Organization of Minority Architects, and we have a great program called Project

awareness that you’re not alone in this profession. I want to bring SpaceLab into that, too. We are a very diverse co-working space and it’s a place where people feel like they belong and they can work with like-minded people. It doesn’t matter the race or the gender. Everybody’s working together.

Back to SpaceLab, can you talk a bit about the pandemic’s impact on the company? People are working from home now. But we are fortunate in that we have 11 o ces and only one of them is unoccupied right now, which gives me a place to sit and work until we lease it out (laughs). Our members come in a few days a week. ey want to have time where they can meet with their teams. ey have a hybrid work arrangement but might want to meet in person. Our o ces are occupied. We do have quite a few dedicated desks where people come into the same desk every day. It’s our ex desk in an open area where we are looking to get more members. I think people are used to working at home because of the pandemic. ey go to co ee shops and other places, and we need to really encourage them to come to a work space to be with people who are working on their business or a project and get some of that energy, even if they come into a workspace one day a week. Our virtual o ce customers have really boomed during the pandemic.

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