Crain's Detroit Business, March 13, 2023, issue

Ishbia: ‘We want to dominate.’ PAGE 3

MARIJUANA RECEIVERSHIPS SIGNAL AN INDUSTRY IN

PERIL

Skymint, other cannabis companies struggle as prices plummet

| BY DUSTIN WALSH

e struggles of Lansing’s Skymint, one of the largest marijuana operators in Michigan, aren’t an anomaly.

ey’re a dank declaration: e state’s cannabis industry is in trouble.

Skymint, the brand name for Green Peak Innovations Inc., owes its investors at least $135 million, owes millions in back taxes and is woefully behind on its rent obligations, lawsuits led by its creditors say.

Its nancial outlook is so bleak, a judge in Ingham County Circuit Court has installed a receiver to run the company, representing either a lifeline or a liquidation.

Skymint isn’t alone.

At least four other marijuana companies are currently under the direction of a court-ordered receiver, according to data obtained by Crain’s from the Michigan Cannabis Regulatory Agency — Uldaman Inc., which does business as dispensary Green Planet Patient Collection in Ann Ar-

bor; Rehbel Industries, a grow operation in Lansing; Huron View LLC, doing business as Huron View Provisioning Center in Ann Arbor; and Bay Shore Development Group, a grow operation in Bay City.

“It’s just bad out there right now,” said Doug Mains, principal and co-leader of the cannabis practice for Detroit law rm Honigman LLP. “Everyone is struggling to pay bills and negotiating lending extensions.”

Marijuana remains a Schedule 1 drug at the federal level, which bars cannabis companies from being able to use the federal bankruptcy courts to settle debts, leaving state circuit courts as the only means for financial protection.

HOA fees create buyer sticker shock

BY NICK MANES

Any Zillow addict in Detroit has all but assuredly gotten sticker shock when looking at the HOA fees for some condos in the city. Communities such as the Harbortown condos, 1300 Lafayette building and other options along the east riverfront and in Detroit’s central business district can require homeowner association fees that in some cases exceed the monthly mortgage payment. at creates something of a twofold problem, experts say.

INSIDE: The city’s wide-ranging condo market slows. PAGE 17

upgrades in their units with the hope of seeing a return with a sale.

In short, purchasing a condo can be a “buyer beware” situation, experts say.

First, the HOA fees serve as an obvious deterrent to many buyers who might be attracted to some of the amenities and relatively carefree living many of the developments o er, but are turned o by the additional fees. Secondly, that creates a challenging market for sellers, many of whom invested in

BLUE WATER MEETS BIG PLANS

“ ere’s a lot of condo purchasers who have all these pop-up expenses when they think they have everything covered,” said Je Horner, an associate professor in urban planning at Wayne State University in Detroit.

See HOA on Page 17

ST. CLAIR, PORT HURON ATTRACT INVESTORS LARGE AND SMALL AMID DEVELOPMENT BOOM.

BEGINS ON PAGE 8

High pop-up costs can leave sellers holding the bag

Condo owners at The Lofts at Rivertown on Je erson Avenue in Detroit can face homeowner association fees and other special assessments in addition to their mortgage payments. | NIC ANTAYA/ CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

THE WEEK IN REVIEW, WITH AN EYE ON WHAT’S NEXT NEED TO KNOW

 NOVI RESTAURANT STEVE & ROCKY’S SOLD AND REBRANDED

THE NEWS: Founders Steve Allen and Chuck “Rocky” Rachwitz sold community favorite Steve & Rocky’s to a team led by Robert Loomis, who was the restaurant’s general manager for more than three years. Loomis and his team took over ownership of the restaurant last Monday and Brentwood Grille opened in its place at 43150 Grand River Ave. on Tuesday.

WHY IT MATTERS: Despite the name and ownership changes, many of the things that made Steve & Rocky’s popular for more than 25 years will remain the same. Allen will stay on as executive chef and culinary consultant and the entire Steve & Rocky’s sta has also been maintained. A new menu will be introduced later this spring, though some Steve & Rocky’s menu items will continue to be o ered.

 LOVE & BUTTERCREAM OWNER TO CLOSE BAKERY

THE NEWS: After more than 10 years, three kids, countless special events and a pandemic, Love & Buttercream owner Brooke Wilson is pressing pause on her beloved bakery business. Wilson, who has owned and operated Love & Buttercream since 2010, is shutting down her shop at 746 E. Maple Road just outside of downtown Birmingham. She doesn’t have a

rm date yet, but her lease is up May 1. She’ll take orders through March and may continue through April.

WHY IT MATTERS: e bakery owner’s decision comes as the small business has rebounded from losses incurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. Love & Buttercream brought in about $1 million in revenue in 2022, matching 2019 gures. at comes as the business, which bakes everything from wedding cakes to sandwich cookies from scratch, has been operating with a fraction of the sta it had prior to the start of pandemic. Love & Buttercream has 12 employees. At its peak in 2019, the business had around 40 employees.

NEW IN MICHIGAN

WHY IT MATTERS: Levine Leichtman Capital Partners specializes in investing in franchises and multi-unit retailers, including acquisitions of companies including Tropical Smoothie Cafe, Nothing Bundt Cakes, Mountain Mike’s Pizza and Wetzel’s Pretzels. Kilwins owners Robin and Don McCarty have owned the business since 1995 and will retain an ownership interest in the company.

 BLOOMFIELD HILLS LAW FIRM TO PAY RESTITUTION

Balenciaga, Breitling open at Somerset Collection

 Another globally recognized, high-end luxury retailer has chosen Somerset Collection for its rst store in Michigan.

Spanish brand Balenciaga opened a 3,600-square-foot store in the Troy mall last month. Founded in 1919 by designer Cristóbal Balenciaga in San Sebastian, Spain, and based in Paris, Balenciaga sells clothing, shoes, bags, accessories, jewelry and glasses. e Troy store — on the rst level of Somerset South between Versace and bag maker MCM — is the company’s 39th U.S. location.

LAKES

THE NEWS: Two well-known Michigan food brands are under new ownership. Petoskey-based Kilwins Quality Confections was sold to Beverly Hills, Calif.-based private equity rm Levine Leichtman.

THE NEWS: A Bloom eld Hills-based law rm charged with criminal activity for its debt collection practices was ordered Tuesday to pay $148,553 in restitution. Marc Fishman, president of Fishman Group PC, entered a no-contest plea in Oakland County court on behalf of his rm to the charge of maintaining a criminal enterprise, a 20-year felony, according to a news release from Attorney General Dana Nessel’s o ce. e court granted immediate sentencing, which called for Fishman Group to pay the restitution to all debtors who were improperly garnished and not already paid back, plus $200 in court fees.

WHY IT MATTERS: Fishman and his son Ryan, along with fellow attorney Alexandra Ichim, were originally charged in 2021 in Genesee County District Court for running a scheme to rip o small debtors.

Somerset Collection South in recent months also added Gucci’s rst men’s store and a store from outerwear brand Moncler. e north side of the mall that straddles Big Beaver Road added Swiss watch retailer Breitling earlier this year in a 700-square-foot ground oor space near Pandora. A celebration to mark the opening of Breitling’s rst boutique in the Detroit area is scheduled for March 28. And popular footwear retailer Allbirds opened its rst store in Michigan on the rst oor of the Nordstrom wing of the mall.

Balenciaga’s Somerset store opening follows a controversy near the end of last year due to ads that featured toys in bondage clothing.

Paris-based retailer

Balenciaga has opened its rst Michigan store inside Somerset Collection South.

 KILWINS, GREAT

POTATO CHIPS SOLD

BALENCIAGA

Mat Ishbia: ‘We want to dominate, and we’re going to compete’

Mat Ishbia has nothing personal against Dan Gilbert. He just wants to “dominate” in business.

e two metro Detroit billionaires have a long and well-documented feud, with the most recent — and perhaps most public — example coming last month when the Rocket Mortgage founder and owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers NBA team abstained from voting in favor of Ishbia joining the ranks of professional franchise owners. Ishbia got the Phoenix Suns anyway.

To no surprise, that topic came up Tuesday when Ishbia, president and CEO of Pontiac-based United Whole-

MANUFACTURING

sale Mortgage, was recognized as Crain’s Newsmaker of the Year for 2022 during a luncheon event at the MGM Grand Detroit.

“I have no disrespect ... for Dan Gilbert,” Ishbia told the crowd of about 360 people while on stage with Crain Communications Inc. President and CEO KC Crain. “I wish him all the best, I want him to be healthy. All good stu . No personal thing. ere are a lot of people at Rocket Mortgage that are good people. But in business we want to dominate and we’re going to compete. ey don’t like me, and I don’t like them.”

Ishbia’s ongoing rivalry with Gilbert and his Rocket Mortgage was

one of myriad topics that permeated the mortgage giant executive’s year in 2022 and has continued into 2023.

He began 2023 leading the dominant mortgage lender in the industry, with more than 50 percent market share in the wholesale channel, and having originated more loans than any other lender for two quarters in a row.

Ishbia’s company taking that top position in the industry comes as there’s continued consternation in the overall economy about the upward trajectory of interest rates, which have served as a wet blanket for many mortgage lenders.

NONPROFITS

Eastern Market nonpro t gets new president Plans housing, food distribution projects

KIRK PINHO

It’s tting that Dietrich Knoer ended up running Eastern Market Development Corp.

After all, it was close to eight years ago that Knoer entered Detroit development proper with a 4:30 a.m. tour of the city’s historic food-centric district, ultimately prompting the formation of e Platform LLC with Peter Cummings.

BRACING FOR IMPACT

Ford development in Marshall creates opportunity — and uncertainty

For some in Marshall, the $3.5 billion electric vehicle battery factory planned by Ford Motor Co. is seen as a business boon. But for others, it is a threat.

Work is ramping up on the automaker’s lithium iron phosphate battery plant with Chinese giant Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., which promises to create 2,500 jobs in Calhoun County and secure Michigan a spot in the automotive future, according to ocials.

Workers with Detroit-based general contractor Walbridge Group were seen recently shuttling to and from a large barn at the center of the 2,000-acre megasite that appears to be serving as a command center for the gargantuan

construction project at hand.

While the long-term economic impact of the project remains to be seen, it has longtime Marshall resident Michael Kelley, 56, wondering what sort of future his small business has in the quiet town.

“It’s bittersweet with an emphasis on bitter,” said Kelley, who has lived in Marshall and owned Cornerstone Roo ng & Siding for the past 30 years.

e uncertainties of the plant’s impact on the environment, noise and tra c are one thing, said Kelley, who lives three-quarters of a mile away from the future factory. What it could do to his small

ing company, however, keeps him up at night.

But after some time working with his wife Katy Knoer on the Give anks Bakery and his own rm, Paladin Partners, he is now leading the EMDC, working on things like new a ordable housing with development partners as well as a new food distribution center that was backed by $12 million in state funding last year.

Knoer brings some development repower to EMDC, which is a nonpro t entity operating under the umbrella of the Eastern Market Partnership, led by Dan Carmody.

He’s worked on projects like e Boulevard apartment complex and the renovations to the Fisher Building with e Platform as well as South eld-based Redico LLC, which brought him to metro Detroit a decade ago. Before that, he spent time in Chicago and Atlanta with Hines Interests LP and London with J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.

He and e Platform parted ways in October 2019.

Knoer said he is working to “protect the authenticity of the district.”

“I’m excited to be part of the team and continue the work that has started,” Knoer said. “ ere is a lot to do now in the execution phase to really get to the point where these

Downtown Marshall is a little more than 2 miles east of the 950-acre megasite pegged for a $3.5 billion Ford Motor Co. EV battery plant. | KURT NAGL/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

roof-

Longtime Marshall resident Michael Kelley, who owns a local roo ng company, stands along the Kalamazoo River near his house and the megasite where Ford Motor Co. plans to build a $3.5 billion EV battery plant. | KIM JONES

KURT NAGL

Knoer

Mat Ishbia, president and CEO of United Wholesale Mortgage and Crain’s Detroit Business Newsmaker of the Year, speaks last Tuesday during a program at the MGM Grand Detroit recognizing the year’s Newsmakers. | BRETT MOUNTAIN/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

In an industry typically dominated by men, three women just started their own commercial real estate rm.

Angela omas, Erica Dunlap and Megan Zurvalec teamed up to form AERES Real Estate after years of working for two of the best-known rms in the business, Southeld-based brokerage house Signature Associates Inc. ( omas and Dunlap) and Dan Gilbert’s Detroit-based Bedrock LLC (Zurvalec).

At Signature, omas and Dunlap were also branded the AERES team — the “A” for Angela, the rst “E” for Erica and “RES” for “real estate services” — and were active in deals in Birmingham, Detroit and elsewhere.

(Full disclosure: omas and Dunlap have the leasing listing for the Brewery Park o ce complex in Detroit’s Eastern Market area. e complex is owned by the Crain family and is where Crain Communications Inc., parent company of Crain’s Detroit Business, is headquartered.)

Zurvalec was previosuly operations manager for Bedrock.

ey kept the AERES name and the listings they wanted to retain and formed AERES Real Estate in December.

In a statement, omas and Dunlap said:

“Our clients work with us because of who we are and how we operate. We wanted full autonomy to focus on the real estate projects that interest us, big and small. We are not dollar driven. We are relationship driven. e commission model in a traditional brokerage doesn’t make sense for our lifestyle anymore. We could pay for the resources needed and net more at the end of the year. Additionally, we wanted to focus on who we are as a team, an experienced all-women team that provides phenomenal customer service. We want our brand to shine, and we feel we can build upon this now.”

ey continued:

“We are negotiating time and money for our clients, meanwhile, those are also our two biggest assets, and we want to allocate them di erently. With

our time, we want to work on projects we are passionate about. With our money, rather than traditional brokerage splits where we share with the house, we want to choose how we spend those dollars and strategically appropriate the money earned towards new and exciting marketing ideas for the properties and clients we represent.”

Among those, according to the AERES website: e 150 West Je erson high-rise for South eld-based Redico LLC; the Gri n in Royal Oak, on behalf of West Bloom eld Township-based Singh Development Co.; and the 4219 Woodward Ave. building in Detroit’s Midtown neighborhood.

e three professionals join what Jennifer omas (no relation to Angela omas) says is a growing number of women starting their own commercial real estate rms.

Jennifer omas, who is president of the board for the Detroit chapter of Commercial Real Estate Women, says there has been an increased membership in the organization from women who have stepped out on their own and started their own companies.

“We do have a lot more than you would think who are doing their own thing. I know people who are dabbling with doing the same,” said Jennifer omas, who is director of land development for Shelby Township-based Lombardo Homes.

And women developers like Sonya Mays, Susan Harvey, Sauda Shakoor Ahmad-Green, Kathy Makino-Leipsitz and many others have been working on projects of their own both in the city and the suburbs.

Alis Manoogian, who is assistant vice president of investment sales at South eld-based Farbman Group, has been selected as the rst female president of the Michigan chapter of Certi ed Commercial Investment Member, or CCIM, a commercial real estate and investment trade group.

“We are really excited to see more women entering that kind of space o on their own and making a big splash in the industry,” said Manoogian, who said some of her goals for CCIM Michigan include increasing female mentorship opportunities and training and professional development opportunities for women. Historically, CCIM has had about 200 members.

“From early on when I rst joined the industry, looking around my ofce or at networking events, I was seeing mostly men in leadership, but there has been a clear push for more women in leadership,” Manoogian said. “We are making small steps, small advancements, and that’s what’s going to get us to reach our goal.”

Manoogian, assistant vice president of investment sales, Farbman Group

Just a few examples I can recall from recent memory:

Connaé Pisani started National Real Estate Management Group in 2018, which does property management, brokerage, construction and investment management services. Lynette Boyle and Krystol Rappuhn started Beanstalk Real Estate Solutions, which works in property management and brokerage. Kyle Erin Darcy started Uncommon Space, a brokerage she started after working with Bedrock on major retail deals downtown. Monique Becker and Elyse Wolf started Mona Lisa Living, developing properties and doing some contracting and management.

Jill Ferrari and Shannon Morgan formed Renovare Development LLC.

ere is much to be done — of course, not just to advance women in CRE, but also people of color and the LGBTQ community.

CREW says about 36 percent of the industry is women; that hasn’t changed much in the last 15 years. e commercial real estate industry is often seen as a “good old boys club,” Jennifer omas said, using a term other women have used to describe the industry.

“While people think we are breaking barriers and that is going away, unfortunately in some areas, the good old boys club is still there and it’s very hard to break through.”

Contact: kpinho@crain.com; (313) 446-0412; @kirkpinhoCDB

From left to right, Angela Thomas, Megan Zurvalec and Erica Dunlap, who started AERES Real Estate in January after working for Signature Associates Inc. (Thomas and Dunlap) and Bedrock LLC (Zurvalec). AERES REAL ESTATE

“From a business perspective, I can tell you we are in a lot of fear that a lot of the labor force is going to be robbed for general labor to accommodate this megasite,” Kelley said. “ e funds and the resources of this are unlimited compared to what small businesses have.”

Site prep, led by Walbridge, is progressing as crews race to meet Ford’s 2026 production goal. Subcontractors, including Warren-based Iafrate Construction, are posting open job positions from supervisors and machine operators to general laborers.

ey will need thousands of construction workers to build the factory. Walbridge was also hired by Ford to build its $5.6 billion plant in Tennessee, and the construction giant said last year that project would require 11,000 direct construction jobs and several thousand more related personnel.

Walbridge deferred an inquiry about the Marshall plant to Ford. e Dearborn-based automaker did not return requests for comment.

“ ey’re going to vacuum every decent, legitimate employee,” said Kelley, who employs 10 people. “We’re going to be the rst ones that get sucked dry.”

Kelley had already been dealing with other companies poaching his employees. He said his labor costs have increased 40 percent in the past three years as the skilled trades labor shortage in Michigan is laid bare by large-scale projects forthcoming or in progress around the state.

e pay scale at Cornerstone Roofing is $22-$35 per hour. Kelley said he is doubtful he can out-pay the competition and is looking at other ways to convince employees to stay put.

“We’ve had conversations about this,” he said. “I try to reiterate that I am going to be here long-term.”

Andrew Scibbe, owner of Pastrami Joe’s in Marshall, said sta ng has stabilized since he bought the restaurant last year, but nding workers remains a struggle.

“It’s tough to get people to apply in food service because that’s just an industry, similar to manufacturing, (in which) especially the younger generation is looking for other work,” Scibbe said.

During a recent lunch rush at the popular diner, lines formed to the door, and Scibbe recognized the potential. He hopes the Ford plant brings in new job candidates and customers alike, helping fuel his expansion plan for the restaurant.

“It’s iconic, and I’d like to expand it,” he said.

Employer impact

e injection of new manufacturing jobs also threatens to worsen the general shortage of labor in that sector.

Denso Corp., which employs around 2,700 people in the Battle Creek area and counts Ford among its customers, has a unique perspective of the uncertainty and opportunity represented by the new battery plant. On one hand, a new automaker plant is likely to lure away employees. On the other, a supplier’s success is dependent on the success of its customer — and a new plant could mean new business.

“While the new facility will likely push us to compete harder for talent, we’re always looking for ways to enhance the employee experience, give our teammates paths for growth and

to support the next generation of manufacturing professionals,” Denso spokesman Andrew Rickerman said in an email. “We’re hopeful the facility’s proximity will give us even more opportunity to continue to support Ford’s transition to cleaner and safer mobility.”

Battle Creek-based Kellogg Co. did not return requests for comment. Flex-N-Gate, another major employer in the region, declined to comment.

Susan Corbin, director of the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity, said her department is working with local workforce agencies, which have identi ed competition for labor as a signi cant concern for employers.

“ ere’s a recognition that that could happen and that we all have a responsibility to support not only Ford … but we also have an obligation to the employers who are already in the region,” Corbin said.

Calhoun County’s unemployment rate of 4.5 percent is nominally higher than the state’s overall rate of 4.3 percent, but like other parts of the state and across the country, the region is struggling to bring residents back into the labor market.

e county’s labor force had been growing steadily since 2017 but has not recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic. As of 2021, the county had a labor force of 63,622 — down 2,585 from 2019, according to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Corbin said she is working to bring residents back to work and nd new pools of labor, as well as help existing employers with recruitment and retention. e department and local workforce agencies are aiming to tap into under-represented labor pools such as immigrants, veterans, justice-involved residents and those in the disabled community.

Jobs at the new Ford plant would pay an average yearly wage of $45,136, according to a breakdown obtained by Crain’s. ree-quarters of the jobs would pay $41,600. e median household income in Calhoun County was $53,286 in 2021, according to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau data.

Skeptics argue that won’t be enough to convince workers and

company, but he’s skeptical and ocials aren’t sure either.

“I think we’ll just have to see how that plays out,” Corbin said.

Anderson’s main gripe about the Ford plant is the massive state subsidy propping it up. Michigan o cials have dedicated roughly $1.6 billion of incentives and site prep funds for the plant.

“ e plan here is to pay lower wage workers to make fewer parts in the state of Michigan and to subsidize the heck out of it,” he said. “How does that make sense?”

Automotive future

Zooming out, the plant means a lot more to Michigan’s economy than plant jobs and temporary construction work, proponents say. O cials have argued that the state has only a brief window to capitalize on the ood of investment during a oncein-a-century industry transformation.

“ is helps anchor the other investments in the state,” said Kristin Dziczek, automotive policy adviser with the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago’s Detroit Branch. “If the supply chain is local or regional, then you get jobs in supply chains.”

and has most of the 2,000-acre megasite under option, said Jim Durian, CEO of the agency.

Additionally, there are about 150 acres ready or near ready for development at the nearby Brooks Industrial Park.

“We’ve got everything from housing developers to industrial developers looking to identify sites,” Durian said. “I think that when you land a big deal like this, it builds more momentum for opportunities.”

Durian said conversations have started with automotive suppliers, but no deals have been cemented. “We just know that the supplier usually follows a large project like this,” he said.

e most recent comparison is General Motors Co. Michigan ocials drew heavy criticism a year ago for giving the automaker $824 million in incentives to lure $7 billion in EV investments near Lansing and in Orion Township, but it has spurred major investments by local suppliers.

families to uproot from elsewhere in Michigan or out of the state and move to Marshall.

“You’re not going to be able to get middle-class families to move for that,” said Patrick Anderson, CEO of East Lansing-based Anderson Economic Group. “ ere’s the rub. I think Ford, if they pay enough wages, will be able to get people to move to Marshall.”

If that were to happen, the region would require signi cantly more housing stock to accommodate a rush of workers, Corbin said. at would create opportunity for folks like Kelley, who owns the roo ng

Manufacturing jobs have a signicantly higher economic multiplier than other types of positions because of all the inputs needed at manufacturing jobs, Dziczek said. And higher-wage engineering jobs often follow manufacturing jobs.

Ford’s planned plant has an employment multiplier of 3.38, meaning that for every direct job from Ford, the state’s economy will add 3.38 indirect jobs.

Economic developers are already at work readying sites for Ford’s suppliers in Marshall. While the battery plant will take up 950 acres, the Marshall Area Economic Development Alliance has closed on 1,100 acres

Lear Corp. announced and $80 million battery parts plant in Independence Township to support GM after opening a new seating plant in Detroit that supplies GM’s Factory Zero in Hamtramck. Magna International announced $500 million of investment in the state, including at plants supplying the Detroit-based automaker.

GM itself is eyeing the former Palace of Auburn Hills site for a potential 1.1 million-square-foot “supplier park” that could include R&D jobs, Crain’s reported.

“ e tie between manufacturing and engineering is very tight, especially for new products and new technologies,” Dziczek said. “ ey tend to invest in those locations closer to the neighboring hubs.”

Contact: knagl@crain.com; (313) 446-0337; @kurt_nagl

At Pastrami Joe’s in downtown Marshall on Thursday, Jay Surber and Sarah Zebolsky ring up customers during the lunch rush, while owner Andrew Scibbe looks over the restaurant. | KURT NAGL/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

Anderson Corbin Durian Scibbe

Solar power could give businesses independence

Over 600,000 DTE ratepayers lost power across the state of Michigan at the end of February due to the catastrophic ice storms — I was one of them. Almost a week later, I was fortunate to nally have my power back, though tens of thousands in our region were still left in the dark.

Sadly, this is a familiar story for those of us located in DTE’s service territory.

‘Right-to-work’ repeal a big step backward

Michigan nally has momentum again. After years of economic stagnation and even a so-called “lost decade,” we’re again seeing companies announcing major expansions and new manufacturing operations, promising thousands of good-paying jobs.

Now, Democrats are putting our economic growth at risk — and for no good reason.

On Wednesday, House Democrats jammed through, along party lines, repeal of Michigan’s 2012 “right-to-work” law that bans mandated fees for collective bargaining units in union shops.

e legislation now moves to the state Senate, where Democrats hold a slim 20-18 majority. A vote is expected as early as this week, which would send it to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, also a Democrat.

e Democrats do have their reasons.

ey’ll tell you it’s about workers’ rights and a fairness issue, saying an employee in a union job shouldn’t be allowed to opt out of paying dues because they are then “freeloading” o those who do pay.

But let’s be real. is is about bare-knuckle politics.

e Democrats, who now control the House, Senate and governor’s mansion for the rst time in nearly 40 years, are using their newfound power to pay back unions for their support.

is is also about revenge. Democrats and the unions have seethed for more than a decade over the way Republicans and then-Gov.

Rick Snyder, who at that time had total political control in Lansing, rammed through the “rightto-work.” It was ugly then and it’s ugly now. We can do better.

e truth is, no one has been able to point to hard, empirical evidence of whether “right-towork” has helped or hurt Michigan. Both sides can cherry-pick data to make their argument.

But there is an overarching reality that we nd most persuasive in saying keep the law as it is: Michigan is ghting for jobs and economic growth in an increasingly competitive world.

e Michigan Chamber of Commerce and the Michigan Manufacturers Association, and many other business groups, are on record opposing the repeal of right-to-work.

Jonas Peterson, CEO of Southwest Michigan

First, an economic development group that also operates a network of site-selection professionals, urged lawmakers not to make this risky move.

“Here’s what those site selectors tell us: Right-to-work makes states more competitive,” Peterson said. “ ey also tell us that for some job-creation projects, states that do not have right-to-work are simply not considered. We’re not even in the game.”

In the past year, Michigan has seen a string of economic announcements giving the state momentum: new electric vehicle and battery factories in all parts of the state, from metro Detroit to Marshall to Big Rapids.

Michigan is heading in the right direction. Now, we’re not saying repeal of right-to-work will kill all of that activity. But it won’t help.

With Democrats holding a narrow 20-18 majority in the Senate, it would only take one senator to see the bigger picture and put a stop to this. Of course, Whitmer could as well.

Now is not the time to put Michigan’s economic momentum at risk.

Even though these ice storms hit much of the Midwest, DTE owned the most prolonged and severe outage in the region. To make matters worse, this has all unfolded against the backdrop of the proposed record-breaking rate hike of 14 percent by DTE — ensuring that customers already struggling with nancial hardship as a result of the outage will be even worse o .

e utility’s failure to invest in their infrastructure has real economic consequences, both for families and small businesses like ours. Our family owns and operates e Bear Factory in Whitmore Lake. Over the summer, we lost power due to the violent wind storms and had to shut down operations — costing us about $100,000 in lost sales. To a small business like ours, that’s a major hit.

Fortunately, we were able to invest in our own energy independence at home, knowing that without signi cant investment in the power grid by DTE, my family would be burdened with another prolonged outage. We purchased a new solar energy installation and battery storage, which proved vital during this latest series of storms. We looked to clean energy to not only be more environmentally friendly, but to also realize a cost savings over time, and provide some independence from DTE’s unreliable grid — a true win-win-win. But not everyone can a ord to make such an investment.

at’s why we must also support community solar. Two common sense pieces of legis-

lation will be heard before the Michigan legislature again this session. Together, these bills would increase access to solar across Michigan by fully enabling community solar projects. Currently, state law precludes these types of projects and instead grants exclusive control over community energy projects to utility companies, like DTE. Under this new legislation, locally permitted community-owned solar projects could proliferate. is would create jobs, increase property tax revenues, reduce energy bills, and help to reduce our carbon emissions.

ere is still more we can do to incentivize solar and increase our energy security. We must remove the 1 percent cap on distributed generation in the state of Michigan. Currently, the law hampers job growth, restricts renewable energy investment, and reduces access to a ordable clean energy. Yet, it comes as no surprise that the legislation to raise that cap was actively lobbied against by both DTE and Consumers Energy last year.

e solutions are clear and the realities of climate change demand swift action.

DTE must stop blocking the pathway for distributed solar generation and community solar and it must update its outdated and failing infrastructure across the state.

e Michigan State House and Senate Energy Committees should hold hearings including experts, those of us a ected by the outage, and DTE and Consumers Energy to demand accountability and reform. ey should pass legislation to ensure that community solar and distributed generation can be signi cantly ramped up.

e reality is that unless we carve out a path for more clean energy, reduce our reliance on DTE’s grid, and see real utility accountability and investment we’re going to be telling this story all over again. It’s time for Michigan to, quite literally, take our power back from DTE.

DANIEL SAAD/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

MICHIGAN IS FIGHTING FOR JOBS AND ECONOMIC GROWTH IN AN INCREASINGLY COMPETITIVE WORLD.

JIMMY BANISH

Jimmy Banish is the co-owner of e Bear Factory and a member of the Great Lakes Business Network.

THE LAW HAMPERS JOB GROWTH, RESTRICTS RENEWABLE ENERGY INVESTMENT, AND REDUCES ACCESS TO AFFORDABLE CLEAN ENERGY.

Investment rm Cascade Partners expands into Grand Rapids

South eld-based company acquires BlueWater Partners as part of its overall growth strategy

BY MARK SANCHEZ | MIBIZ

GRAND RAPIDS — Acquiring fellow middle-market investment banking firm BlueWater Partners LLC gives Southfield-based Cascade Partners LLC a significant market presence in West Michigan.

Cascade Partners has long wanted to expand into Grand Rapids as part of an overall growth strategy, Managing Director Rajesh Kothari said. Purchasing BlueWater Partners “proved to be a fantastic way to do it by getting a great team of folks who have been in the community forever, which was important,” he said.

“This really solidified our desire and goal to be in Grand Rapids. It gives us people on the street in West Michigan all of the time,” Kothari told MiBiz. “We wanted to grow, they wanted to grow, and it made just good sense. And culturally, there was a good fit. We think it’s going to bring a lot of great added resources to the clients that we’re serving in West Michigan and throughout the Midwest, which is where a majority of our client base is.”

Cascade Partners, a middle-market investment banking and private investment firm with locations in metro Detroit and Cleveland, opened a Grand Rapids office about a year ago “but didn’t really have it staffed yet,” Kothari said.

All of BlueWater’s staff, including Managing Partner Matt Miller and his father, founder and Managing Partner Ronald Miller, joined Cascade Partners and will continue to work out of McKay Tower in downtown Grand Rapids. Ronald Miller, who formed BlueWater in 2001, will become a managing director for Cascade Partners and run the restructuring practice, a service the firm gained with the acquisition.

“It’s all about finding the right people. We want to be in Grand Rapids and we found the right people,” said Kothari, who has ties to Grand Rapids and once served on the board of trustees for Priority Health.

Adding a restructuring practice to Cascade’s existing buy- and sellside M&A and financing services “makes the firm’s toolkit pretty unique,” Kothari said. Cascade can now help “organizations figure out how to improve their operations through our restructuring work and performance improvement, or realizing the value through an exit or helping build value by doing acquisitions,” he added.

Cascade Partners also gets increased depth in serving industrial, manufacturing, distribution and service companies, which have been a key focus for BlueWater.

The transaction for BlueWater closed Feb. 27. Terms of the deal were undisclosed. The Grand Rapids operations will take on the Cascade Partners name, Kothari said.

Dickinson Wright PLLC served as BlueWater’s legal adviser in the transaction. Giarmarco Mullins & Horton PC advised Cascade Partners.

Matt Miller told MiBiz that BlueWater Partners in 2018 began weighing how to grow the firm, continue to innovate, “provide

troit and other markets, he said.

“We were really looking to grow our team, add depth to our team, broaden our reach and expand our resources in terms of research, analysis, technology. This accomplishes all of those things,” Miller said. “This checks all of those boxes. We just did it in a different way.”

more opportunities for our employees … (and) deliver more for our clients.” The strategy included considering acquisitions to grow in De-

As part of a long-term succession plan, the sale to Cascade Partners also gives BlueWater a “deeper, wider bench” to access international investors and buyers for sell-side clients, Miller said.

The acquisition came together as executives at BlueWater Partners started thinking a year ago about alternatives and “really decided that exploring a sale was probably the best alternative, assuming we found the right fit,” Miller said. The partners then put together a “short list” of firms that “we felt made sense” and could offer that alignment, he said.

As BlueWater partners talked with professionals in their networks, an attorney introduced Miller to Kothari. They began talking

and found that their values and the two firms’ cultures “meshed very well,” Miller said.

“It turned out to be a great answer,” he said. “Our values actually line up very well.”

After buying BlueWater Partners and solidifying the firm’s position in the Grand Rapids market, Cascade Partners in the years ahead may look to expand elsewhere in the Midwest, possibly in Indianapolis and Minneapolis, Kothari said.

“We continue to look at growing across the Midwest,” he said.

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Kothari Miller

CRAIN’S MICHIGAN BUSINESS: ST. CLAIR COUNTY

PROCESS SUCCESS

Port Huron whiskey makers bet on technique that cuts aging time

PAGE 10

A LOT BREWING IN ST. CLAIR

Post-pandemic, development hits on all cylinders in small city

For a small city with a population of just 5,900, St. Clair has a big roster of current or just completed economic development projects.

ey include large industrial expansions by the likes of Magna and Cargill, but also smaller projects that will have a big impact.

ey range from Troy-based Hamlin Pubs doing a $1.5 million complete renovation of the former Drifter’s Inn on the Plaza courtyard that overlooks the St. Clair River and is the city’s entertainment and commercial center; the nearly completed construction of the $3.8 million 15,500-square-foot, 370-seat Boardwalk eatre, a professional performance venue on the far southwest end of the Plaza; the purchase by the Dearborn-based LaFontaine Automotive Group of Bill MacDonald Ford last October; the ongoing $426.6 million, 740,000-square-foot expansion of the Magna International Inc. plant in the city’s industrial park; and the ongoing $68 million construction of a ve-story evaporation facility at the Cargill Inc. plant on the river to increase production of the company’s iconic Diamond Crystal kosher salt by 25 percent.

Cargill hopes to nish construction this summer and Magna in the fourth quarter. (See related story, this page.)

John DeAngelis and Jim Tavano, owners of Hamlin Pubs, are targeting the Memorial Day weekend to open their eighth bar and restaurant, and the Boardwalk is planning on beginning rehearsals in May and launching live shows with “Hello, Dolly!” on Aug. 4.

 Post-pandemic, development hits on all cylinders in small city.

THIS PAGE

 St. Clair County sees nine large expansion projects THIS PAGE

 Wrigley Center turns old grocery into ‘game-changer PAGE 9

 Whiskey makers bet on technique that cuts aging time

PAGE 10

 Bids sought a second time for Port Huron business incubator

PAGE 13

St. Clair County sees nine large expansion projects

Magna International, Cargill’s Diamond Crystal salt facility among those underway

TOM HENDERSON

According to the 2022 annual report issued in February by the Economic Development Alliance of St. Clair County, of the nine expansion projects of at least $100,000 begun in the county last year, by far the two largest were in the city of St. Clair.

Magna International Inc. began building a $426.6 million, 740,000-square-foot expansion to its existing facility in the city’s industrial park, which when done late this year will create 920 new jobs.

In 2021, Magna opened a 345,000-square-foot plant on the site to produce components for battery systems for electric cars and trucks, such as General Mo -

tors’ e-Hummer.

e Canadian auto supplier got $44 million in state and local incentives, in addition to a new 500,000-gallon water tower and road improvements to accommodate the big addition to that plant.

 e second largest expansion project was by the agribusiness giant Cargill Inc., which is spending $68 million to build an additional evaporation facility at its plant on the St. Clair River to expand production of its Diamond Crystal kosher salt by 25 percent.

Construction on the ve-story building is expected to be nished this summer.

“THE TRANSFORMATION OF DOWNTOWN ST. CLAIR OVER THESE LAST FEW YEARS HAS BEEN DRAMATIC, AND IT WAS SPURRED IN GREAT PART BY THE CREATION OF THE COURTYARD AT THE PLAZA.”

— Randy Maiers, president and CEO, Community Foundation of St. Clair County

John DeAngelis,(left) and Jim Tavano, outside their new pub, under renovation.

TOM HENDERSON

Wrigley Center turns old grocery into ‘game-changer’

Project aims to draw visitors, create jobs

BY TOM HENDERSON

No one can accuse Larry Jones and Dan Dooley of failing to dream big when it comes to the Wrigley Center and Wrigley Hall in downtown Port Huron.

ey plan to hold more than 200 events there a year, including concerts, festivals and expos.

ey think the events and the wide range of permanent attractions and tenants can draw upwards of 250,000 visitors a year to downtown Port Huron and create about 100 new jobs at the center and hall, which occupy the same block-long structure.

e name “Wrigley” pays tribute to the building’s origins as a Wrigley’s grocery store, which shut its doors some 50 years ago and for years after was an Art Van retail outlet and warehouse. For more than a decade the empty, decaying hulk loomed as a symbol of better times in Port Huron.

It is still a symbol, but after a $15 million total renovation, with design work by Vince Cataldo and his Detroit- and St. Clair-based rm architectural rm Infuz Ltd., it is one of rebirth.

“ is is going to be a game changer for Port Huron,” said Jones.

Saving the old grocery store was Jones’ brainchild when he bought the building in 2020. e 30,000-square-foot “Hall” part of the project is a new and very large wrinkle on the north end of the building that Jones and Dooley say is a result of their becoming instant fast friends.

Construction on the center and hall is nearly complete, with the rst commercial tenant, the Be Je Salon, already in place. Twenty-four of the 36 apartments on the south side of the building have been rented. At 1,400 square feet with two bedrooms and two baths, rents range from $1,200 to $2,200, depending on height and Lake Huron and St. Clair River views.

Dooley hopes to have most or all of the space occupied within two or three months.

He and Jones say they will hit those visitor numbers by o ering, among other things, a 50-foot rock climbing wall, a laser maze, air hockey, SkeeBall, cornhole, pickleball, basketball hoops, golf simulators, three bars, four eateries, including Dona Marina, a Nicaraguan-Cuban fusion restaurant, and Lake Life Cafe, which he will own; a show kitchen that will showcase di erent chefs and their specialties, a large stage and a small stage for live performances, and a 2,700-square-foot whiskey distillery and tasting room.

at will be occupied by Renaissance Man Co., a startup whose U.S. patent-pending distilling process promises to revolutionize the way whiskey is made. (See related story, Page 10).

e large stage will accommodate 500 and the small stage 125. Dooley said he spent about $220,000 on the sound and light systems for the two stages.

Jones and Dooley will hold a job fair in April to aid their hiring. All the

kitchen and bar equipment was delivered in February.

“I go from ‘We’re never going to make it’ to ‘We’re going to make it,’” said Dooley. “Now, I think we’re actually going to do it.”

He said by the time construction is done and everything is in place, he and his wife will have invested about $1.2 million into the business.

Dooley is a Port Huron native and graduate of Port Huron High School, as is his wife, Kim.

He was a technician specializing in nuclear medicine at several Michigan hospitals, including Beaumont Health in Royal Oak and Henry Ford Health System in Detroit before joining R1 RCM Inc., a Chicago-based startup providing revenue management services for hospitals, health systems and physician groups, in 2004. e 50th employee, then, when the company went public on the Nasdaq Global Market in 2018, he was

was a vice president, one of 35,000 employees worldwide and able to cash out a large equity stake in the company. ough active with the hall buildout and acquisition of tenants, he didn’t formally retire from R1 until the beginning of February.

With money to invest, Dooley said he was enthusiastic about the city’s resurgence in recent years. “If you haven’t been to Port Huron in the last ve years, you haven’t been to Port Huron,” he says.

Dooley said he was introduced to Jones 18 months ago and they hit it right o .

“My wife made the mistake of leaving Larry and me alone for an hour. He was just so infectious. What he was doing checked all my boxes,” said Dooley. He wanted in as an equity investor and operator.

Larry Jones in front of apartments at Wrigley Center. TOM HENDERSON/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

Dan Dooley in Wrigley Hall. TOM HENDERSON/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

Whiskey makers bet on technique that cuts aging time

TOM HENDERSON

Judges at the 11th Denver International Spirits Competition last April awarded a silver medal to the whiskey made by a edgling Port Huron business called Renaissance Man Co. at wasn’t unusual. Most of the whiskeys at the competition do.

What was unusual is the RenMan whiskey was made not in six or seven or eight years, like other winners, but in eight weeks

e whiskeys weren’t competing against each other. ey were being judged against set standards on a variety of taste and smell characteristics. ose totaling 90 points or more got gold, with 85 the threshold for silver and 80 for bronze. RenMan’s whiskey was scored at 89.

Now, the company is aiming to open its distillery this spring, as a tenant in 2,700 square feet in the Wrigley Center in downtown Port Huron, selling bottles and individual drinks to customers.

But it’s the process by which the whiskey was made so quickly that company founders are really betting on.

e patent-pending rapid-aging process is based on a Japanese wood preservation technique called yakisugi, which company co-founder and CEO Aaron Weideman learned as a Marine sergeant stationed in Iwakuni, Japan, during his ve-year tour of duty.

Yakisugi has been used for centuries. It involves charring Japanese cy-

press to make it more durable and pest-resistant for use in building fences, walls and ceiling cladding.

After getting out of the Marines in 2017, Weideman got his nance degree, but after three months in the corporate world decided he wanted to make his living another way.

“My Marine Corps ways didn’t t in with o ce work,” he said.

Weideman had been a wood-working hobbyist. In 2019, he started a formal wood-working business out of

his home in Metamora, focusing on very labor-intensive, expensive tables, using the yakisugi process on his wood.

He says he sold the tables via various social media outlets for between $2,000 and $10,000. He said he made $15,000 the rst year, $40,000 the second and $50,000 the third before deciding to concentrate on making whiskey.

“ e only table building I do now is personally and for the tasting

room,” he said.

A whiskey enthusiast, Weideman thought he might be able to adapt the Japanese charring process to American white oak, traditionally used to age whiskey.

He is a 2007 graduate of Lapeer West High School and RenMan co-founder and COO John Fitzgerald is a 2008 grad. ey had talked for years about someday going into business together.

Making whiskey seemed cool, but they didn’t have the time or money to start a company that would take seven or eight years to start generating revenue.

ey began experimenting. Instead of putting their raw liquid into the traditional 53-gallon oak barrel, they ipped the script. Instead, they put a small stave of charred oak into a glass container holding a fth of a gallon of raw liquid.

Traditionally, whiskey distilleries store their barrels in warehouses known as rickhouses or rackhouses.

Barrels are stored horizontally, usually stacked three high, with plenty of room for air to circulate.

Weideman says that is the key. As temperatures uctuate from day to night and back to day, the oak contracts and expands. Whiskey is absorbed into the oak when the temperature is higher, then expelled as it cools. e process of being absorbed and then expelled imparts the buttery taste of the oak while at the same time trapping impurities in the wood.

eir rst trial was in March 2021.

e put a piece of wood in a bottle of white whiskey, the liquid that comes from boiling corn mash for a few minutes and collecting the evaporated liquid that condenses during the process.

After eight hours, it started changing color. “‘Holy crap, this is going to work,’” Weideman said, recounting their thinking. “After six weeks, we opened the bottle and it was the best whiskey we ever tasted.”

e company led its patent application in August 2021 and began a crowdsourced funding campaign in January 2022, raising $127,000 by that April, the same month it led for ve trademarks for various business terms.

At the beginning of this past February, RenMan got an investment of $100,000 from the Community Capital Club, an angel investment group based in Port Huron. It has also got an investment of $50,000 from Michigan Women Forward, an investment group co-based in Detroit and Grand Rapids, and a U.S. Small Business Administration loan of $120,000 through Huntington Bank. ose investments came after whiskey fans who doubted such a quick process could work had a taste or two.

Larry Jones is owner of the Wrigley Center, who leases out the 30,000 square feet inside the center known as Wrigley Hall to Dan Dooley. RenMan’s space is in the Hall.

Port Huron company’s new concept shortens process from eight years to eight weeks

John Fitzgerald (left) and Aaron Weideman of Renaissance Man whiskey inside their leased space inside Wrigley Hall. TOM HENDERSON/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

Whiskey in progress with staves of wood in the bottles. | RENAISSANCE MAN

WRIGLEY

From Page 9

Jones said he hadn’t thought of needing or wanting another partner but to his surprise it made sense.

“When Dan came to me, I was like, ‘Do I want to do this?’ e more I talked to him, we were like brothers.”

For now, the plan is for Jones to manage the 20,000 square feet of retail space under the apartments at the south side of the building, with plans including a soap store, a candy shop and a bakery.

Failing miserably at retirement

In 2008, Jones thought he was retiring. He shut down his large construction company, Laingsburg-based Carpenters Build America Construction, which at one point employed 80 carpenters and did framing for large housing construction projects around the state and country. He also sold his nearby 1,200-acre farm, which grew wheat and corn and raised beef cattle.

Jones says he had never been to Port Huron but wanted to live on the water, and when he visited the city, he was struck by the deep blue water owing past downtown into the St. Clair River. Life on his 35-foot yacht in the marina there would be a ne to relax his days away.

Soon, the Great Recession was in full swing. Port Huron’s downtown real estate market, long su ering pre-recession, with for-sale and forlease signs in ground- oor windows on every block, got even more depressed.

“Downtown was dead,” said Jones, who thought the old buildings downtown had ne bones and the prices they could be bought for, combined with his background in construction, made it time to unretire.

“Prices were so low. I said to myself, ‘If I’m serious about this, I gotta buy as many buildings as I can,’” he said.

Jones had a good friend in Calgary, Alberta, a businessman named Brent Marsall, the owner of World of Spas, a company with four retail stores selling hot tubs, spas, gazebos and patio furniture in Alberta and Saskatchewan.

e contrast between sky-high real-estate prices in Calgary and bottom-of-the market prices in Port Huron helped Marsall decide to be Jones’ partner in buying and rehabbing properties.

Today, they own 11 buildings in downtown Port Huron and several businesses, including the Senior Tequilas restaurant, the Everything Classic antique mall and a Jimmy John’s. ey have also renovated 93 loft apartments. ey employ 14 directly, with about 110 employed by those who have leases on some of their businesses.

With the Great Recession over but Port Huron prices still depressed, St. Clair County bought the former Wrigley store in 2014 for $560,000, and after years of failed attempts to get it back on the tax rolls, local ocials planned to tear it down.

Jones entered the picture in 2020. The county sold it to him for $350,000, a deal contingent on other support. The community foundation invested $175,000 in the center, which was matched by an equal grant from the Ralph C. Wil-

son Foundation. e Michigan Strategic Fund approved a $1.5 million Michigan Community Revitalization Program grant; the Port Huron Brown eld Redevelopment Authority got approval from the Michigan Strategic Fund for $689,143 in state tax capture for brown eld remediation; the city of Port Huron’s committed almost $1 million in funding and granted a 10-year Obsolete Property Rehabilitation Act tax abatement of $2.7 million. e project was originally projected to cost $14.4 million and open for business last August. But COVID, supply-chain issues and rapidly rising costs of building materials, particularly wood, raised the price to what is now expected to be $15 mil-

lion and pushed back opening until this spring.

Jones said design elements were changed to help bring down costs, including lowering the projected ceilings in the apartments from 10 feet to nine and eliminating the planned indoor parking lot when concrete for the outdoor parking lot was poured.

Jones said he and his wife, Tracy, routinely are in the center doing cleanup and maintenance themselves and he, despite being 66, joined the concrete crew to do whatever needed to be done when it was time to pour concrete for the parking lot.

Contact: thenderson@crain.com (231) 499-2817; @TomHenderson2

The climbing wall that will go up in the Wrigley Center. | GUANGZHOU KIRA AMUSEMENT EQUIPMENT CO., LTD.

DEVELOPMENT

e pub and theater are joining forces. Kathy Vertin, co-founder and executive director of Riverbank Productions, the 501(c)(3) nonpro t organization that will run the Boardwalk and runs the Snug and Riverbank theaters in Marine City, has contracted with DeAngelis and Tavano to have the Hamlin Pub operate the Boardwalk’s concession stand and to do the catering for those renting the VIP room on the theater’s second oor.

“We’re theater people, not food people. Let them do what they are good at,” said Vertin.

DeAngelis and Tavano agreed to terms to buy Drifters at the end of December. “We’d been talking to the Drifter’s owners for 90 days prior to that,” said Tavano.

Tavano said they wanted to expand into St. Clair and at that location because of the new theater that would be a neighbor; the renovation and reopening of the iconic St. Clair Inn directly across the street; and the more than 100 special events held much of the year on evenings and weekends in the Plaza, which drive a lot of foot trafc to nearby businesses.

Tavano can even help arrange nights sponsored by his suppliers, such as a planned Jose Cuervo night.

Drifter’s had a large outdoor patio directly overlooking the event area at the Plaza. “ e outdoor patio is what we are really excited about,” said Tavano.

He said the pub will add a small patio on the north side of the building so patrons can sit out and watch freighters go past and another patio on the south side of the building.

Another Hamlin Pub is being built concurrently in Davison. Tavano said the plan is to eventually have about 20 pubs in Southeast Michigan.

Tavano and DeAngelis have a company, AFB Management LLC, that does taxes, payroll and IT for all the restaurants, each of which operates as a separate LLC.

Hamlin Pubs serve typical American bar fare of pizza, sh and chips, burgers and salads, and have TVs scattered around to allow patrons to watch their choice of televised sports. Tavano said the St. Clair pub will have about 35-40 TVs and employ about 30. Tavano said the pub will typically have live entertainment on Fridays and Saturdays and during the week have things like trivia night and karaoke.

He said the pub will also sponsor community activities such as softball teams.

e rst Hamlin Pub was built at Hamlin and Rochester roads in Rochester Hills in 1990, followed soon after by a second Hamlin in Lake Orion. Tavano and DeAngelis bought the Lake Orion pub in 2000 and the original in 2001, and have been expanding since, with most new pubs being ground-up construction.

“We’re excited to see Hamlin Pub coming to downtown St. Clair. e transformation of downtown St. Clair over these last few years has been dramatic, and it was spurred in great part by the creation of the courtyard at the Plaza,” said Randy Maiers, president and CEO of the Community Foundation of St. Clair County. e foundation is not an investor in the pub but is heavily involved in the Boardwalk eatre. e foundation donated $500,000.

“ e fundraising has been unbelievable,” said Vertin. “We’ve had 200

donors, and they’ve donated from $50 to $1 million.

Vertin said some donors include the Ann Arbor-based Franklin H. and Nancy S. Moore Foundation, $1 million; the Economic Development Alliance of St. Clair County, $500,000; one large anonymous donor, $250,000; and the Blue Water Convention and Visitors Bureau in Port Huron, $125,000.

Vertin proved the naysayers wrong in 2013 when they said her idea of a 98-seat theater o ering live professional entertainment in Marine City had no chance of success. e next year she and her husband went into a Bank of America Branch in Marine City, were told BOA was about to shut it down and they bought the building, instead.

at became the 180-seat River-

bank eatre, another venue that proved doubters wrong.

In 2019, the last full pre-COVID year, the two theaters sold a total of 22,000 tickets. Total attendance last year was 16,000.

“We saw the bulk of the return at the end of the season, especially for ‘ e Sound of Music,’ which was our nal production of the year,” said Vertin. “We are seeing good attendance so far for ‘Big, the Musical,’ our rst production this season (at the Riverbank), so maybe the COVID impact is o cially behind us. It has required much marketing expenditure, though, to remind people that we are back in full swing and growing.”

Kathy was vice president of the Detroit Metro Convention & Visitors Bureau before joining her husband, Tom’s, company, Auburn Hills-based

Theater schedules

The 2023 schedule for the Riverbank Theatre and the Snug Theatre in Marine City and the Boardwalk Theatre in St. Clair:

 “Big the Musical,” Feb.10-March 12, the Riverbank

 “Steel Magnolias,” April 14-May 28, the Riverbank

 “Give 'Em Hell, Harry,” June 3-18, the Snug

 “The Great American Trailer Park Musical,” June 24-Aug. 12, the Riverbank

 “Hello, Dolly,” Aug. 4-Aug. 19, the Boardwalk

 “The Odd Couple,” Sept. 1-Oct. 8, the Riverbank

 “The Christmas Schooner,” Oct. 27-Nov. 26, the Riverbank

 “Elf the Musical,” Dec. 1-23, the Boardwalk

Visioneering Inc., a maker of components for the aerospace industry, as CFO in 1995. He was president and CEO.

In 2007, they sold the company at the top of the pre-Great Recession market.

Ground broke in February 2021 on the Boardwalk, with supply-chain issues and higher construction costs delaying its completion by several months. When nished in May, it will be the largest theater in Southeast Michigan outside of metro Detroit.

Vertin said the proposed cost of construction has risen from $3.2 million to $3.8 million. “In this time of in ation, we thought that nal cost was just great,” she said.

When the Boardwalk opens, the Snug will stop hosting plays, but will serve as a rehearsal venue for up-

coming plays, as home to the area kids of the nonpro t Riverbank Performing Arts Academy and for hosting occasional musical acts.

Given the uncertainty about when the Boardwalk would open, Vertin scheduled a pared-down schedule for the three theaters this year.

“ e ultimate goal is to build the organization so that we have overlapping productions throughout the season and folks coming into town can see more than one show,” she said.

e architectural rm is St. Clairbased Infuz Ltd., headed by Vincent Cataldo. e general contractor is Dan Brenner of St. Clair-based Westhaven Builders LLC.

Contact: thenderson@crain.com

(231) 499-2817; @TomHenderson2

Kathy Vertin, Boardwalk Theater founder, in front of the stage as seats start to be installed. TOM HENDERSON/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

Tom Vertin in front of the retail and apartment building renovation he is doing on Water Street in Marine City. | TOM HENDERSON/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

EXPANSIONS

From Page 8

e plant employs 175, and the new plant is expected to have a minimal impact on hiring. e St. Clair plant has been in operation for 130 years. In 1996, Cargill bought it and all the other North American assets of the Diamond Crystal Co., a division of a Dutch company, Akzo Nobel N.V.

Founded in 1865, Cargill, a food conglomerate based in Minnetonka, Minn., is the largest privately held corporation in the U.S., with scal 2022 revenue of $165 billion. e family-owned company employs 155,000 in 70 countries.

What makes Diamond Crystal kosher salt unique is the proprietary process Cargill uses to make it. Developed in the 1880s and known as the Alberger process, it results in pyramid shaped akes that are larger than crystals of salt made in other processes, which the company claims provides the same amount of avor using 30 percent less salt.

e St. Clair plant is the only plant in the world making Alberger akes, with the salt coming from underground through a process known as solution mining. About 400 million years ago, a vast expanse of horizontal salt beds formed under much of what is now Michigan as ancient bodies of water receded.

 e third largest expansion in the county was the $20 million expansion of the Marysville Ethanol plant in Marysville. e other six expansion projects ranged from $100,000 to $550,000.

 ree other recent expansions into the county have been by the Dearborn-based LaFontaine Automotive

WHISKEY

From Page 10

“Their whiskey is really good. It shouldn’t be that good,” said Jones.

Dooley was effusive in his praise.

“I do like whiskey. I am Irish, so I’m genetically engineered to like it,” he said.

“RenMan’s is good. It has complex flavors and a smooth finish. The complex flavoring is what surprised me because it usually takes years of aging in various barrels to achieve that,” he said. “I’d compare the initial batch I tasted to a 12-year-old Redbreast or Tullamore.”

Redbreast and Tullamore are both Irish whiskeys.

man’s background and their decision to start a business based on a radical approach to making whiskey, told Fitzgerald they were renaissance men.

And so the company name was born.

If and when a U.S. patent is issued, Weideman and Fitzgerald have a much more ambitious plan for raising revenue than just selling whiskey. They want to license their technology to distilleries around the world.

“We want to sell the invention,” Weideman said.

There are two incentives for distilleries to buy the technology. The most obvious reason is the drastic reduction in the time needed to get product to market. The other reason is the process reduces by orders of magnitude the amount of white oak needed.

million new barrels each year.

Weideman says their process reduces the amount of oak needed by 98 percent. Or, as he puts it more starkly, a distillery using traditional methods can make between 600 and 700 bottles of eightyear whiskey for each tree. “We can make 34,000 bottles per oak tree,” he said.

They will get temperature fluctuations needed simply by turning the heat down at night.

RenMan also plans to plant one white oak tree for every 10 bottles it sells, with fths selling for $80 each.

At Wrigley Hall, they will distill their whiskey in 55-gallon stainless steel barrels, using staves of charred wood inside.

Group. In November 2021, it opened its rst dealership in St. Clair County when it bought the St. Clair Chevrolet Buick GMC dealership in China Township.

Last October, the company expanded its presence in the county when it bought Bill MacDonald Ford in the city of St. Clair.

In addition, the company has bought 36 acres next to the Chevrolet dealership and plans a large expansion, including new-car show rooms and a much bigger service department. e dealership has grown from 82 employees when it was bought to nearly 100, according

to Mike Walls, the general manager at both dealerships. e Ford dealership has grown from 60 employees to 66. e company has bought eight acres of land on Fred Moore Highway nearby to possibly support that dealership. ere is no timetable, yet, for any construction.

LaFontaine also bought SP Automotive Re nishing in Marine City last August and renamed it the LaFontaine Collision Center of St. Clair.

Walls was asked a year ago to join the board of the county’s chamber of commerce, and he said he has been actively growing LaFontaine’s presence in the community.

It was a major sponsor of last July’s annual Riverfest boat races in the St. Mary’s River, o the breakwall in the city of St. Clair and sponsored the large reworks show at the annual Icy Bazaar ice show in January at the city’s plaza overlooking the river.

Ryan LaFontaine, the company’s CEO, said business has been so robust at the two St. Clair dealerships that he would pursue buying other franchises in the county when and if they become available.

“We really wanted to become part of the fabric of the community,” he said. “The amount of people who came out for the grand opening of the Ford dealership was amazing.”

Contact: thenderson@crain.com

(231) 499-2817; @TomHenderson2

Bids sought a second time for Port Huron business incubator

$5.3 million,” he said.

Dan Casey, the CEO of the Economic Development Alliance of St. Clair County, hopes the second time is the charm for getting bids in on a new business development center and incubator in downtown Port Huron.

Bids went out on Feb. 1 with a deadline of the end of March for submitting bids to construct the 13,000-squarefoot, two-story building on the St. Clair River, just south of the Black River.

e building will include an 8,000-square-foot incubator for young and startup companies called the Buoy, which will replace the cramped, 2,000-square-foot incubator that is now two doors down from the Sperry’s movie theaters downtown.

e building will also be home to the EDA and serve as a meeting and event space. e incubator is a liated with the state-designated Port Huron SmartZone.

Fitzgerald co-owns a gym in Troy called Performance Recovery Wellness and is an expert on nutrition and fitness, a self-styled life coach. He says his gym works with up to 200 clients a month, including those who come in to visit the two massage therapists.

One of his clients, who knew about his background and Weide -

According to a study published in 2021 by the White Oak Initiative, a coalition dedicated to the preservation of American white oak forests, it was projected that in 10-15 years, there would not be enough American white oaks left standing to meet demand.

Oaks trees are generally at least 80 years old when cut down to make oak barrels. Only about one and a half barrels are made from each tree, with whiskey makers in Kentucky alone needing about three

For now, they will buy the white whiskey, the low quality and inexpensive precursor of their nished product, from a distillery in Illinois. e plan is to bring that part of the process in house in a year or so.

They plan to have their first batch of 1,000 bottles distilled there ready for sale in May. The company will also distribute its whiskey to local retail outlets and hopes to have the list of outlets posted on its website, renmandistilling.com, sometime in May.

Also in May is another competition Weideman and Fitzgerald hope will help their marketing — the huge International Whisky Competition in Louisville, Ky., which annually draws thousands of entries from around the world, this time including RenMan.

Contact: thenderson@crain.com (231) 499-2817; @TomHenderson2

It has been designed by Vince Cataldo and his Detroit- and St. Clair-based architectural rm of Infuz Ltd.

Because the federal government is a major funder of the project, federal rules mandate a minimum of three bids. Casey hopes to select a bidder in April, break ground about June 1 and be open for business in July 2024.

e Economic Development Administration of the U.S. Department of Commerce is funding $3,380,401; the Michigan Economic Development Corp., $250,000; the Port Huron-based James C. Acheson Trust, $225,000; and Casey’s Economic Development Alliance, $518,529, for a total of $4.37 million.

“But we have more funding available than that,” said Casey. e budget when the project rst started two years ago was $4.25 million, but bids will certainly come in higher than that and higher than current funding commitments.

“Realistically, it will be $5 million to

Casey hoped to have the project well underway by now. e project went out for bids last July, and he hoped to break ground by the end of last year, but he didn’t get a single bid. “It was a very bad time to do that,” said Casey. Prices had gone through the roof, particularly for wood, and this is a woodframe structure. General contractors in turn were worried about being able to get carpenters to bid on their part of the project.

With supply-chain issues easing, as well as the cost of building materials having subsided a bit, Casey said it was time to rebid the project. He said 17 contractors attended a pre-bid meeting with him in early February.

Some features in the design were eliminated or scaled back to lower costs: an external stairway was removed and a second- oor deck is now 750 square feet from from 1,000.

Contact: thenderson@crain.com

(231) 499-2817; @TomHenderson2

TOM HENDERSON

New LaFontaine Ford dealership in St. Clair. | TOM HENDERSON/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

A huge expansion of the Magna plant is underway. | TOM HENDERSON/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

LaFontaine

“RENMAN’S IS GOOD. IT HAS COMPLEX FLAVORS AND A SMOOTH FINISH. THE COMPLEX FLAVORING IS WHAT SURPRISED ME BECAUSE IT USUALLY TAKES YEARS OF AGING IN VARIOUS BARRELS TO ACHIEVE THAT.”

—Dan Dooley, Wrigley Center

City turns to residents for help in crime prevention

Duggan

ARIELLE KASS

announces plan to encourage community organizations to help reduce shootings

A Detroit plan to reduce gun violence will lean on community organizations to mediate potentially deadly disagreements and reward them with more funding quarterly for demonstrably fewer shootings.

Mayor Mike Duggan announced the proposal, called ShotStopper — a play on the controversial ShotSpotter program — at his state of the city address on Tuesday. e plan includes spending $10 million over two years to encourage community organizations to help reduce shootings in targeted high-crime areas in the city.

“Police can’t do it alone,” Deputy Mayor Todd Bettison said. “You have to get the community involved.”

ere is broad support for the proposal, which would pay an estimated $700,000 a year to between three and ve community organizations in areas of the city where the number of shootings is higher than average.

Large organizations with a history of success could take on a larger area.

But the acclaim is not universal.

Demetris Knuckles-El, a base-building organizer with Michigan Liberation, said he’s concerned the city will micromanage activists’ e orts and not give them enough money to compensate for the dangerous situations they may face.

“It’s a slap in the face,” he said of the proposal. “Stop trying to hold something over our heads. If they’re going to run it, let them run it. Money does not make a di erence, if they’re telling you what to do.”

Requests for proposals from community groups opened Wednesday and are due April 10. e program is expected to launch this summer. Bettison said he expects selected organizations will already be engaged in violence prevention work in the city’s neighborhoods. Winning applicants will have at least two years’ experience in violence prevention, violence intervention or con ict mediation, according to the city.

Detroit will fund the program with money from the American Rescue Plan Act. If successful, Bettison said, additional money will be made available once ARPA funding runs out.

PEOPLE ON THE MOVE

ARCHITECTURE

HKS, Inc.

HKS is pleased to announce the promotion of Eric Messing, AIA, from Vice President to Principal at the global architecture rm. A proven leader recognized for his expertise in health care design and construction, Eric brings decades of experience in architecture and project management for large-scale health facilities. His work represents more than 2.9 billion dollars in construction value for renowned health clients across the globe.

ARCHITECTURE

HKS, Inc.

Global architecture

rm HKS has promoted Jennifer Sutton, NCIDQ, LSSBB, to Interior Design Principal.

Responsible for imaginative and engaging environments within sports and entertainment, her clients include but are not limited to the Cleveland Browns and Cavaliers, Miami Dolphins, and Detroit Lions and Pistons. By taking into consideration athletes, fans, and communities alike, her expertise elevates the impact of design solutions at every scale.

is isn’t the only e ort to reduce violence. e city still operates Detroit Cease re, which aims to prevent gang violence.

When the city recorded 380 homicides and 1,300 nonfatal shootings in 2012, Detroit embarked on an mission to reduce those numbers. eir e orts resulted in numbers dropping to 260 homicides and 800 nonfatal shootings in 2018, Bettison said.

But a surge in violence during the coronavirus pandemic saw crime rise, leading the city to increase crime-prevention e orts, said Bettison, who was previously a Detroit assistant police chief. Last year, Detroit

recorded 309 homicides and 959 non-fatal shootings in 2022.

ShotStopper is precipitated on reducing the 2022 numbers.

Chosen organizations will be able to double their budgets each quarter if they show reductions in violence that are 20 percent or more than the city’s overall reduction for that same period. If their programs result in a 10 percent reduction in violence as compared to the city’s numbers each quarter, they can get an in ux of funding worth half as much as their quarterly budget.

e money must be put back into the violence reduction program, though it doesn’t have to be spent that quarter, Bettison said. For the second year of the program, the formula has been tweaked to average gures from 2022 and 2023, so organizations aren’t victims of their own success.

e city, in its request for proposals, said it won’t tolerate programs that simply move violence out of target areas into other parts of Detroit.

Research shows that community-based organizations can be a useful tool to address gun violence, said Alaina DeBiasi, an assistant professor in the Department of Criminology & Criminal Justice at Wayne State University, in an email.

But DeBiasi, who is also associate director of Firearm Violence Research at Wayne State’s Center for Peace and Con icts Studies, said she thinks it will be “methodologically and statistically challenging” to untangle the e ects of these community

organizations with other groups that are doing similar work in similar areas. For that reason, she said, it’s important to have other measures of success. She added that it may not be reasonable to expect an immediate e ect on rearm violence, even from existing programs.

“To understand what works, unbiased evaluation of their e ectiveness is of vital importance,” she wrote.

at’s also a concern of Jennifer Cobbina-Dungy, a professor in the School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University. She said neither the city nor the groups themselves should be evaluating the programs’ e orts. ere’s a con ict of interest otherwise, she said.

“It has to be someone else. An independent evaluator with no skin in the game,” said Cobbina-Dungy, adding that two years might be too quick to see results.

However, she thinks the program as a whole can be bene cial.

She said a similar national e ort, called Advance Peace, began in Lansing late last year and is seeing strong success in other cities. Advance Peace enrolls at-risk people in a fellowship program and uses people with a history with gun violence to talk about alternatives to gun violence.

It makes sense to smart small, then expand the programs if they are successful, Cobbina-Dungy said. But she said the rollout will likely be slow.

Contact: arielle.kass@crain.com; (313) 446-6774; @ArielleKassCDB

BOARDS

Detroit Regional CEO Group

Mark Stewart, Chief Operating Of cer (COO) for Stellantis North America and a member of the company’s Top Executive Team, has become a member of the Detroit Regional CEO Group which is focused on systemic change to help drive regional prosperity. The CEO Group’s priorities include education, economic & workforce development, transit and public spaces & greenways. Stellantis is a leading global automaker and mobility provider that offers clean, connected, affordable and safe mobility solutions.

FINANCE

Renaissance Venture Capital Fund

Christina Drake has joined Renaissance Venture Capital Fund as a Principal, where she will manage the fund’s connection work among major Mich. corporations, venture funds across the U.S., and Mich.-based start-ups.

Christina previously served as a VP/investment advisor at FEG Investment Advisors, working with non-pro t institutions. She also worked at Bridgewater Associates, one of the largest hedge funds in the world.

Christina is helping to organize the May 9 DEI UnDemo Day, hosted by RVC.

INSURANCE

Globe Midwest Corporation

Globe Midwest Adjusters International is pleased to announce that Greg Wilenius has joined the rm as a General Adjuster. Prior to joining Globe, Greg worked at Cotton Commercial USA, a nationally renowned disaster recovery rm where he held the position of Project Coordinator. Greg’s extensive knowledge and expertise in disaster recovery give him a unique understanding of how to provide clients with a signi cant advantage throughout the property insurance claims process.

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan gives the State of the City address at the Michigan Central Depot in Detroit on March 7. | ROBIN BUCKSON / AP VIA THE DETROIT NEWS

MARKET

buildings can be built and you can really see the expansion in real time.

at’s what’s keeping me busy.”

Knoer started with EMDC on Jan. 30, replacing David Tobar, who left the organization in April to become construction administrator for the Joe Louis Greenway.

“Dave was instrumental in doing a lot of site acquisition, helping with the rezoning of what we call the Food Innovation Zone, the expansion area east and northeast of the historic core of the market,” said Carmody, president of Eastern Market Partnership, the parent organization of the EMDC. “Moving forward we want to transition from simply acquiring land. We want to start building stu or helping others build stu and helping community groups build capacity to improve their neighborhoods as well.”

at includes not only the 45,000to 50,000-square-foot wholesale distribution center, on which construc-

REAL ESTATE

tion will start next year — expected to cost about $16 million on one of two sites being considered — but also

three new a ordable housing projects. First on the list is a proposal from

Fairlane Town Center being sold again, this time to ‘mall scavenger’ Kohan

Plan includes nding tenant for former Lord & Taylor space

KIRK PINHO

Less than a year after Fairlane Town Center shopping center sold to Centennial Real Estate, the Dallas-based company is selling it to a Long Island-based investor dubbed by some as “the mall scavenger.”

Great Neck, N.Y.-based Kohan Retail Investment Group — which previously owned Eastland Center in Harper Woods along with 4th Dimension Properties LLC — is expected to close on its purchase of the Dearborn mall by the end of the month from Centennial Real Estate, CEO Mike Kohan told Crain’s Tuesday morning.

Kohan said the plan is to keep Fairlane Town Center operating as a mall, add new tenants and bring more foot tra c.

He also said a key goal is nding a new user or users for the Ford Motor Co. o ce space in the former Lord & Taylor department store. “It’s a beautiful o ce building that can de nitely be utilized,” Kohan said.

Time will tell as Kohan Retail has a reputation for letting some of its properties fall into decay.

In recent days, a mall it owns in Presque Isle, Maine, closed due to unpaid electric and water bills, the Bangor Daily News reported. Also recently, a Pennsylvania community took Kohan Retail to court for $185,000 in unpaid sewer and stormwater bills. Last month, a Mississippi judge threatened Kohan with jail time if a blighted o ce building his company owns there isn’t demolished.

Kohan’s malls around the country rack up unpaid taxes, blight violations, go into foreclosure and are otherwise the subject of negative headlines on a regular basis. e company’s website says it owns Michigan malls in Fort Gratiot, Portage, Lansing, Saginaw, Midland, Jackson and Marquette.

“(Fairlane) is not going down that

road,” Kohan said.

He admitted to Crain’s that his company has made mistakes in its buying strategy over the 20-plus years he has been in business, but said he has focused on more expensive and stabilized malls the last ve-seven years.

“I bought some malls that were at the point of no return, malls that were 25 percent occupied, there were deferred maintenance issues,” Kohan said. “Unfortunately, I bought those malls and I shouldn’t have because I stepped into somebody else’s problem. I don’t want my reputation to go bad.”

Kohan said Centennial marketed the Fairlane property, drawing his interest.

Centennial declined comment.

Centennial, along with partners New York City-based Waterfall Asset Management LLC and fellow Dallas-based real estate company Cawley Partners, bought the nancially struggling mall in May. Five months later, in October, it bought the former Lord & Taylor department store space.

Centennial’s Chief Investment Ofcer Carl Tash told Crain’s in May that plans were still being made for Fairlane and that the mall has a lot of parking space that could be redeveloped into multifamily housing, such as traditional apartments, senior housing or student units.

Both Fairlane Town Center and e Shops at Willow Bend in Texas had been owned by Miami Beach, Fla.-based Starwood Capital Group before the company fell behind on a $161 million commercial mortgage-backed securities loan and were sent into receivership.

It’s the latest twist for Fairlane, which was built in 1976 and has struggled nancially the past few years.

Starwood purchased Fairlane and the 600,000-square-foot Mall at Partridge Creek in Clinton Township plus ve other malls in 2014 from what was then Taubman Centers Inc. (now Taubman Co. LLC) for $1.4 billion.

Contact: kpinho@crain.com; (313) 446-0412; @kirkpinhoCDB

three-bedroom units on St. Aubin Street.

A second project, which the city says has not yet been nalized, would be Harper Woods-based American Community Developers building affordable housing on a Division Street site near the Dequindre Cut for which there was an RFP. Economic Growth Corp., a Rock Island, Ill.based developer, also is working on another project several years out, Carmody said.

Carmody also said the partnership is working on things like the E.W. Grobbel Sons Inc.’s plans for the Grobbel’s Gourmet Fresh Neighborhood Market and a Sy Ginsberg-branded Jewish-style deli later this year at 2456 Market St.; and Ping Ho’s new o shoot of the popular West Village restaurant and butchery Marrow.

“We have a handful of projects, small, medium and large,” Carmody said. “However we can help them as part of their mission (we will).”

West Chester, Ohio-based Pivotal, which would build 53 units of workforce housing with one-, two- and

Contact: kpinho@crain.com; (313) 446-0412; @kirkpinhoCDB

REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS

employment program, Food Assistance Employment and Training (FAE&T), Wagner-Peyser Employment Services (ES), and other public and private funding.

DESC is seeking proposals from qualified individuals, organizations and/or firms Bid package for this RFP is available for download at this DESC website: https://www.descmiworks.com/opportunities/rfps-and-rfqs/.

MARKET PLACE REAL ESTATE

COMMERCIAL

Nonpro t Eastern Market Corp. has a goal of preserving some a ordable commercial space as Detroit’s Eastern Market food district changes under a wave of new landlords. CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

Fairlane Town Center in Dearborn, built in 1976, is getting yet another new owner. | COSTAR GROUP INC.

Skymint said in a statement Wednesday that going into receivership was “a di cult decision, but a necessary one.”

“ e court-approved agreement will allow us to reorganize our debt obligations to address the nancial challenges facing many in Michigan’s cannabis industry, including excess supply, decreasing prices, limited access to capital and the increasing cost of capital,” Skymint said in the statement.

e company did not respond to additional requests for comments ursday.

A court-appointed receiver is an unbiased third party that e ectively takes control over a company’s operations and nancial books and then makes a recommendation to the court on what the best path is to satisfy creditors, whether that means a reorganization of the company or a liquidation.

Skymint’s investors allege mismanagement in two lawsuits, but unfavorable market conditions are exacerbating its downfall.

Michigan’s marijuana industry has su ered an epic price collapse due to product oversupply — recreational marijuana retail prices have plummeted from $512.05 per ounce of ower in January 2020 to just $80.16 per ounce in January this year — effectively eliminating pro t margins for businesses across the state.

e question remains of how far the market will fall and what happens to these companies operating under a receiver as rising interest rates make capital more expensive, and selling or buying troubled operations is thorny due to a patchwork of local regulations on license transfers to new owners.

A struggle underway

Skymint spent and borrowed big to grow quickly as an early entrant into the legal marijuana market in Michigan. It now employs more than 600 across 24 retail dispensaries around the state and three indoor grow operations in Dimondale and Lansing. But a hefty debt load that kept ballooning as the company tried to stay a oat eventually became too much

NEWSMAKERS

From Page 3

Asked how he’s viewing the role interest rates will play for his company in the remainder of the year, Ishbia said he’s simply not.

“ e reality is, I don’t spend too much time on things I can’t control,” Ishbia said. “ e things I can control is the time I get up my attitude, my work ethic, my drive, my leadership. I can’t control whether rates are going to be at eight (percent) or three (percent). If they’re at three, it’s going to be easier. If they’re at eight, it’s going to be harder.”

As Ishbia navigates a contracting mortgage industry, he’s also navigating his new ownership of the Phoenix Suns and Mercury professional basketball franchises.

Ishbia completed his deal to acquire a majority interest in the Suns and Mercury in early February in a deal that valued the teams at $4 billion.

In his rst action as team owner, less than 24 hours after taking over, Ishbia made a big splash, orches-

as weed prices kept falling, court lings show.

Tropics LP, a subsidiary of Calgary-based Sundial Growers Inc.’s investment rm SunStream Bancorp Inc., loaned Green Peak $70 million in September 2021 toward the acquisition of competitor 3Fifteen Cannabis and its 12 dispensaries in Detroit, Grand Rapids, Ann Arbor, Flint and elsewhere. Merida, a majority shareholder in 3Fifteen, also lent $8 million toward the 3Fifteen purchase. Both investors are suing Skymint in circuit court.

With an oversupply of product in the state and nite licenses and communities to sell the product, buying up dispensaries became paramount to Skymint’s growth strategy. It was either develop a higher-priced niche product or play on volume with more sales outlets to move product as margins diminish.

Prices had already fallen 50 percent between September 2020 and September 2021, causing lenders to demand sti er loan terms.

Under the Tropics’ promissory note, Green Peak agreed to repay the lender in full by September 2025 at a whopping 12.5 percent interest rate, compounding monthly, as well as sell some common shares of the company to Tropics, according to the lawsuit.

Under that agreement, Green Peak agreed to maintain a minimum cash balance of $7.5 million, which Trop-

ics alleges in the suit that it failed to do in March last year. Tropics appears to have concluded it was either lose much of its investment or dump more money into Skymint in hopes its growth plan was successful.

Tropics loaned Green Peak another $5 million in March 2021, raising the loan total with fees to nearly $81.5 million. Green Peak once again did not meet its loan obligation in June 2022 after failing to raise an additional $15 million in new funding, according to the suit. e company also failed to pay additional fees to Tropics, pay back rent on its E. Jolly Road facility in Lansing and pay certain taxes, the lawsuit claims.

e two parties entered into another agreement in November, which included Tropics paying more than $5.8 million toward overdue sales and excise taxes for Green Peak.

Tropics alleges in the court ling that Green Peak’s daily sales revenue has dropped from $356,953 in April 2022 to just $184,579 in January of this year, exacerbating an already bad nancial picture.

Green Peak owes nearly $4 million in sales and excise taxes by March 25, the suit alleges, and the landlord of its leased cultivation facility in Dimondale is attempting to evict the company for owing roughly $1.1 million in rent.

Tropics is asking the receiver to take possession of Green Peak’s assets.

“A lot of companies are on the edge, desperately trying to nd additional capital, but costs are so extraordinarily high,” said Lance Boldrey, partner at Detroit-based law rm Dykema Gossett PLLC and part of the legal team that designed the state’s legalization framework. “Everyone thought the money was so good, they’d do anything to keep the game going. But we’re going to see the market shake out. It’s following the same pattern we saw in Colorado, Washington and Oregon. Anywhere with unlimited licensure.” e other receivership cases are much smaller in scope, but represent the growing pain in the state’s industry.

“We’re getting lots of client calls about licensees not getting paid for product and monitoring more and more lawsuits over licenses and money owed,” Mains said. “ ese are the next receivership cases to come.”

Battling bureaucracy

e legal marijuana framework in the state, approved by voters in 2018, allows the state to license any entity that meets stringent criteria. But those same entities cannot operate without a local license from the municipality where they would like to operate. For instance, Skymint has local licenses in at least 29 municipalities.

Here lies the heavy lift for Sky-

mint’s receiver, Gene Kohut, a partner at Detroit-based business advisory rm Trust Street Advisors, if he chooses to liquidate the company’s assets to pay back investors.

Under state law, each of those municipalities developed their own licensing framework that often includes di ering rules and red tape on transferring those licenses to a new owner.

“State licenses have little to no value, it’s all about the local approvals,” Mains said. “ ose ordinances are all over the place. Some only allow equity transfers or no license transfers at all or it’s a huge process. e receiver and any potential buyer or buyers is going to have to address each local license at a one-by-one level.”

And even if the receiver could navigate these local hiccups, is there a buyer with enough cash and lending power to gobble up Skymint’s assets in a declining market?

Michael Elias, founder and CEO of Skymint competitor Marshall-based Common Citizen, said he’s examined buying up its assets, but the debt obligations attached are too high.

“Debt is too signi cant and restructuring too di cult to extract any value,” Elias told Crain’s. “I’m sure someone could do it, but it’s too cumbersome today (under falling prices).”

Andrew Sereno, CEO of Manchester-based niche grower Glacial Farms, said the fall of Skymint would bene t businesses in the market by reducing supply. Glacial Farms sells weed wholesale under the Glacier Cannabis brand and doubled its grow operation by leasing additional space from a defunct grower last year.

Skymint holds ve adult-use Class C grow licenses, three adult-use excess grow licenses and eight medical marijuana grow licenses. at translates to the legal ability to grow as many as 28,000 marijuana plants, or about 2 percent of all of the state’s legal marijuana plants being grown as of Jan. 31, according to CRA data. ough it’s unlikely Skymint is growing anywhere near full capacity.

“For those of us who aren’t debtors to (Skymint), this is a great thing as it should mean less (excess cannabis) on the market that’s arti cially lowering prices,” Sereno said.

Contact: dwalsh@crain.com; (313) 446-6042; @dustinpwalsh

trating a trade for future Hall of Famer Kevin Durant. e move to acquire the teams dovetails with Ishbia’s well-documented love of basketball. In college, he was a walk-on on Tom Izzo’s 2000 Michigan State University team that won a national championship.

“It’s a lot of money, but at the same time, I don’t think about the money,” Ishbia said of his foray into professional sports. “I focus on the enjoyment, success, opportunity and also the impact.”

Ishbia, during a reception prior to the Newsmakers event, acknowl -

edged to Crain’s that UWM’s sponsorship deal with the Detroit Pistons NBA team — particularly the UWM patch that players wear on their jerseys — is a “little awkward” given his new ownership of the Suns.

He said it’s unlikely the UWM

patch will remain on Pistons uniforms, but the company will continue to have a partnership with the Pistons and its home of Little Caesars Arena.

Contact: nmanes@crain.com; (313) 446-1626; @nickrmanes

A lawsuit alleges Skymint was burning through $3 million in cash per month and generated only $110 million in revenue in 2022, $153 million below its forecast of $263 million in sales for the year. SKYMINT

Crain Communications Inc. CEO KC Crain (let) chats with Mat Ishbia, president and CEO of United Wholesale Mortgage and Crain’s Detroit Business Newsmaker of 2022, on Tuesday during a program at the MGM Grand Detroit recognizing all of the year’s Newsmakers. | BRETT MOUNTAIN /CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

Some 360 people attended Crain’s Detroit Business’ event on Tuesday at the MGM Grand Detroit recognizing all of the 2022 Newsmakers. | BRETT MOUNTAIN /CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

Detroit’s condo market slows to over-saturation

NICK MANES

A Crain’s analysis of current condo listings in and around downtown Detroit shows a wide range of prices and fees.

Smaller one-bedroom units in the 1300 Lafayette high-rise, for example, are on the market for as low as $69,000 with HOA fees of around $1,000 per month that include property taxes, heat, air conditioning, water, basic cable, maintenance and 24-hour security.

Just across Lafayette Street, on the edge of Lafayette Park, is a Mies van der Rohe three-bedroom, two-bathroom co-op unit listed at $400,000 with an HOA fee of $890 per month, according to Zillow.

Further east along the riverfront, in the gated Harbortown community, is a one-bedroom, one-bathroom condo for $159,000. e Zillow listing says the unit has a monthly HOA fee of $750 and includes a tax abatement.

Overall, 2022 made for “a harsh reality” for Detroit’s condo market, particularly when compared with the boom year of 2021, according to a condo market report released in January by e Loft Warehouse.

e second half of last year saw 145 condo transactions, the smallest number for that time period in a decade.

By comparison, there were more than 300 in both 2019 and 2020, according to previous Crain’s reporting.

“ is is explained by a sharp reduction in demand due to increased interest rates and buyers’ fear of a recession,” according to the report.

at decline in demand has continued to make Detroit’s condo market over-saturated. e Loft Warehouse report says the market has nearly eight months of supply, whereas three-six months would be considered a balanced market.

Still, the situation is an improvement from two years ago when the market had nearly a year’s worth of inventory, as Crain’s reported at the time.

Austin Black, an associate broker and Realtor with @properties Christie’s International Real Estate, said the current market in Detroit is largely “building-by-building.” When he gives clients tours, it’s easy to see which buildings are doing capital improvements and which aren’t.

Moreover, the point of over-saturation in the city’s condo market is based on location, said Jason Hill, a broker with Historic Detroit Realty, pointing to Brush Park as one example of an area where supply exceeds demand. Neighborhoods east and west of downtown remain quite active, he said. at dynamic, Hill said, “forces agents to dig deep in their toolbox and connect buyers.”

Contact: nmanes@crain.com; (313) 446-1626; @nickrmanes

HOA

From Page 1

“ ey’ve got the note on their condo, they’ve got to pay insurance on top of that and they’ve got taxes on top of that. So that’s a lot and then when you get whacked with these big pop-up expenses … there’s a reason that condominiums are hard to sell.”

‘Pricing out regular people’

Mary Hollens has lived at e Lofts at Rivertown for about a dozen years in a one-bedroom unit of about 725 square feet. e more than 120-yearold building along East Je erson Avenue near the bridge to Belle Isle was built as the headquarters for pharmaceutical rm Frederick Stearns & Co., according to Historic Detroit.

On top of Hollens’ mortgage payment, which she did not disclose, the nonpro t fundraiser said she pays $1,800 every other month as part of an assessment on her unit, plus about $725 monthly in HOA and other fees. ose fees, Hollens said, have climbed steadily since she started living in the community, which Historic Detroit said was converted into condominiums in 1989.

All told, Hollens said she hardly feels like she’s getting her money’s worth. She pointed to maintenance needs all over the building, particularly stained carpet and scu ed baseboards in common areas.

“It feels like you’re pricing out regular people” and makes for a “redundant tax” for residents, Hollens said. “ at’s New York and Chicago money.”

e property management company for the building, Detroit-based J.S. Dean & Associates Inc., did not respond to a request for comment. A receptionist for the building told Crain’s recently that a new property management company was in the process of taking over.

e pricey HOA and special assessment fees — and the rankling it gives some residents — comes as no surprise to Jerome Huez, a Realtor and owner at e Loft Warehouse.

Huez, who focuses on condos for the Berkshire Hathaway-a liated real estate rm in Detroit, pointed to two problems he sees in the city’s overall condo market.

First, when it comes to new construction condos — particularly highrise and mid-rise developments — Detroit still makes for “a baby market” compared to cities such as New York, Chicago and Toronto, where residen-

tial skyscrapers litter much of the skyline. Developers just can’t make thenancials — the gap between development costs and what they can sell a unit for — work on those kinds of projects in a city like Detroit, Huez said.

“I can see a lot of interest from developers and people who come to the city, but we need to wait a few more years before our market grows,” he added.

Meanwhile, Huez pointed out, aging buildings such as e Lofts at Rivertown come with their own issues. Namely, age. ose older buildings tend to struggle on the resale market, he said, largely because of the thousands of dollars a year an owner will pay in HOA fees and assessments.

“So it becomes totally una ordable,” he said. “Even an investor doesn’t want to touch it, because the rent won’t cover those costs.”

Condos and co-ops

While many of the downtown Detroit-area condo opportunities might give some a case of sticker shock, Realtors and residents are quick to point out a subtle di erence: Communities such as the 1300 Lafayette building, townhomes in Lafayette Park and other nearby residences are also cooperatives as opposed to just condominiums.

akin to something of a teacher.

“When I have a new client buying a co-op, I have to educate them on what a co-op is,” Hill told Crain’s. “When you look at the HOA fee and compare it to a condo in close proximity to downtown, it’s often more a ordable, or (there’s) not much difference (in price).”

at’s because co-op properties typically include property taxes and many utilities as part of the overall monthly HOA fee. at’s something not found in traditional condo communities.

Given some of the complexities, Realtor Austin Black with @properties Christie’s International Real Estate told Crain’s he typically advises his clients buying condos to hire attorneys familiar with HOA laws to help them navigate the transaction.

Some people to whom Hill has sold co-op units — particularly in the Hyde Park community in the Elmwood Park neighborhood east of downtown — say the co-op mechanism is perfect for the style of living they wanted.

“I wouldn’t want to live in any other kind of situation,” said Suzan Anderson, a retiree of the Wayne County Circuit Court who has lived in Hyde Park for more than 30 years.

Anderson said she and her husband have “never seen a tax bill” in their decades living there, and pay $958 per month for their HOA fee.

—Mary Hollens, resident of The Lofts at Rivertown

Similarly, Terry Campbell — who works as a regional manager in metro Detroit for U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow and lives in the Hyde Park community — touts the “carefree lifestyle” o ered by co-op living, noting that snow removal, lawn mowing, the vast majority of maintenance for interior and exterior of units, as well as communal spaces is covered by the HOA fee.

e main di erence is that residents of co-ops own a chunk of the property, akin to being a shareholder of a public company, as BankRate explains it.

us, as a Realtor, “you’re not actually selling real estate. You’re selling shares,” explained Jason Hill, broker and owner at Historic Detroit Realty, where he focuses on many of Detroit’s co-op communities.

In so doing, Hill says his role is also

Campbell and others also point to the sense of community o ered by co-ops.

“Co-ops are about communal living,” said Trish Hubbel, a Realtor with e Loft Warehouse and resident of the Chateaufort Place Cooperative east of Lafayette Park. “You’re buying into a community. No one is coming in to ip a unit and get out. It’s really a true community.”

Contact: nmanes@crain.com; (313) 446-1626; @nickrmanes

Mary Hollens has lived in a one-bedroom unit at The Lofts at Rivertown for about a dozen years. | PHOTOS BY NIC ANTAYA/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

The 1300 Lafayette East cooperative building in Detroit o ers two pools, exercise and yoga rooms, secure parking, picnic area with grills and more. | COSTAR GROUP

"IT FEELS LIKE YOU’RE PRICING OUT REGULAR PEOPLE."

Fees at The Lofts at Rivertown in Detroit have climbed steadily over the years but there are unmet maintenance needs in the building, particularly worn carpet and scu ed baseboards in common areas.

250 East Harbortown | COSTAR GROUP

Meagan Dunn has a vision for the future of supportive housing

A self-described “Detroit girl,” Meagan Dunn, executive director of Covenant House Michigan, grew up as one of seven children, learning life skills at home from her father, an auto worker, and her mother, a homemaker who later got into retail sales at Jacobson’s and used her negotiating skills to secure sponsorships from local grocery stores to enable Dunn to take dance and later, compete nationally in synchronized gure skating.

At Covenant House, Dunn is leading the organization in providing a support system for homeless and at-risk youth. As an extension of its workforce development e orts, she is starting conversations with employers to ensure formerly homeless young adults moving into jobs are supported and with peer organizations to strengthen advocacy. The mother of three young boys is also developing a vision for the nonpro t to move into permanent supportive and a ordable housing. Her comments have been edited for length and clarity.

 You changed jobs and moved from Detroit to the west side of the state during the height of the pandemic, right?

Yes, I made that move in 2020. It was a really great opportunity to get into more of a strategic planning leadership from a nonpro t perspective. I loved the work at the YWCA. And in fact, I actually really fell in love with the west side of the state. I was the vice president of programs, so I provided strategic direction to ve programs. The biggest one I love to hang my hat on is that I helped develop a 24/7 child care organization. There’s only a handful in the state. So that is something that I’m probably most proud of, just because it’s something that’s not happening as much as it should for working parents that really need that critical child care for that third shift.

 You also worked with homeless populations in Kalamazoo, right?

Absolutely. I helped oversee the YWCA’s domestic violence and human tra cking shelters.

 What drew you back to Detroit and Covenant House, a much smaller organization than YWCA?

Many years ago, when I was thinking about where I wanted to take my career, I always wanted to be rooted in Detroit and I wanted to have a nonpro t leadership position. And so when the opportunity for Covenant House came up, and I heard about our mission of serving 18-to 24-year olds, I felt, this will give me the opportunity to really pour into this age group that really needs so much help. This age group can be particularly challenged because they’re not necessarily considered children because they’re over the age of 18, and they’re not necessarily adults. And when I came to our campus in Detroit, and

RUMBLINGS

I saw this beautiful jewel of ve acres just outside of Corktown, I immediately felt this is the right move. This is what I should be doing. And this is worth relocating our family back from the west side of the state to Detroit.

 What kinds of failed systems?

For example, access to a ordable housing, which is a huge barrier to those experiencing homelessness, and that’s here in Detroit and also on the west side of the state. We could go on and on and on. Access to quality public education is a big piece. And that’s not a hit or a dig at Detroit public schools or even Grand Rapids Public Schools. It’s just the access piece to it. So if someone is experiencing homelessness, getting to school, staying at school, being focused in school becomes less and less of a priority. So how from a system standpoint, how can our leaders — and these are the types of conversations I would like to have — of our schools and leaders of even workforce training programs really think about how we can better serve these populations that are experiencing homelessness?

 Are you bringing new strategies to Covenant House?

We’ve always had workforce training, and we’ve always done a really great job at putting young people into jobs. But now we’re starting the conversation with employers to educate them on some of the issues that come with someone that’s facing homelessness like transportation and trauma and hoping that the employer then has a di erent level of understanding and is extending di erent levels of grace, and we’re working together to gure out OK, how can we help eliminate barriers for young people to successfully keep their jobs?

 Any other new strategies?

So on our campus in Detroit, we have an emergency shelter. We also have a transitional housing program. The data is suggesting to us that the longer youth are with us, the better their success rates are. I envision Covenant House 2.0 as getting more into permanent supportive and a ordable housing. And so in that way, we’ll be able to transition our young people into a permanent supportive housing situation where we can also provide aftercare for those 12 months after they leave us, making sure they’re getting to work, making sure they understand how to go grocery shopping and making sure they are working or working towards education. I’d be open to creative partnerships, either working with developers or identifying properties parcels of land that are near us in Detroit and also in Grand Rapids. This is not just a Detroit issue.

 What’s something people don’t know about you?

I ran my rst marathon last year. I did the Free Press. I registered for that on New Year’s Eve going into 2022. I had COVID, and I was like COVID is not going to be my story. So I’m going to run a full marathon.

Most people also don’t know I’m a dancer by trade. I was formally trained in ballet and tap. And I used to be a synchronized gure skater. I competed on a national level with the Dearborn Figure

Meagan Dunn is executive director at Covenant House Michigan

BY | SHERRI WELCH

Skating Club. And I did that through college. That meant 5 a.m. practices because ice time is expensive. Even as a young gure skater, and when I began competing, this was very expensive. My mom went out and got creative. She would go to the local grocery stores and seek sponsorships for me to help cover some of the costs of gure skating.

Tickets go on sale for USFL’s Michigan Panthers at Ford Field

THE MICHIGAN PANTHERS are returning to metro Detroit for the rst time in 40 years, and football fans can make plans to see the USFL team play in person.

Tickets are on sale for Panthers home games and home contests for the other seven USFL teams at theus.com/ticket-hub. Both the Panthers and Philadelphia Stars will call Ford Field home this season.

Tickets start at $10 for an end zone single-game ticket. Sideline and club level single-game tickets are $25 and $40, respectively. e league is also o ering season tickets at $25 for end zone seats and $75 for the sideline. Club level season tickets are priced at $100. Groups sales

will get perks including access to exclusive on- eld experiences. Family plans and partial season plans will

be announced closer to the start of the season. e Panthers, in a partnership

with the Detroit Lions, will play ve of their 10 games this season at Ford Field, beginning with a Week 3 match-up with the New Jersey Generals on April 30. at contest begins a stretch of four straight home games for the Panthers.

e team begins the season on the road against the Houston Gamblers at noon April 16 in Memphis.

e 2023 season is the second for the revived USFL, which originally ran from 1983-85. Last season, the Panthers went 2-8.

e Panthers are led by coach Mike Nolan, who was head coach of the San Francisco 49ers from 2005-08 and has more than 40 years of coaching experience.

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