e city of Detroit has led a lawsuit against the nonpro t developing a $45 million arts center on its eastern border with the city of Grosse Pointe Park for beginning demolition on property sitting in both cities without required Detroit approvals.
Just as the supply chain is smoothing out and the cadence of production improves, automotive suppliers are now seeing red where balance sheets had long been stable.
e soaring cost of money and tightening credit conditions are hurting liquidity, and in some cases, tipping nancially distressed companies into insolvency.
Small and mid-size suppliers that are heavily leveraged with a large amount of variable interest debt are the most vulnera-
ble. at applies to many manufacturers in Michigan, said Steven Wybo, senior restructuring and management consultant at Birmingham-based Riveron.
“For the rst time in over a decade, we’re actually talking about interest rates signicantly impacting businesses’ ability to grow and survive,” he said.
While automakers took in record pro ts over the past couple of years, their suppliers absorbed most of the impact of supply
chain snarls by cutting costs, trying to renegotiate contracts and often taking on more debt — a decision that has proved to be costly.
When North Carolina-based Stanadyne LLC, whose creditors include Ford Motor Co. and Autocam Corp., led for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in February, it cited interest rates as the driving force.
See DEBT on Page 17
In the suit led in Wayne County Circuit Court April 6, the city asked the court to compel Urban Renewal Initiative Foundation to seek required approvals and permitting from Detroit for the property within its borders on Je erson Avenue east of Alter Road, to pay unspeci ed nes for violating city code and to pay the costs to restore or replicate the structure it says was unlawfully demolished.
“Grosse Pointe Park’s desire to build a performing arts center is laudable,” said Conrad Mallett Jr., the city of Detroit’s corporation counsel, in a statement forwarded to Crain’s.
“Despite years of cooperative e ort evidenced by Detroit City Council approval of the sale of land located in the city of Detroit’s Je erson Chalmers Historic Business District to Grosse Pointe Park, developers associated with the building project have unfortunately disregarded City of Detroit demolition, construction and Historic District Commission ordinances.
See LAWSUIT on Page 17
Apartment sales dominated the list of biggest commercial real estate deals in 2022. Of the 56 known property sales clocking in at $10 million or more across Southeast Michigan, 27 of them were for apartment buildings. And despite a tougher market, there were plenty of other big deals last year.
MORE REAL ESTATE: Largest general contractors. | Largest o ce sales, o ce leases and industrial sales. SECTION STARTS ON PAGE 9
THE CONVERSATION
New health care
CEO steps up in the face of a tragedy.
Page 18
OPEN
Host Utica creates space to help launch new restaurateurs.
Page 8
For auto suppliers, spiking interest rates become more than a headache | BY KURT NAGL
THE NEWS: e owner and operator of a shuttered Southwest Michigan nuclear power plant may ask for about $300 million in state funding to help reopen the facility. Holtec International has launched an unprecedented e ort to reopen a nuclear plant after it had already closed for decommissioning. e Palisades nuclear plant in Van Buren County shut down in May of 2022. Holtec acquired the facility from Entergy Corp. the following month.
WHY IT MATTERS: O cials say that state funding would be necessary to complement a roughly $1 billion U.S. Department of Energy loan that Holtec applied for last month. e federal loan would be the primary investment into reopening the nearly 800-megawatt capacity Palisades.
THE NEWS: Detroit’s workforce and economic development head Nicole Sherard-Freeman is departing the city to become COO of the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan. Sherard-Freeman, 56, will join the Community Foundation in the newly created role e ective July 10, overseeing donor services, nance, grantmaking services, information
technology, program teams and its economic development e ort, the New Economy Initiative.
WHY IT MATTERS: Sherard-Freeman will bring more than 25 years of experience across corporate, nonpro t and governmental organizations to the new role. She currently serves as group executive of jobs and economy and executive director of workforce development and Detroit at Work.
THE NEWS: Bell’s Brewery Inc. is heading into the Paci c Northwest and Utah as it continues expanding its distribution footprint following its 2021 sale to an international beverage company. Kalamazoo-based Bell’s said last week that it inked deals with distributors in Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, Washington and Utah to bring its beers to new markets.
WHY IT MATTERS: In 2021, Bell’s sold to Australia-based Lion Little World
Beverages Inc., a division of Japan’s Kirin Holdings Co. Ltd.
THE NEWS: Alpino, a new Europeanand wine-centric restaurant from hospitality veteran David Richter’s Detroit-based Rust Belt Hospitality, will open May 1 at 1426 Bagley St., south of Michigan Avenue, in a 3,200-square-foot space that previously housed chef Kate Williams’ restaurant Lady of the House.
WHY IT MATTERS: Richter signed a 10year lease with building owner Charlie Dabrowski and late last year told Crain’s he had invested about $600,000 into the project.
THE NEWS: Traverse City-based specialty auto insurer Hagerty Inc. is cutting an additional 4 percent of its workforce just months after a 6 percent cut as it seeks cost savings. Hagerty (NYSE: HGTY) said in a regulatory ling that it will trim 83 jobs across the company to meet “growth and pro tability goals.”
WHY IT MATTERS: e cuts come after Hagerty reduced its workforce in December by about 6 percent, or 103 employees.
e property best known as the Boblo Island Dock building southwest of the Ambassador Bridge is coming down.
O cially the Detroit Harbor Terminals Inc. property, the 10-story, 846,000-square-foot building designed by Albert Kahn has had a portion of its eastern facade removed as crews from Detroit-based demolition contractor Adamo Group work on the demolition. e building, which opened in 1926, has long been expected to be demolished, with the Detroit-Wayne County Port Authority signing o on its demolition more than two years ago. But it’s more complicated than that. e port authority o cially owns the property but has a 100-year master concession agreement with a Moroun family company called e Ambassador Port Co. LLC. e agreement has been a sore spot for the port authority, which took over the site from the city in 2005 and that year entered into the master concession agreement, which gives Ambassador Port sweeping control over the broader 34-acre property, known as the Detroit Marine Terminal dock site, Crain’s reported in October 2021.
e authority has tried to get out of the master concession agreement by proposing a termination that would include Ambassador Port getting ownership of the dock site from the port authority.
LANSING — House Democrats on ursday began considering new bills that would make broad changes to Michigan employment law, including altering the de nition of independent contractors and requiring employers to tell employees the wages of similarly situated co-workers upon request.
Supporters said the bills would crack down on payroll fraud and wage discrimination in Michigan. Business groups voiced opposition at the rst hearing on the bills, saying they overreach and could hurt those they are meant to help.
e 17-bill package, which was introduced just a day before, also would put restrictions on noncompete agreements and update whistleblower protections, including to cover independent contractors.
e ongoing labor shortage, lack of a ordable housing for workers and the challenges surrounding short-term rentals are among the top concerns of state tourism leaders as the peak summer season approaches.
Some 600 people in the industry gathered last week for the Michigan Economic Development Corp.’s Pure Michigan Governor’s Conference on Tourism at the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel in downtown Grand Rapids.
e event featured workshops, keynote speakers and networking opportunities. Featured speakers included Grand Rapids o cials including Mayor Rosalynn Bliss and
Doug Small, president and CEO of Experience Grand Rapids; and statewide leaders including Kim Corcoran, executive director of Meetings Michigan, Amy Hovey, executive director of the Michigan State Housing Development Authority, and David Lorenz, vice president of Travel Michigan at the MEDC. Geo Freeman, president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association, also had top billing as a keynote speaker.
Lorenz told Crain’s that some of the biggest hurdles he expects the Michigan travel and tourism industry will experience this year are how in ation and concerns over the
economy may make travelers pull back on spending, ongoing caution because of the 3-year-old COVID-19 pandemic, and the labor shortage in the hospitality industry.
On the other hand, he said Travel Michigan has “the biggest budget for Pure Michigan we’ve ever had,” citing $30 million awarded from the state budget for the scal year that began in October, much of which will support the new Pure Michigan marketing campaign dubbed “Keep It Fresh.” e group also received $10.3 million from the Economic Development Administration, $9 million of which is going toward the Pure Michigan campaign.
In 1995, Bob Fish thought he had come up with a creative play on words for the name of his new East Lansing co ee shop. It wasn’t until after opening that he learned it was also a slur.
e co ee shop would franchise and spread to more than 60 locations before Fish and his business partner changed the name in 2007. ey eventually landed on a di erent play on words, Biggby, a phonetic reference to the brand’s block “B” logo.
e driving force behind Biggby’s rebrand may have been unique — at
least outside pro sports — but name changes are becoming more common in the era of corporate naming rights and splashy M&A deals.
Corewell Health is one of the latest examples of a local company undergoing a major rebranding campaign.
After Grand Rapids-based Spectrum Health merged with South eld-based Beaumont Health last year, the new company mounted a full-court press to market its new name.
“‘Corewell’ is everywhere,” said Drew Patrick, CEO of Skidmore Studio, a Detroit-based brand agency.
e Democratic-led House Labor Committee, which did not vote, met before nonpartisan sta could release an analysis summarizing the legislation.
Supporters, including labor unions and signatory construction contractors, said it is time to target unscrupulous businesses that eece people out of overtime, unemployment bene ts, workers’ compensation and retirement bene ts by misclassifying employees as independent contractors.
“It’s theft, and it robs working people of pay and bene ts that they’ve earned,” said Tom Lutz, president of the Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters and Millwrights. “Cheating contractors use underhanded schemes with labor brokers, shell companies, check-cashing stores that evade their legal obligations. ey fail to deduct and pay employment-related federal and state taxes to the tune of $8.4 billion a year across our country.”
Similar measures went nowhere when Republicans controlled the Legislature. But they could be on the fast track with Democrats in power.
Michigan uses an IRS test to determine if someone is an employee or independent contractor. Under the main bill, the de nition would be changed to one similar to California’s, “severely” restricting businesses’ ability to use such contractors and for people to work independently, said Wendy Block, senior vice president of business advocacy and member engagement for the Michigan Chamber of Commerce.
“In California, they carve out 109 types of workers, but this bill has no such exemption. is would go much further that what we’ve seen in any other states,” she told the panel, saying California exempts lawyers, accountants, private investigators, most direct salespeople, travel agents, grant writers, real estate appraisers, freelance writers and editors, and others from its newer test.
A new joint venture with local ties is recapitalizing more than 2.2 million square feet of light industrial real estate in Michigan with $240 million in new funding.
e JV between Bingham Farmsbased Burton-Katzman LLC and New York City-based DRA Advisors LLC said it is recapitalizing 24 properties, which are 99 percent leased to more than 40 tenants. None of the tenants takes up more than 15 percent of the portfolio square footage, according to the JV.
Andy Boyce, who is partner, COO and CFO of Burton-Katzman, said Burton-Katzman bought out some of its equity partners from its portfolio and brought in DRA, which was looking for a local partner in the region.
“We got strong returns. A lot of these are our B, B-minus properties, not the A-plus pretty ones,” Boyce said. “But when you package them all together, you get a little more eciency and better returns for our overall investors, including ourselves.”
DRA, whose website said it has about 30 industrial properties in the state, expands its light industrial presence at a time when the market for industrial and warehouse properties has been pumping out spec buildings at a regular clip for years.
A fourth-quarter report from the local o ce of New York City-based brokerage Newmark says that in the last decade, nearly two dozen spec
warehouse buildings have come to the market totaling some 10.2 million square feet, and an additional 16 totaling a little over 5 million square feet are set to be completed in 2023.
Boyce said most of the 24 properties are in Southeast Michigan, although some are in Grand Rapids.
Within the two dozen properties, there are close to 40 buildings in all as part of the deal.
It closed in a couple phases, wrapping up in March, Boyce said.
“Building on our over 100 years of industry experience, we’re looking forward to a long and prosperous re-
lationship with DRA Advisors, one of the most dynamic and intelligent teams in our industry,” Peter Burton, one of the heads of Burton-Katzman, said in a release.
Burton-Katzman has Michigan properties in Taylor, Auburn Hills, Grand Blanc, Sterling Heights, New
Baltimore, Lake Orion, Rochester Hills, Howell, Lincoln Park, Canton Township and elsewhere around the state, according to the company’s website.
Contact: kpinho@crain.com; (313) 446-0412; @kirkpinhoCDB
A dispute over electrical capacity has put a Bitcoin mining company and its Detroit landlord at odds in a federal lawsuit led last Monday.
In the complaint, Syosset, N.Y.based Cheetah Miner USA Inc. says tensions developed between it and its landlord, 19200 Glendale LLC, toward the end of 2022 and it was told the building owner “sought to begin and/or expand its own operations at the building and needed the electrical capacity available to” Cheetah.
Bitcoin mining, the complaint says, “requires signi cant electrical capacity, as well as sophisticated hardware and software.” Cheetah Miner has a contract with DTE Energy Co. that would have given it “sucient capacity to engage in Bitcoin mining,” the complaint says.
However, after the landlord “repeatedly threatened eviction,” the two sides discussed simply terminating the lease.
Cheetah Miner provided a lease termination on Jan. 23, the complaint says. However, the complaint says the landlord didn’t sign the lease termination, so it was therefore nalized and Cheetah Miner is still a tenant. Yet 19200 Glendale “materially changed the electrical capacity
for (Cheetah Miner) use” as of Feb. 7, the complaint says.
As a result of not having electricity, Cheetah Miner says it is hasn’t been able to mine Bitcoin since that day, resulting in lost pro t totaling more than $75,000.
“My client signed a fully drafted out lease termination agreement,” said Jonathan Frank, an attorney with Bloom eld Hills-based Frank & Frank
Law who is representing Cheetah Miner. “As of the end of January, early February, my client negotiated to be bought out but the landlord wouldn’t sign it, so we are between a rock and a hard place. ey turned the power o , and we asked him a couple weeks later that, if you’re not going to sign (the lease termination agreement), at least turn the power back on.”
An attorney for the landlord said
A Bitcoin mining company has sued its Detroit landlord in federal court. In the complaint, Syosset, N.Y.-based Cheetah Miner USA Inc. says tensions developed between it and its landlord, 19200 Glendale LLC, toward the end of 2022.
COSTAR GROUP INC.
there have been months of unpaid rent and other issues.
Stephen Dunn, a Bodman PLC attorney in Troy representing 19200 Glendale, said in an email on Monday that “ ... Cheetah Miner and its corporate guarantor failed to make months of rent payments owed, breached the written lease agreement, defaulted, went dark and silent for months, abandoned the lease-
hold premises (left its equipment behind), and only recently resurfaced strangely trying to extort money from the owner.”
Dunn continued: “19200 Glendale strongly denies any suggestion that it somehow owes any money to the defaulting tenant. 19200 Glendale will vigorously prosecute its counterclaims against the defaulting tenant and its guarantor, looks forward tonal adjudication on the merits, and is con dent that it will prevail after all of the relevant facts are revealed through a comprehensive discovery process monitored by the court.”
e lease, which is included in court exhibits, says Cheetah Miner took about 23,150 square feet in the roughly 190,000-square-foot building at 19200 Glendale, north of I-96 and west of the Davison Freeway. Mining is how transactions through cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Dogecoin, for example, are veri ed. When a transaction is made, each is linked to previous and future transactions, which creates what’s known as a blockchain, which is a ledger that documents crypto transactions. Miners are paid with new coins and transaction fees.
Contact: kpinho@crain.com; (313) 446-0412; @kirkpinhoCDB
Do civil rights extend to people with disabilities in Michigan? It’s hard to believe this question is being asked in 2023. Everyone deserves to be included and live a full life in their community. e law says everybody is entitled to human and civil rights, regardless of age, gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity and other important factors.
Over the past generation, new investment in U.S. manufacturing has consistently focused on southern states, where unions are less prevalent and economic development and site improvements are easier to get done.
Michigan has made strides in changing the perception that it’s not friendly to such investment. e speed with which proposals have been put together to lure new plants to feed the EV industry is a feather in the state’s cap. However, we are also seeing risks of backsliding.
In the communities near Big Rapids and Marshall, local opposition to billion-dollar plant investments has grown, and not all of it has been pretty.
Whispers around Big Rapids about China-based Gotion Inc.’s ties to the Chinese Communist Party have turned into a dull roar, and have given rise to conspiracy theories and xenophobia.
Last week, a legislative panel pushed forward on monetary incentives for EV battery plants planned by Ford and Novi’s Our Next Energy, but those for Gotion are still on pause.
To be clear, asking questions and demanding answers of any new development is part and parcel of the process, and the right thing to do. But fomenting conspiracy theories does little to make Michigan a destination of
choice for companies looking for locations.
Drawing major plants like these, especially in Michigan’s smaller cities where jobs can be hard to come by, is a big win. Getting all stakeholders, from local residents to top executives, on the same page as quickly as possible, before that local opposition becomes a national story, is critical.
(And if you’re really worried about Chinese companies, remember the plant will be in the U.S. Should con ict ramp up with China, at least the assets will be here to be seized.)
Beyond the local opposition, moves by the Democrats who control Michigan’s government to repeal right-to-work laws that banned paying union dues as a condition of employment haven’t helped our reputation as a state that’s open for business.
New pushes by the party last week to expand labor protections are likely to raise bigger questions in the minds of site selectors. A “go slow” approach at such a critical time makes sense — when businesses are making big plans, they need a sense that the ground isn’t going to shift drastically beneath their feet.
is is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to make Michigan a center for a new industry. It’s driven by a profound shift toward electric vehicles that automakers have bet their futures on, and also driven by strategic spending by the federal government to make sure a substantial amount of that manufacturing base is in the U.S.
If Michigan residents don’t want the jobs in their communities, there are any number of states that will happily line up to take them. Let’s not give them new arguments for why Michigan would be the wrong choice.
But when we say “everybody,” does that include people with disabilities, including intellectual and developmental disabilities? People with autism, like my daughter? Does it include the entire Michigan workforce and tens of thousands of Michiganders who are shut out of work because of a disability? e blunt answer is no.
Civil rights protection for people with disabilities came with the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990. is law is designed to ensure that people with disabilities have the same rights and opportunities as everyone else. It prohibits discrimination in employment, education, transportation and other areas of public life. But like other elements of civil rights, the fact there is a law doesn’t mean people know it, understand it and live it in their hearts.
For children and adults on the autism spectrum in Michigan we are making progress, but there is so much work to do. Research shows that early diagnosis, access to evidence-based therapies and a world-class special education with a focus on vocational training can put many adults on the spectrum on a path to employment and independence.
Unfortunately, too many children are diag-
nosed far too late and access to therapies takes too long, wasting valuable time. Delays in diagnosis and therapies is even greater for children of color.
Furthermore, special education in Michigan has been chronically underfunded by about $1 billion a year. About half of Michigan’s children in special education leave high school with deep academic de cits — and without a diploma. e results? About 90 percent of adults with autism in Michigan are unemployed, leading to a lifelong sentence of isolation and poverty.
If the civil rights laws are designed to protect all students, how can we continue to have these terrible outcomes in Michigan? When we say “all children” does that really mean all children or just some? If it meant all children, we would be funding special education properly and training teachers in evidence-based methods. e graduation rates would be 90 percent, with many landing jobs after high school.
We also encourage businesses to expand their lens on diversity, equity and inclusion to include people with disabilities and establish aggressive hiring goals. Tapping into a workforce with tremendous potential is good for business. It creates a love and brand loyalty from your customers which will set you apart from your competition.
Michigan is making progress, but we have to accelerate the momentum. Special education funding increased last year, but there still is a massive gap. is year’s proposed budget provides 35 percent more sta ng for the Michigan Department of Civil Rights to enhance disability compliance and training and reduce the large number of discrimination complaints related to ADA. is is real progress.
Let’s not lose sight of the spirit and intent of the ADA and that all people with disabilities have the same rights and opportunities as everyone else, including education and employment.
Please join the Autism Alliance of Michigan in ghting for the civil rights of people with disabilities for better lives.
WHEN BUSINESSES ARE MAKING BIG PLANS, THEY NEED A SENSE THAT THE GROUND ISN’T GOING TO SHIFT DRASTICALLY BENEATH THEIR FEET.DAVE MEADOR
BY RICHARD DEVORE
onprofit organizations provide critical services and programs in our communities, from feeding and sheltering the homeless to leading youth educational and athletic programs to maintaining public parks. But for these organizations to be e ective, exible and innovative, they need reliable sources of general operating revenue — dollars that are often the toughest to raise.
at’s where community foundations come in.
Community foundations are public charities that work with a broad range of donors to establish permanent funds that bene t the residents of a region. e Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan serves Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Washtenaw, Monroe, Livingston and St. Clair counties, but there are 57 community foundations in Michigan serving every county in the state.
Community foundations specialize in establishing and growing endowed funds, which serve as permanent sources of charitable capital for communities. ese funds can bene t a eld of interest, such as the arts or health, or a speci c organization.
Gifts to endowed funds are invested, and each year a portion of the investment returns are available to be granted to the organizations or elds of interest the funds were established to bene t.
Nonpro ts that have endowed funds can rely on grants for general operating support that they can allocate to their most pressing needs or for strategic purposes. As these funds mature, the principal grows, and total distributions eventually exceed the value of the initial gift with which they were established.
e Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan helps more than 230 organizations that are building permanent endowment with us. Examples include Livingston County Catholic Charities, Detroit PAL, Avalon Housing, Redford Township District Library, Forgotten Harvest, Literacy and Beyond, Autism Alliance of Michigan, Detroit Youth Choir, Judson Center, and Friends of the Rouge.
Between 1989 and 2012, Michigan’s Charitable Tax Credit for Community Foundations provided a 50 percent credit for donations to an endowed fund held by a community foundation certi ed by the state of Michigan. e credit was worth up to $200 for a couple or $100 for an individual, and up to $5,000 or 10 percent of Michigan business tax liability — whichever was less.
When the tax credit was repealed in 2012, we lost a valuable tool for engaging working families in what I like to call “kitchen table philanthropy” — the opportunity to participate in deliberate giving to causes and organizations families care about without the prerequisite of wealth. A 2014 study from the John-
Nson Center for Philanthropy at Grand Valley State University showed a 50 percent decrease in $400 donations and a 27.5 percent decrease in $200 donations following the repeal of the Michigan tax credit.
Sen. Sam Singh of East Lansing recently introduced S.B. 127 which would restore Michigan’s charitable tax credit, which we see as an opportunity to develop the nonpro t sector while engaging a whole new generation in charitable giving. We encourage other legislators to lend the bill their support and their vote. Together, we can grow the charitable capital available to our region.
JAY DAVIS
Chef Michael Murabito has worked in a lot of di erent settings over the last 13 years. Now he is setting himself up to run his own restaurant.
Murabito is starting a two-month run at Host Utica, a restaurant, co-working and events space that opened in September at 7759 Auburn Road in the Macomb County city’s downtown. It’s the brainchild of 36-year-old entrepreneur and Realtor Michael Ivkov.
Ivkov’s goal is to give chefs and small business owners a setup to help push them to the next level.
Ivkov ran a food truck, Stockyard Detroit, for two years, hosting vecourse, 16-person pop-up dinners in various spots around downtown Detroit with a chef friend.
e opportunity those venues gave Ivkov is what led him to establish Host Utica.
“I had a lot of people take a chance on me and I know how much it meant to me and my future,” Ivkov said.
“ at’s what this is all about. A lot of the chefs who come through here are food truck chefs, private chefs, second line chefs at restaurants.
ey’re at the point where they want to start their own spot, or they’re an executive chef at a restaurant but they don’t own the restaurant themselves, and now they want to own their own spot.”
e restaurant part of the business has a rotating roster of chefs who essentially serve a residency there with a goal of moving on to their own space.
Host is a great place to test one’s mettle as a chef, according to Murabito. Sitting chefs at Host hire their own kitchen sta , while Ivkov handles front of house management.
Each visiting chef keeps 70 percent of the money made from food sales. Along with hiring and paying sta , the chefs are also responsible for food costs.
“You really learn a lot from being here, even if it’s only for a little bit,” the 33-year-old Murabito said. “I’m nding my voice as a chef and manager right now. is helps you get much more comfortable with hiring and running a kitchen. You nd out what people like, too. I’m looking to use these next couple of months as a showcase to show people what I can do.”
What amounts to an internship for the chefs comes in a strong setting.
e ground- oor, wide-open, bright, 3,000-square-foot restaurant area o ers seating for 90, which includes spaces at a bar Ivkov believes rivals those at some downtown Detroit hot spots.
e 3,800-square-foot second lev-
el is home to co-working and event spaces. Host Utica offers dedicated office space for small business owners at $800 a month while a larger corner office runs $1,100 a month. Dedicated desk space is available for $250 a month. Communal space, which includes about 25 high-top seats at a bar and seating in a space also used for events, is available for $150 a month. Daily drop-in access is offered for $29. A conference room in the 10,000-square-foot building’s mezzanine is available for $100 an hour. Photographers can hold photo shoots in the space for $50 an hour.
“We look at this similar to what WeWork does,” Ivkov said. “It’s a great way for small business owners to have a place to conduct business
but not have to go out of their way to do it. It’s like the chef program; we’re all about giving people a chance to do something they’re passionate about.”
e event space, on the south side of the second oor away from the co-working spaces, is available for wedding and baby showers and other happenings and can accommodate up to 120 guests. SamRose Entertainment, which puts on the Traverse City Comedy Fest, on April 19 will kick o a monthly comedy series at Host.
“I think this area is starved for something like this. It’s similar to what they o er at Mark Ridley’s (Comedy Castle),” Ivkov said.
See HOST UTICA on Page 14
Apartment transactions dominated investment sales in 2022, but some are saying rising interest rates have crushed deal ow so far in 2023, leaving this year in limbo.
Of the 56 known property sales clocking in at $10 million or more across Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Washtenaw and Livingston counties, 27 of them were for apartment buildings.
All told, there was just north of $2 billion in sales across those transactions ranging from o ce to multifamily, industrial to hotel space, which were submitted to Crain’s by brokerage rms and landlords around the region. Multifamily sales accounted for just over $1 billion of that gure.
But, don’t expect this year to wind up with that kind of deal ow, said Greg Coulter, managing member and founder of Bloom eld Hills-based Income Property Organization, a multifamily brokerage house. He said low interest rates in recent years plus demand for new housing and rising rents all contributed to high acquisition volumes recently.
Rising rates from the Federal Re-
serve starting last year have started to quash acquisitions.
“ e party’s over, but it was a heck of a party,” Coulter said.
In the rst quarter this year, his company’s deal volume is down 75 percent from Q1 last year, and he anticipates it to be down 85 to 90 percent in the second quarter.
“It’s just a totally di erent world today than it was 12 months ago,” Coulter said. “ e record sales of last year are no more.”
e appetite for multifamily deals in recent years shouldn’t come as much of a surprise.
e asset class weathered a potential storm — with the help of the federal government — as rent payments remained largely consistent in the early days of the pandemic as many Americans received relief checks.
In addition, rising rents have made the sector attractive to investors, including those who looked to commercial real estate investment as bonds and other types of investments were not paying o as much.
“We’re coming o a period of the cheapest interest rates we’ve ever had as a society,” said Joshua Bernard, principal of South eld-based Bernard Financial Group. “A lot of
people were looking to put their money into commercial real estate, and multifamily is often considered, rightly or wrongly, the easiest class of real estate.”
“As (real estate) prices were going up, you could get into stu with cheap nancing,” Bernard said. “ e agencies, Fannie (Mae), Freddie (Mac) and HUD, were having record years of originations. You also had the government buying mort-
Dr. Mi elle Kohler knows a little appreciation can go a long way.
e director of quality improvement and population health management at Delta Dental of Mi igan and her team recently nished writing bonus e s to dentists who served vulnerable ildren in their communities this past year.
Dr. Michelle Kohler
In 2022, Kohler and her team worked at the request of the Mi igan Department of Health and Human Services to implement a value-based payment (VBP) program to increase utilization of the Healthy Kids Dental (HKD) bene t. Delta Dental ose to focus on Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties, a region with a signi cant number of HKD members and low rates of dental visits.
“It was an important project for us. e timing was important because the dental profession has struggled with COVID-19. ere were retirements and some practices didn’t reopen,” Kohler said.
HKD is the dental bene t available to ildren who have Medicaid coverage and are under the age of 21. As part of the VBP initiative, Delta Dental’s goal was to increase access to care in that region by at least 1%.
Delta Dental exceeded that goal — it increased utilization by 4.9% over 12 months and paid
out $1.37 million in bonus payments to dentists in the tri-county area. Of the more than 1,000 dentists who participated, bonuses ranged from $25 to $84,000.
Most importantly, more than 196,000 ildren received essential oral health care — a noteworthy a ievement since, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), tooth decay is one of the most common ronic diseases in ildhood.
If le untreated, cavities can cause infections or lead to problems with eating and speaking. In addition, ildren with poor oral health o en miss more s ool and receive lower grades than ildren with access to regular dental care.
Value-based care programs maintain high-quality patient care and improve health outcomes.
Moreover, Kohler emphasized the intent of these programs is to reward providers for quality and timely preventive services that decrease the need for expensive treatments down the road.
“ is project was a great way to encourage providers to get ba on tra and reward them for their work seeing this underserved population,” Kohler said.
gage-backed securities. So you had this sort of capital machine that was subsidizing multifamily transactions. And as rates rose over the last six, nine months, that spigot has shut o quite substantially, and there’s been a signi cant decline in the volume of transactions over the last six months.”
According to Marcus & Millichap Inc., a California-based real estate rm with a local o ce in South eld, the multifamily market more broadly faces headwinds from a number of directions, ranging from increased interest rates tamping down investment activity to a backlog of new supply hitting the market last year.
e rent growth nationwide seen
in the last couple years is expected to slow and the gulf between seller price expectations and those of buyers remains large.
But still, in Detroit, rent has increased more than 30 percent from 2019 to present, according to a 2023 multifamily outlook report prepared by Marcus & Millichap, rising from $1,059 to an anticipated $1,300 this year. Purchase prices continued to creep upward during the pandemic, rising from an average of $91,200 per unit in 2020 to $118,100 per unit last year, according to Marcus & Millichap.
Contact: kpinho@crain.com; (313) 446-0412; @kirkpinhoCDB
Here’s why that won’t be the case in 2023The 249-unit apartment complex in Ann Arbor called The George sold for $65.75 million from Los Angeles-based Canyon Partners to New Jersey-based Somerset Development. COSTAR GROUP INC. Crain’s Lists: See Crain’s lists of the Biggest Deals and more. PAGES 10-13
Ranked by 2022 revenue
ResearchedbySonyaD.Hill:shill@crain.com
|ThislistofgeneralcontractorsisacompilationofthelargestsuchcompaniesinWayne,Oakland,Macomb,WashtenawandLivingstoncounties.Itisnotacompletelistingbutthemost comprehensiveavailable.Crain'sestimatesarebasedonindustryanalysesandbenchmarks,newsreportsandawiderangeofothersources.Unlessotherwisenoted,informationwasprovidedbythecompanies.Companieswithheadquarters elsewherearelistedwiththeaddressandtopexecutiveoftheirmainSoutheastMichigano ce.MarshConstruction(T.H.Marsh),whichwasNo.25onlastyear’slistwasnotincludedonthelistbecauseit ledforChapter7liquidationinAugust2022. NA = not available.NOTES: e. Crain's estimate.
Want the full Excel version of this list — and every list? Become a Data Member: CrainsDetroit.com/data
To place your listing, visit crainsdetroit.com/people-on-the-move or, for more information, contact Debora Stein at 917.226.5470 / dstein@crain.com
Truscott Rossman
Truscott Rossman welcomes director of public affairs, John Whetstone. A gifted storyteller and advocate with more than 25 years of experience working with Republican lawmakers in the Michigan House, John created and implemented effective communications plans for groundbreaking state public policy. With keen insight, he delivers sound strategic counsel and messaging and effectively communicates with stakeholders to help clients reach goals. TR: Michigan roots, national reach, winning results.
Northstar Bank
Jim Phelps has joined Northstar Bank, an independent community bank headquartered in Michigan, as 1st Vice President and Commercial Lender. He will focus on generating business lending opportunities while building banking relationships. With over 25 years of experience, he brings a strong background in com mercial lending and relationship banking. Jim earned his bachelor’s degree from Albion College. He resides in Saline. Contact Jim at jim.phelps@northstarathome.com.
As the leading cancer- ghting organization, American Cancer Society (ACS) announces the promotion of Jenni Beamer to Senior Executive Director of Michigan. With 21 years of experience at ACS, Jenni is a proven leader in connecting teams, building strategy, empowering leaders, and driving mission impact through revenue, partnerships, and collaboration. Jenni earned her degree from Michigan State University. Leaders across Michigan are encouraged to join the ghtJennifer.Beamer@cancer.org
From Page 8
Flexible Plan Investments, Ltd.
Jeffrey Ingalsbe has been promoted to senior vice president. In addition to his role leading information and technology (IT) efforts and all cybersecurity policies, he is tasked with overseeing the company’s executive committee initiatives and directives. Before joining FPI, he was an assistant professor at the University of Detroit Mercy; director of the Center for Cyber Security and Intelligence Studies; and worked at Ford Motor Company, where he held various IT and security-related positions.
Dana Kopka brings many years of bene ts and HR experience to NFP, alongside a passion for building lasting relationships with clients and working with people to make a positive impact on individuals and organizations. Dana works to remove burdens for clients through support and education in the ever-evolving world of employee bene ts. Her duties include acting as a trusted advisor, serving as a subject matter expert and supporting clients directly with ongoing compliance and strategy reviews.
The DEGC has appointed Kenyetta Hairston-Bridges, Executive Vice President, as the organization’s Chief Operating Of cer, working closely with CEO Kevin Johnson and senior leadership to shape and deliver on the organization’s strategic imperatives. As the new COO, she will be responsible for overseeing the agency’s operations, including strategic planning, program development, and day-to-day management to drive growth and innovation and position Detroit as an ideal landing spot for companies.
“We’ve got a lot going on here. We put a lot into this and we want it to work — for us and the people kind of getting their feet wet here.”
Ivkov projects Host will bring in about $3 million in revenue this year.
Along with running Host, Ivkov is a Realtor with eXp Realty in Troy. To get Host up and running, Ivkov convinced his partners Kevin Kostka and Jeremy Galli to buy the Auburn Road building for about $790,000. An additional $500,000 went toward renovating the space.
“ is building is in a great spot. It’s got a great layout, so I convinced my partners to invest,” Ivkov said. “ ey own the building and I pay them rent every month.”
Ivkov did not disclose terms of the agreement, saying only that it’s a long-term deal.
Here are some of the visiting chefs who will run the Host Utica kitchen in the coming months:
Michael Murabito, through June 3: specializing in Mediterranean cuisine. Break’n Cornbread, June 5-July 15: Chefs Shanel DeWalt and Brandon Johnson specializing in comfort food. Chef Steven Kling, Aug. 1-Sept. 30: specializing in modern French cuisine. Chef Layla Outita, Oct. 3-Dec. 2: specializing in Moroccan food.
to launch his own place in due time.
“I’ve got an LLC. I have a business plan,” Murabito said. “Being able to be here, do interviews and hire my own sta is a really big part of it, too. I’ve never felt like this in a kitchen. It’s surreal that it’s my menu out there that people are enjoying. People aren’t shy. ey send things back. I haven’t had that happen yet. It’s actually a bit surprising to me how comfortable I feel in this role.”
Hilco Performance Solutions
Continuing its expansion with hands-on experienced process improvement experts, Susan Stanley has been named Associate Director of Hilco Performance Solutions (HPS), a management consulting rm that consists of operational and nancial experts in the areas of Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Sales & Customer Experience, Organizational Design, and M&A. An operating company of Hilco Global, HPS helps clients simplify and streamline business processes and improve operational ef ciencies.
Gallagher Sharp is pleased to announce that Adam Zwicker has been elected Partner. Adam focuses his practice on defending trucking, railroad, and maritime organizations against personal injury, property damage, and wrongful death claims arising from commercial transportation accidents. He also defends cargo claims brought under the Carmack Amendment. He has a wide range of experience in general civil and appellate litigation. Adam received his law degree from Wayne State University Law School.
Comcast
Scott Smith has been promoted to vice president of Finance and Business Operations for Comcast’s Heartland Region, which includes Michigan. He manages a team of more than 200 employees and is responsible for leading all nancial aspects of the region, including forecasting and budgeting, as well as overseeing real estate, facilities and supply chain functions. Prior to his promotion, he served as senior director of nance for Comcast’s Heartland Region.
It’s been a good deal thus far. Chef Davante Burnley, who attended the Art Institute of Michigan and worked at hotels and country clubs across the country, was Host’s rst visiting chef. Burnley, who now runs his own business, Chef Squared Private Chef Group, is the executive chef at Host. Other visiting chefs include Flint chef Anthony Guiett.
“We try to bring on chefs that o er a variety of cuisine,” Ivkov said. “(Burnley) does Southern cooking. We’ve got chef Steven Kling coming in this summer, who specializes in French food. (Murabito) specializes in Mediterranean. We really work hard to have something for everybody and showcase a world’s worth of foods.”
at’s exactly what Ivkov hoped for when he established the business. He also hopes Host turns downtown Utica into more of a destination for diners, small business owners and anyone else looking for a place to hang out.
Ivkov looked at opening Host in Mount Clemens, but Utica felt like a better spot.
—Michael Ivkov, founder, Host Utica
“We’re closer to Rochester, Troy, some other places,” Ivkov said. “We’ve had people come from as far as Ferndale and Clawson. ose aren’t really that close, so it feels like we have something people are willing to drive for and that’s becoming rare.
For Murabito, getting his shot to run a kitchen comes at the perfect time.
Murabito, who previously worked under Executive Chef Anthony Lombardo at SheWolf in Detroit’s Midtown, is taking all the necessary steps
“A concept like this feels like something this area really needed. Yeah, we want this to be great for the chefs coming in, but it really means a lot to us to have a place we think can be a destination spot.”
Contact: jason.davis@crain.com
(313) 446-1612; @JayDavis_1981
“WE’VE HAD PEOPLE COME FROM AS FAR AS FERNDALE AND CLAWSON. THOSE AREN’T REALLY THAT CLOSE, SO IT FEELS LIKE WE HAVE SOMETHING PEOPLE ARE WILLING TO DRIVE FOR AND THAT’S BECOMING RARE.”
About $1 million of the EDA funding will go toward a co-op program the state is announcing soon, which will allow convention and visitors’ bureaus to apply for competitive matching grants to put toward increasing accessibility for travelers with disabilities.
Lorenz said the state has an opportunity again this year to bill itself as an option for “staycationers” as well as an a ordable regional destination for travelers in surrounding states who dread the high cost of ying.
“So many people, they think they know Michigan, but the fact is, nobody’s been going anywhere for three years,” he said. “… We’re going to really encourage people to get out there and really get to know their own state. … e other opportunity is, with these high costs, Michigan has always been a great value state for travel (for surrounding states). ings here cost less than they do in many other places.”
He added that with international markets starting to reopen to airlines, Michigan can now re-enter the fray to compete for those travelers.
“Europeans, they can’t wait to get here,” he said. “We’ve continued our presence in our core markets, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the U.K., Ireland, so we continued that all through COVID to some degree, and so we have all these relationships already. … What (those travelers) want right now more than ever, after what we’ve all gone through globally, they want to experience ‘the real America’ more than ever. at’s what we are.”
Lisa Mize is executive director of the Saugatuck-Douglas Area Convention & Visitors Bureau. Her organization markets the area as Michigan’s “Art Coast” and a vacation destination with a large LGBTQ+ community. It also o ers waterfront activities, shopping, dining, fall color tours and wineries, cideries and breweries.
She said the community — which has just about 900 year-round residents — recognized the labor shortage as a major issue, so the CVB convened business owners and residents for a brainstorming session on how to solve it. Out of that came Facebook groups in which job postings are shared as well as a new high school job fair.
e availability of downtown parking was an issue for these high schoolers, so they also had to devise strategies to help them get to work. e Interurban Transit Authority was willing to have students park at the high school and ride together downtown. But even the high school parking lot was lling up, thanks to tourist overow parking, so they added another commuter rideshare lot at an area church.
“ e employers actually said that they would work around the time that the Interurban would drop (the students) o , so that blew my mind,” Mize said. “Instead of eight di erent restaurants saying, ‘I need so-and-so here at this time, I need so-and-so here this time,’ they’re going to say, ‘Ok, if the Interurban is dropping those kids o at 10, I’ll make sure that their shift starts at 10:30.’”
She said that last year restaurants were still operating with shortened hours and fewer days per week, but she hopes this year they’ll be able to get back to normal with more sta . “It remains to be seen,” Mize said.
Whitney Waara is COO of Traverse City Tourism. She travels widely and hears from residents of other states that Michigan’s relative climate stability — not having as many intense weather events like earthquakes, tornadoes and droughts like other states — draws people to Michigan. Also appealing is the water, the state’s natural resources and beauty, and the four seasons.
Visitors to Northern Michigan in particular get a “safe, family-oriented” destination with lots of indoor and outdoor options, she said.
However, in order to sustain the growing tourism economy in the Traverse City area, Waara said more lodging will be needed — both a ordable housing for the workers and hotels or short-term housing for visitors.
“What we need and what we think are appropriately focused on is guring out, how are we doing more housing development in the space where we need it, not necessarily trying to say it’s short-term rentals (that) are the culprit for why we don’t have enough housing,” Waara said.
She said there are apartments and condos going up in the area right now, and Bay Area Transportation Authority is partnering with Gar eld Township on a $100 million transit-oriented development that will include housing.
For the area to keep building up the a ordable housing stock, she said the city and state need to o er the right mix of incentives to developers.
“Developers (may say), ‘I can build a $3 million house or I can build all these a ordable housing units and (the latter) is going to make me a lot more money.’ We have to come up with the equation for that, and it’s a statewide problem,” Waara said.
She pointed to places like downtown Bellaire and Crystal Mountain in ompsonville, which have been building employee housing, as models to emulate.
Amanda Wilkin, executive director of Visit Charlevoix, said that with last year being the city’s best year ever for tourists, even more workers are needed. Her city also has a housing shortage for workers.
“It’s really the chicken or the egg,” she said. “Is it because we have too many short-term rentals that we don’t have enough houses? All of those questions are being thrown around a lot in every resort community.”
Because Charlevoix is a “water-locked” isthmus that has no open land left on which to build, it is making small changes to increase density.
“Our community has done an amazing job with switching zoning or constantly tweaking ordinances and zoning to make changes and allow expansion of … second homes on one
lot,” she said.
e city also has placed a moratorium on short-term rentals in residential areas, limiting it to 80 total that can operate in those districts and no limits on how many can operate in business districts.
But Charlevoix largely depends on the surrounding municipalities to increase the housing stock.
“ e surrounding townships, there’s a lot of proposals for housing developments that are going to the planning commissions. … I think they’ll get there.”
Mackinac Island typically logs about 1 million visitors per year, but last year it saw 1.2 million visitors, said Steph Castelein, who works in events and marketing for the Mackinac Island Tourism Bureau. She theorizes this is because the island has a plethora of outdoor activities for travelers, many of whom are still COVID-cautious.
“Mackinac Island was such an attraction, I think for a while to come and do these things — take your time exploring, go to Doud’s, the oldest family-owned grocery store in the U.S., grab a picnic lunch, rent some bikes and go exploring. I think that has shifted and stayed during the pandemic,” Castelein said.
With that surge in tourists, the island struggled to maintain sustainability the past few seasons. Trash bins were full, people were climbing where there are no-climbing signs posted, items were left behind everywhere and sta were unable to keep bathrooms maintained.
“It’s overtourism in that aspect,” Castelein said. “We kind of just took initiative in our visitor guide, on the back of it, we put ‘how to Mackinac’ — how to be a healthy visitor. We’re actually repeating that again this year.”
e other big problem is sta ng levels. e island has traditionally been dependent on international workers who stay for the peak season to run the restaurants, shops and hotels, but the number of H-1B visas the U.S. issues has been capped at lower levels than in previous decades, so competition for workers is erce.
As a result, the island is working hard to recruit downstate residents, retirees and other populations looking for a fun, seasonal work experience. But those workers typically don’t want to live in dorms — which is where much of the island’s temporary employee housing is concentrated, Castelein said.
“ ere’s no land to buy. It’s state park and city-owned, and building is really di cult,” she said.
Contact: rachel.watson@crain.com (989) 533-9685; @RachelWatson86
Charles C. Zhang CFP®, MBA, MSFS, ChFC, CLU Founder and President
www.zhang
Assets under custody of LPL Financial, TD Ameritrade, and Charles Schwab
*As reported in Barron’s March 12, 2022. Rankings based on assets under management, revenue generated for the advisors’ rms, quality of practices, and other factors.
**As reported in Forbes April 7, 2022 and August 16, 2021. e rankings, developed by Shook Research, are based on in-person and telephone due diligence meetings and a ranking algorithm for advisors who have a minimum of seven years of experience. Other factors include client retention, industry experience, compliance records, rm nominations, assets under management, revenue generated for their rms, and other factors. See zhang nancial.com/disclosure for full ranking criteria.
Charles is the highest ranked Fee-Only Advisor on Forbes’ list of America’s Top Wealth Advisors** To
Detroit-based Samaritas is bowing out of senior living communities after more than 50 years of operating sites around the state.
e move is part of a new strategic plan that will reduce the organization’s $100 million budget by about half, help stave o additional nancial losses and see it double down on investments in its remaining programs for children, families and refugees.
ose investments will come in areas including adoption, foster care, family preservation, behavioral health and substance abuse counseling and a ordable housing for all populations of need, including seniors.
“Our mission remains the same: we will continue to serve vulnerable populations, but we also understand the need to strategically review our mission to best meet evolving needs in Michigan,” interim CEO Dave Morin said.
Coming out of COVID, it’s now a very di erent world, with increased need to invest a lot of capital and resources in senior communities, he said.
“We think the scale and resources to deliver care to our residents in the way we want it to happen (are) probably best delivered by senior living organizations.”
Samaritas expects to close May 1 on the sale of Samaritas Senior Living Saginaw, a skilled nursing facility, to Preferred Care Michigan, a for-pro t senior living community operator of seven communities in Michigan. Terms of the sale of the skilled nursing community in Saginaw for short- and long-term rehabilitation were not disclosed. e community currently serves about 80 people.
“We have found an ideal partner in Preferred Care Michigan, (which) has expressed interest in maintaining the exceptional sta at the Saginaw facility, and we remain con dent in their ability to provide the high quality of
From Page 3
“I hear them on the radio, I see it on billboards. ey’re demonstrating a strong support for a name and identity change.” at kind of messaging push is crucial for a company that wants its new name to stick.
“ e general public is not going to remember what you told them when you only told them once,” Patrick said. “You have got to tell people what you’re gonna do, do it, and then remind them what you did over and over again.”
When it doesn’t work
at makes rebranding under a new name a big lift — and not always one worth undertaking.
“You can get into a whole slippery slope,” said Don Tanner, co-founder of Farmington Hills-based communications rm Tanner Friedman. “Even with promotion time, there’s still a really good chance depending on the name that it’s not going to be necessarily widely adopted.”
Take Pine Knob, which returned to its original name last year after two
care our residents deserve,” Morin said.
“Preferred Care is excited to be partnering with Samaritas in serving our senior population and looking forward to expanding our service into more areas of the Saginaw community,” CEO Yoni Klein said in a release.
Samaritas is now working to identify new owners for its four other communities in Bloom eld Township, Traverse City, Cadillac and Grand Rapids, the largest of the communities, o ering a full continuum of care. Its goal is to completely exit the senior communities business by the end of the calendar year, Morin said, expressing optimism that new owners will retain sta at each site. e properties serve a total of 514 seniors currently, with 429 sta members.
Samaritas, which claims to be the state’s largest foster care and adoption organization, is still nalizing its
decades as DTE Energy Music eatre. Despite a $1 million-per-year deal intended to solidify DTE’s brand following its own merger, the moniker never seemed to stick.
“A lot of people have always called it and always will call it Pine Knob no matter what it is,” Tanner said, adding that popular cultural destinations are some of the toughest to rebrand.
(Grand Rapids-based Acrisure is currently giving it a try at Pittsburgh’s NFL stadium, where the insurance giant signed a 15-year naming rights deal in July.)
Tanner said one of the most important considerations before taking on a name change is brand equity: How important is the existing name to a company’s success, and what does it risk by losing it?
“Don’t do a name change just to be kind of cute and clever,” he said.
Still, name changes can be benecial or even crucial for an array of reasons. Maybe there’s a merger or acquisition, like in the case of Corewell, and multiple companies need to fall under a cohesive brand. A company might want to tap into a new market but its old name is restricting it from doing so. Or, as in the case of Biggby, a name can be inappropriate to the point of hurting busi-
2022 nances, but Morin projects it will show a loss in the millions of dollars tied to operating the ve senior living communities and in ationary pressures on wages for its child welfare program, he said.
The pandemic exacerbated caregiver shortages, and inflation and competition for talent continue to increase the cost to operate senior living communities, Morin said. Samaritas has not been able to gain the economies of scale available to larger senior community operators, he added.
Additionally, Baby Boomer residents of senior living communities are seeking amenities that don’t come cheap, like granite counter tops and updated kitchens, Olympic-sized swimming pools, bistros and theaters, said Kelli Dobner, chief advancement and strategy o cer of Samaritas.
“We have not been able to make those same investments at the same pace as our for-profit competitors”
ness operations.
“It was problematic. It was something we had to manage,” Fish said of the original name, adding that it didn’t align with his company’s values. “It just consumed a lot of energy that could be put elsewhere.”
In Biggby’s case, the name change catapulted the company forward.
“We were on the front page of every newspaper,” Fish said. Biggby quickly became one of the fastest growing co ee shops in the country. e franchise now has 355 locations in more than a dozen states.
Convincing the general public to adopt a new name isn’t always the primary focus of a rebrand. When Fiat Chrysler Automobiles merged with the European PSA Group, the two companies adopted the shared name Stellantis — but only at the corporate level.
e names and logos of Stellantis subsidiaries like Jeep and Dodge stayed the same. ere was no push to market the Stellantis Wrangler, Charger or Ram. Instead, the focus was on “preserving all the exceptional value and the values of its constituent parts,” the company said when it
she said.
With the strategic shift, Samaritas also plans to expand its advocacy, to be present in the center of policy conversations tied to its service areas, “to be the voice for the people in our care,” Dobner said.
Initially, it will step up its advocacy in child welfare, looking to convene stakeholders with the goal of improving the state’s child welfare system, she said. at will include things like helping to eliminate the implicit bias that has led to a disproportionate number of children of color in the state’s child welfare system and ensuring the state’s child welfare agencies are ready to shift more of their efforts to family preservation with federal shifts coming in 2026 to expand services and counseling that keep children among families rather than moving them into foster care. e nonpro t also plans to step up its investments in a ordable housing, leaders said.
that are doing new construction, she said.
With the strategic shift and sale of its senior communities, Samaritas plans to deepen its work in child and family services, Morin said, “daring to innovate and dream and create new, innovative ways of serving the populations we serve.”
at will include a deeper look at the impact the nonpro t is having beyond the number of people it serves.
Samaritas is developing a quality of life index to understand what resources it needs to put in place and what metrics it needs to pay attention to as indicators of signi cant changes in quality of life, Dobner said. It plans to share that information with other agencies and policymakers.
e goal is to not only demonstrate how Samaritas programs are making an impact but to e ect positive change in the state’s child and family systems,
announced the new name in 2020.
“I imagine that was intentional,” Patrick said of Stellantis’ limited marketing campaign, noting some merits to that approach. “Right and wrong is tough in our world because you don’t know what the goals were speci cally going in.”
One of the hardest parts of a rebrand can be deciding on the name itself — and Patrick warns there’s such a thing as too much emphasis placed on it.
“It’s really hard to settle on something because you want that name to do everything for you, but it can’t,” Patrick said. “ e name can’t do everything. No one element of your brand can do everything.”
Picking a name is made more dicult by the simple fact that most English words are taken.
“Almost everything has been used for something,” Patrick said. at means companies often have to choose between making something up
As of 2021, the state was short 191,717 a ordable, available rental homes, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
Samaritas currently operates 17 senior living a ordable housing projects across the state; 14 serving seniors speci cally, Dobner said. It’s making plans to develop more, starting with a $16 million, 53-unit development in Spring Lake on the state’s far west side near Grand Haven, which was selected by the state and Michigan State Housing and Development Authority for tax credit nancing.
Samaritas is looking for properties it can develop for a ordable housing around the state, especially in southeast, central and west Michigan, Dobner said.
“A ordable housing is a signi cant problem for the state of Michigan,” she said. “We want to be and have been at the center of that.”
Contact: swelch@crain.com; (313) 446-1694; @SherriWelch
— Stellantis — or taking a legal risk. e scarcity of remaining names also complicates the issue of web domains.
“Almost all short URLs or oneword URLs are taken,” Patrick said. “ ere’s usually a way to get a URL to work, but how much tolerance does the company have for a URL that’s not exactly what they wanted?” Some companies end up paying large sums of money to get the domain they want.
Despite its challenges, rebranding can pay dividends. It can represent innovation, redirect a company’s mission and re ect new values. And at the very least, it’s likely to catch some eyes.
e key to success, as Tanner sees it: “Go all in. Show your clients that you’re all in with this name change like they should be.”
Contact: jack.grieve@crain.com; (916) 425-6433; @jackeryg
“IT’S REALLY HARD TO SETTLE ON SOMETHING BECAUSE YOU WANT THAT NAME TO DO EVERYTHING FOR YOU, BUT IT CAN’T.”
—Drew Patrick, CEO, Skidmore Studio
“ e City of Detroit is requesting the circuit court to require Grosse Pointe Park and all related parties to follow the law,” Mallett said.
e city of Grosse Pointe Park is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit. But it owned the properties at 14901, 14917, and 14927 East Jefferson Ave. in Detroit up until March 3 when it sold them to Urban Renewal, according to the lawsuit.
e city and Urban Renewal met ursday on what comes next.
“We had a good meeting with the historical commission ( ursday), and they invited us to reapply,” Turnbull said. “All parties are looking for a path forward to resolve, but it’s a process.”
Dan Austin, director of communications for the city of Detroit, in a statement added: “ e City of Detroit appreciates URIF and the City of Grosse Pointe Park coming to the table to work toward resolving this issue. As with all projects involving land in the City of Detroit, the City looks forward to receiving the required applications and engaging with URIF in the review process for this project.”
e city issued a stop work order on the demolition that was clearing a path for the A. Paul and Carol C. Schaap Center for the Performing Arts and a parking area on March 28, the same day it began. By the time the order was issued, the northernmost building — which has a Grosse Pointe Park address and secured a permit from that city, according to Urban Renewal Initiative Foundation — was nearly demolished.
A second building with a mailing address of 14927 East Je erson in Detroit and its western portions rmly in the city of Detroit remains standing following the stop work order.
e Detroit Historic District Commission must approve the demolition and subsequent planned construction of a parking area on that and adjacent Detroit lots, given that they are located in the Je er-
From Page 1
“ e debtors led these Chapter 11 cases because they will not be able to outrun their current interest rates, which have crippled the debtors and drained liquidity since the rapid rise in their variable rates,” according to the bankruptcy declaration from the company.
Others are facing a similar liquidity crunch. Auburn Hills-based plastics, rubber and foam supplier Unique Fabricating Inc. is running low on cash while its lender runs short on patience.
After more than half a dozen forbearance agreements and a default last month, Citizens Bank NA notched up the interest rate on its loan to the company and stopped automatic advances under its revolving line of credit, according to a ling with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
“ e days of kicking the can on covenants or waivers on defaults and being friendly, I think, are mostly over for now,” Wybo said of lending practices in general. “ e banks can’t a ord to be too lenient. ey were very lenient during COVID.”
Unique Fabricating’s predica-
From Page 3
“ is bill in our mind needs more discussion and more work and probably needs to be more narrowly crafted towards what you’re hoping to accomplish,” Block said. “I would just encourage you to engage all stakeholders in that discussion because this has huge rami cations for Michigan’s economy, for Michigan workers and for Michigan businesses.”
e measure would prohibit the misclassi cation of employees as independent contractors and put the onus on employers facing complaints to prove they did not do so. It also would allow for $10,000 nes and orders that violators pay workers three times the wages and bene ts they are owed.
son-Chalmers Historic Business District, in accordance with the Michigan Local Historic Districts Act, the city’s attorneys said in the lawsuit.
e properties in Detroit are also subject to permitting and other approval processes set forth in the Detroit City Code, they said, asking the court to declare that Urban Renewal is required to le an application for permits with the Detroit Buildings, Safety Engineering, and Environmental Department to commence and complete demolition and/or construction.
ment is not unusual. e pro le of the company, which had an estimated revenue of $136 million last year, mirrors many other small and midsize suppliers. But its publicly traded status in a space dominated by private companies o ers a glimpse into the nancial turmoil that turnaround experts have said is prevalent in this part of the supply chain.
Wybo said he has a couple dozen nancially distressed clients, and most of them have pointed to rising interest rates as a major factor. While bankruptcy is the result only in the most severe cases, daunting debt service levels are impacting nearly all companies with variable debt on the books.
Northville-based Cooper-Standard Automotive Inc.’s debt increased just slightly year over year to about $1 billion in 2022, as detailed in its annual earnings report in February. At the same time, its net interest expense jumped $6 million due to higher interest rates.
e elevated debt service level, it warned investors, is burning cash that could otherwise be used for working capital, capital expenditures or research and development.
e same dynamic is at play with Novi-based Stoneridge Inc. e supplier’s interest expenses increased
PCI One Source, the general contractor on the project, sought and secured a permit from Grosse Pointe Park for the DPW building with an address in that city, Turnbull told Crain’s last week.
It submitted its plans for the property to the Detroit Historic District Commission in September 2021 but withdrew its proposal the next month after sta for the commission recommended denying the proposal.
In the commission report, sta
about $2 million from 2021 to 2022 primarily because of higher credit facility interest rates, it said in its annual nancial report led last month.
“It can be a major hurdle for suppliers,” said Sean Pattison, principal at Plante Moran who specializes in restructuring. “When you have less cash, then every decision becomes that much more important.”
At South eld-based Superior Industries International Inc., most of its $647 million of debt was at a oating rate at the end of 2022, though it did execute a swap for xed rate debt to hedge against volatility in the future, the company said in its annual report led last month.
e interest rate on its $400 million term loan facility jumped more than 8 points to 12.3 percent, amounting to an annual interest expense of $46.3 million, or $4.5 million more than what it paid the previous year.
“A signi cant portion of our cash ow from operations will be used to pay our interest expense and will not be available for other business purposes,” the company said in the ling.
Auto suppliers are starting to look to customers for recoveries related to elevated interest expenses, Pattison said. But those negotiations differ from the price increases many customers have reluctantly given to
said the proposed demolition of buildings on the property and plan to turn it into parking and loading areas failed to adhere to the historic nature of the surrounding Je erson-Chalmers neighborhood, would negatively impact pre-war apartment buildings on Alter Street and locate parking, pedestrian/vehicle con icts and truck loading “facing toward” the city of Detroit, a design that was incompatible with the pedestrian and historic context of the neighborhood.
“Here defendant opted to withdraw its application to the HDC and proceed with the demolition of the structures on 14927 East Je erson and its plans to construct on 14901, 14917, and 14927 East Je erson without following the appropriate procedures to obtain demolition and/or building permits issued by the City of Detroit, in stark derogation of the law,” the city’s attorneys said in the lawsuit.
Contact: swelch@crain.com; (313) 446-1694; @SherriWelch
help suppliers weather rising costs for material and labor, as well as production shutdowns.
“ e OEMs view that separately from operational challenges,” Pattison said of rising interest rates. “ ey would view it as outside of their control or outside of their effect on the suppliers, so I think they’re trying to avoid having to compensate or reimburse suppliers for that increase in cost.”
However, for many companies, the turbulent nancial situation has only worsened.
“Suppliers, more so now than even 24 months ago or 12 months ago, are trying to include any cost increase they can that’s making their contribution and pro t margin erode away,” Pattison said.
Suppliers have only two options to mitigate losses: cut costs and improve e ciencies, Wybo added. After that, they fall back on their customers for help.
“For a lot of these distressed companies, it’s been a buildup of three years of depressed volumes, volatility in releases, increased labor, et cetera,” he said. “ is massive rise in interest rates hit these borrowers quickly.”
Contact: knagl@crain.com; (313) 446-0337; @kurt_nagl
John Bodary, president and owner of Woods Construction, a Sterling Heights-based company that renovates stores, urged passage of the legislation. He told of how his rm unsuccessfully bid to remodel a Target in Brighton only to ultimately take over the project after the out-of-state contractor did poor work and did not use appropriate barricades or safety measures to protect shoppers.
“Fortunately, this scenario doesn’t happen all the time in our industry. But it does happen. And when it does, it’s very di cult to compete with contractors that employ illegal and unsafe practices for their eld forces,” Bodary said. “Enacting legislation that helps to regulate this work will help keep the playing eld level for good Michigan businesses that follow the rules.”
Amanda Fisher, director of NFIB Michigan, a group representing small businesses, said it has “grave concerns” with the package. e misclassi cation of workers, she said, may not be intentional.
“We need to take care of bad actors, and bad actors do hurt current employers that are following the law,” Fisher said. “However, House Bill 4390 doesn’t address that. It just changes what an independent contractor is. If you’re a bad actor, I don’t see how that’s going to help hold other bad actors accountable. All it’s going to do is hurt the people, especially small business owners who many times are independent contractors.”
Other bills would sti en penalties for the nonpayment of wages, revise whistleblower protections, fund marketing for state Attorney General Dana Nessel’s payroll fraud unit, establish an ombudsman to investigate complaints of state government employees, punish false claims for payment from the state and local governments and prohibit employers from requiring noncompete clauses unless certain conditions are met.
Nessel, a Democrat, has established a payroll fraud enforcement unit but has said laws should be updated with “actual teeth.” She has said payroll fraud is most prevalent in the construction, landscaping, janitorial services, child care, beauty and personal care services, retail, food service, car wash and home health care industries.
Another bill would require employers to, within 30 days of an employee asking, disclose wage information about workers who are within the same job classi cation or whose duties are comparable.
Block said such disclosure “may not be a bad thing,” but employers should not face felony penalties for denying a request.
Contact: david.eggert@crain.com; (313) 446-1654; @DavidEggert00
The Midland-based health system MyMichigan Health experienced an unthinkable tragedy when its CEO Diane Postler-Slattery died when a plane piloted by her husband crashed in Northwest Florida last year. Nine months later, the system’s board selected longtime administrator Dr. Lydia Watson, a friend of Postler-Slattery and then chief medical o cer, to take the helm. Watson faced the excruciating position of replacing a dead friend and stabilizing MyMichigan in the midst of an ongoing nancial and labor crisis in the health care industry. She’s been CEO for ve months and is now moving on with changes under her leadership.
How di cult was it to replace Postler-Slattery? How did you, as a system, handle it?
Not only was she my boss, I was chief medical o cer at the time, but we were friends. Her husband and my husband were friends. We traveled together and had a great relationship. After her death, we went through a profound period of shock and grief. As a system, one of the things we did was to sit down and discuss what was important. We (executive sta ) knew it was going to take a lot of dialogue and that we needed to make rounds on all of our employees. High leadership visibility was critical in order to make everyone feel comfortable and to show we didn’t leave the ship without a captain. We also were fortunate enough to have Greg Rogers, who was getting ready to retire, who volunteered to be acting CEO. He had been here for over 40 years and it made a huge di erence to have a trusted name and trusted face in that role. The next step was to honor and sustain what Diane brought to the organization. She was very much people-centric and people-oriented. We wanted to maintain our culture led by her. We focused on those relationships and then started to gradually change things that needed to be changed over the course of the last year. We dealt with the things we needed to deal with. The executive team just said to each other, ‘look, we know how to manage crises, this is just another crisis on top of the pandemic and everything else. So let’s just continue to head into the same direction and deal with what’s coming.’
Would you consider MyMichigan Health a rural system? Midland is somewhat of an urban environment given Dow and others. You are exactly right. I used to think Midland is up North. But it’s really in the
middle of the state. It’s a community hospital that now provides tertiary care. It did rst begin as a rural hospital, but as Midland developed and Dow Chemical and the universities that have grown up around us — more people, more PhDs, more diversity — the hospital in Midland changed. Now we’re eight hospitals and, yes, some of them are very rural. Midland happens to be one of the best as far as health (of the population), but some of the other counties are in the bottom three or four. That’s what makes us special and unique.
How do you balance the two — rural and urban operations?
What we do very well is collaborate with community partners. As we are looking at what the needs of the community are, we see who else can help us with access. Some of our communities have broadband problems and others we have transportation problems. Telemedicine services that grew during the pandemic have been a major help, especially in behavioral health. Behavioral issues skyrocketed in the smaller communities. We’ve also set up hubs inside clinics to provide virtual care because a lot of people in our communities don’t have cell phones or computers. So they can come to these hubs to get nursing and technical
BY | DUSTIN WALSHsupport so they don’t have to drive 60 miles to a hospital.
Is physician recruitment a problem as well?
We’ve got a shortage of physicians, yes. That’s a major area we’re working on. We have patients that want to get in and see a doctor but they may have to wait six months. We need more access. So we’ve partnered with the medical schools at Central Michigan University and Michigan State University to get students into programs at our facilities. We have two family practice programs in Alma and Midland that place residents from the med schools and we try to get them early and recruit them to sign on and stay with us. We also have two additional residency spots in our family practice to train them in rural health care as part of a state program. If they commit to staying in a rural setting to practice, they get $75,000 towards their student loans. We’re already seeing that is valuable to the 23 rural communities we serve.
What’s next?
My biggest goal when I started in this role was to meet with our leaders and board members individually to determine what we do well and what we don’t. What we need to do now is di erent than three years ago in the pandemic. We are focusing on culture, workforce stabilization and patient access. But we really believe if we nail access, everything else will fall into place. That will improve our bottom line and employee satisfaction. Now it’s just a matter of setting new priorities. Our scal year starts July 1 and I am excited for what we’re planning. We’re all headed in the same direction and will hopefully show positive results when we start launching our solutions later this year.
EARLY PLAYER COMMITMENTS for the Rocket Mortgage Classic in Detroit include young star Collin Morikawa and fan favorite Rickie Fowler, but luring top talent to Detroit is becoming more challenging.
Tickets went on sale last week for the fth annual PGA Tour event at the Detroit Golf Club, scheduled for June 27-July 2. Ground passes start at $65 per day.
In addition to Morikawa, ranked 11th in the world, and Fowler, who’s been sponsored by Rocket Mortgage since the tournament started, defending champion Tony Finau rounds out the trio of commitments announced last Monday following the Masters tournament in Augusta, Ga.
“We always tout Detroit as being a place where future stars start,” said
Jason Langwell, executive director of the tournament. “I feel like we’re going to have another strong eld
this year. We’ve always been able to have a very deep eld of top 50-100 players.”
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Following up with more big-name announcements leading up to the event could be a tall order, though, considering the rival LIV Golf league and new payouts for PGA tournaments. e controversial Saudi-backed league, still forging ahead despite skepticism, has siphoned away serious talent from the PGA, which refuses to allow LIV players to participate in its events. Golfers who had been major draws for the Rocket Mortgage Classic in the past — including Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau, Bubba Watson and Patrick Reed — are now teeing it up for the PGA’s archnemesis.
Rocket Mortgage stripped DeChambeau, winner of the Detroit tournament in 2020, of his sponsorship after he left for LIV.
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