Samaritas to sell 5 Michigan facilities, exit senior communities Move part of new strategic plan to reduce budget by about half, stave o nancial losses

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

Name

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“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.

Rising costs

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.

Other types of rebranding

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. that are doing new construction, 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.

Future direction

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. 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.

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.

“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.”

How to pick a new name

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 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.”

— 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.

Contact: jack.grieve@crain.com; (916) 425-6433; @jackeryg 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.

“ e City of Detroit is requesting the circuit court to require Grosse Pointe Park and all related parties to follow the law,” Mallett said.

“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.”

A work stoppage

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-

Debt

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“ 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-