Crain's Detroit Business, June 19, 2023

Land value tax proposal may harm some, help others

Plan will reduce rates for homeowners but may drastically raise costs for certain land holders

BY ARIELLE KASS

e margins are already tight at Detroit’s Fisheye Farms, and owner Andy Chae is worried. If a new proposal that would change the city’s tax structure is approved, he may be among those who su er.

e proposal, called a land value tax, is far from a done deal. It needs approval fromlegislators, the Detroit City Council and then voters. But it has the potential to drastically raise the $1,500 or so Chae spends on annual property taxes for nine lots he purchased from the Detroit Land Bank Authority, and therefore, his costs.

“ at sounds pretty bad to me,” Chae said of the proposal, which would eliminate Detroit’s 20-mill operating budget from property taxes and replace it with a tax on land — not buildings. “It would make it hard-

er to pay people a fair wage for the work that we do here.”

Mayor Mike Duggan unveiled the proposal last month at the Mackinac Policy Conference and said it would reduce taxes for homeowners in the city, while incentivizing development on vacant land. e proposal has a lot of support, but while details are still being ironed out, questions remain about who might be negatively a ected. Junkyards, scrapyards, parking lot owners and speculators are the targets, but other large landowners may also see their taxes rise.

Duggan said May 31 that he intends to nd a solution that would minimize the impact of the proposal on urban farmers like Chae and warehouse owners who might otherwise see higher taxes. e city’s chief

See TAX on Page 21

For our 2023 Excellence in HR award winners, the past year was about bringing sta back to the o ce, re-engaging them to stave o the “Great Resignation” and implementing new processes to improve e ciency and prepare for future crises. Page 8

BY KIRK PINHO

Michigan State University is hoping for spin-o development and additional investment in Detroit’s New Center area following its endowment’s purchase of majority ownership of the iconic Fisher Building and

more real estate in the neighborhood north of downtown.

How precisely that plays out is anybody’s guess.

But the East Lansing university has laid the groundwork for it — if it chooses — to be part of an even broader evolution of the area, rather than a

semi-passive investor with $21 million invested into a 79% ownership stake of the Albert Kahn-designed gem plus two adjacent surface parking lots and a parking deck south of West Grand Boulevard.

See MSU on Page 20

The Fisher Building opened in 1928 in Detroit’s New Center area. Michigan State University’s endowment purchased majority ownership of the building and more real estate in the neighborhood north of downtown. | COSTAR GROUP INC.

Detroit City Council to require businesses to accept cash

Detroit City Council passed a measure Tuesday that will prohibit stores and restaurants from not accepting cash.

ARIELLE KASS unbanked rate,” said Afton Branche-Wilson, the assistant director of community initiatives for Poverty Solutions at the University of Michigan. “Saying a business is cashless, it’s an exclusive thing.”

e cashless ban, as it’s called, would require the Detroit businesses to take cash for purchases, or to have a way for consumers to convert cash to a card for no fee. It was approved unanimously.

Violation of the ordinance, which will go into e ect in September, is a misdemeanor with a maximum penalty of $500 and 90 days in jail. But Graham Anderson, a city attorney, said he expected nes to be lower than the maximum. ey would be charged to businesses and not individual cashiers who might violate the policy. Jail time wouldn’t be on the table, but Anderson said violations would be considered misdemeanors because it was the only way to give the ordinance teeth.

“We’re not trying to lock anyone up, put anyone in jail,” he said. “Our goal is not to punish people, not to come down with a hard hammer.”

City Council member Angela Whiteld Calloway, who proposed the ordinance, said in discussions with the chief judge of 36th District Court that she expected a $175 fee to be more typical, except for repeat o enders.

Whit eld Calloway proposed the ban on businesses that don’t accept

cash after she was unable to use a $20 bill to buy food at a downtown Plum Market. She said Tuesday that the market, which accepts cash at other locations, was willing to be compliant.

No one answered the phone at the store Tuesday afternoon and there was no way to leave a message. Previously, Plum Market didn’t respond to requests for comment about the proposed ban, but signs inside the store said the change to cash-free sales was intended to o er customers a faster, more e cient checkout.

Whit eld Calloway on Tuesday called the new rule “a very simple ordinance” and said it would help people in the city who don’t have bank accounts. Residents in public comment also talked about its importance for children, victims of identity theft

or others who don’t have access to credit or debit cards.

“We don’t need any more barriers in this city,” said Tonya Myers Phillips during the public comment portion.

A 2021 report from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. says that nearly 6 million U.S. residents don’t have bank accounts — about 4.5 percent of all households. e numbers are higher in Michigan, where about 6 percent of households are unbanked. And Black households are nine times more likely than white households to not have access to a bank account.

Council members asked questions about the ordinance’s e ect on farmers’ markets and home-based businesses. Sharon Blackmon, an attorney with the city, said the rule would apply to ongoing businesses — including restaurants that sold food o pushcarts, stands or vehicles. Pop-up retail stores would be able to refuse cash, as would home-based businesses.

Parking lots and garages, membership clubs like Costco (there currently aren’t any in the city), on-site company stores and businesses that rent consumer goods are excluded from the ordinance, as are those that sell by phone, mail or online.

Businesses are also allowed to refuse cash if they provide a way for residents to transfer their cash to cards. ose cards must not require more than $5, must not expire, must be able

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Corrections

In Detroit, where 78 percent of residents are Black according to Census data, as many as 24 percent of residents may not have bank accounts.

“Especially compared to a lot of other cities, Detroit has a very high

` A story on Page 16 of the June 12 issue should have said Matt and Karen Cullen’s sons have talked to the nonpro t Give Merit to understand its programs.

e name of the organization was incorrect in the story. e story also mispelled Alissandra Aronow's rst name.

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to be redeemed for cash and must not collect data.

e Detroit ordinance is modeled after those in other states that sought to ensure residents and visitors can pay for goods with cash. San Francisco, Philadelphia, New York City and the state of Rhode Island are among the places that have passed similar rules.

Andrea Bitely, the Michigan Retailers Association vice president of marketing and communications, said in an emailed statement that of 50 businesses surveyed last month, only two didn’t accept cash payments. Credit card companies’ push during the pandemic for tap and cardless payment options expanded retailers’ options, she said. “Retailers nd the most e cient ways to take payment from their customers,” she wrote. “ e vast majority of retailers accept all sorts of payments, including cash and electronic payments.”

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

` e pro le of Melinda Clemons in the Notable Leaders in Fundraising special section that ran on June 12 incorrectly listed the amount of her company's Equitable Path Forward investment. e amount should have been $250 million.

The Plum Market inside the Ally Building in downtown Detroit is a cashless operation. Signs throughout the store make customers aware of the policy. | JAY DAVIS/ CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

Gotion to move forward on $2.4B battery plant near Big Rapids

Chinese battery maker Gotion Inc. plans to move forward with a $2.4 billion battery parts plant near Big Rapids after receiving results from a federal review looking into potential national security risks.

e company said the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States determined in its review of the project that its proposed purchase of land in Green Township in Mecosta County “is not a covered real estate transaction and is not a covered transaction under the Defense Production Act of 1950,” according to a Gotion news release.

A covered transaction is a deal

subject to CFIUS jurisdiction. Covered transactions can include foreign investment in the United States and certain real estate transactions by foreign persons reviewed to determine the e ect of such deals on U.S. national security.

“We voluntarily submitted all the needed documents to the U.S. Department of Treasury Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. to be transparent and accountable and received the response that it is not a covered transaction,” Chuck elen, vice president of Gotion’s North American manufacturing, said in the release.

Gotion submitted to a voluntary CFIUS review in April for its planned factory in Green Township, which

BRINGING BACK GLOW AND GLORY

Storied Pine Lake Country Club undergoing $20.4M overhaul

Pine Lake Country Club is investing $20.4 million in renovations to its clubhouse and golf course as it looks to keep pace with competitors that have plunged big money into upgrades recently.

e private West Bloom eld Township club began work on its 60,000-square-foot, lakefront clubhouse a couple years ago and will begin work next month on its golf course, which will be closed for a year during construction, said Ted Opie, vice president of the club’s board of directors.

e vision is to bring the glow and glory back to the club, founded

in 1902 as the Automotive Club of Detroit and once the area’s pre-eminent gathering space for industry titans including Henry Ford and Ransom Olds, as well as political dignitaries Truman Newberry and John Lodge.

“One of the things we’re doing as a club as we go through this whole thing is re-evaluating our vision, mission and our branding and how we get it back into the history of our club,” Opie said. “ is was the powerhouse club at that time.”

e project began as a repair to a leaking roof before swelling to a $12.5 million overhaul that eventually became $20.4 million after the scope of the project expanded and

in ation pushed up the price tag. e plan was approved through two votes by the club’s 250 stock members who were nearly 70% in support. It is being funded by a member assessment and bank loan.

“It didn’t make sense to just x the roof, replace existing and put the worn-out equipment back on top, so that just got us looking at the infrastructure as a whole in this building,” General Manager Greg Colombo said. “While we were doing this and peeling the onion, we just kept nding more and more.”

has become a lightning rod for criticism and political debate. e plan to build a factory spanning 2 million square feet — and possibly another 1 million square feet on top of the initial footprint — has been e ectively on hold for the past month as the company awaited results of the federal review.

CFIUS is a federal agency composed of nine Cabinet members tasked with reviewing certain foreign investments in the U.S. and assessing their potential impact on national security.

Crain’s requested a full copy of the CFIUS review results from Gotion.

Thousands in Michigan could lose Medicaid

e state of Michigan is nding it more di cult than anticipated to determine who is and isn’t eligible for Medicaid — putting thousands at risk of losing health insurance coverage by the end of the month.

e state’s Medicaid population grew by approximately 700,000 during the pandemic thanks to the federal Families First Coronavirus Response Act, signed by President Donald Trump on March 18, 2020, which required states to continue enrollment of Medicaid bene ciaries for as long as the government declared the pandemic a public health emergency. Tax dollars have been funding insurance for the increase of Medicaid members unchecked for three years.

However, the feds rolled back that stipulation as part of the 2023 budget bill signed by President Joe Biden late last year. In April, states were instructed to begin to re-establish their redetermination process, which assesses whether an individual receiving Medicaid bene ts continues to be eligible.

Michigan delayed its process until June and will take the remainder of the year, at least, to determine who remains on Medicaid.

e state began the process of redetermining eligibility on the rst cohort of 217,000 enrolled Medicaid members at the start of June, according to data obtained by Crain’s.

e Michigan Department of Health and Human Services hoped it could determine at least 40% of the cohort’s eligibility through its own data without having to reach out to the participants. However, it was only able to passively determine eligibility for roughly 28% of Medicaid enrollees.

Renovations at Pine Lake Country Club began two years ago and will extend into next year. | TERRY POLEY

Coverage could end if eligibility isn’t veri ed

DUSTIN WALSH

Chinese battery maker Gotion Inc. plans to move forward with a $2.4 billion battery parts plant near Big Rapids. | BRYAN ESLER

“THIS WAS THE POWERHOUSE CLUB...”

—Ted Opie, vice president, board of directors, Pine Lake Country Club See PINE LAKE on Page 19 See MEDICAID on Page 18

Finally, some good news for e Mall at Partridge Creek

For the last several years, it’s been a steady drumbeat of bad news for e Mall at Partridge Creek.

The 640,000-squarefoot open air mall in Clinton Township fell into receivership, has lost tenants and generally has had a rough ride under the ownership of Miami Beach, Fla.based Starwood Capital Group, battling the e-commerce headwinds and a global pandemic to boot.

Today, however, is a di erent story: e value of the four-mall portfolio it is lumped in with has increased.

According to data posted to CoStar Group Inc., a Washington, D.C.based real estate information service, those four malls at the end of last year were valued at $279.3 million, up from $207 million as of December 2021. at’s an increase of 34.9 percent. e precise appraised value of Partridge Creek by itself is not known.

While that’s certainly an improvement, don’t forget that when Starwood bought the four malls, they were valued at $1.074 billion. Gulp. (Partridge Creek was valued at $203 million at the time, per CoStar data.)

Syracuse, N.Y.-based Spinoso Real Estate Group LLC is managing and marketing the properties for lease. A representative declined to comment.

e mall, which opened to much fanfare in 2007, lost its major anchor stores Carson’s (formerly Parisian) in 2018 and Nordstrom in 2019. But there have been new signs of life:

Bobcat Bonnie’s opened in the former Max and Erma’s location in February 2020. And the Apple Store and MJR movie theater remain. Highend brands including Coach, Sephora, Lush and Lululemon are also still around.

And at the end of last month, Spinoso announced that Stamford, Connecticut-based e Lovesac Company, which sells furniture direct to consumer, will open soon, taking up 1,400 square feet of open storefront.

Partridge Creek, which has been struggling for years, secures $725

million in commercial mortgage-backed securities debt along with three other Starwood malls: the Mall at Wellington Green in Wellington, Fla., MacArthur Center in Norfolk, Va., and Northlake Mall in Charlotte, N.C. Starwood owes $681.6 million on the loan.

I reported in March 2022 that the mall was destined for new ownership after falling into receivership. Starwood bought both Fairlane Town Center, which is 1.4 million square feet, and the 600,000-squarefoot Mall at Partridge Creek, from

what was then Taubman Centers Inc. (now Taubman Co. LLC) as part of a $1.4 billion deal that also included ve other malls in 2014.

In the last year, Fairlane has had two ownership changes, rst selling to Centennial Real Estate out of Dallas in 2022 and, earlier this year, to controversial mall investor Kohan Retail Investment Group based out of Great Neck, N.Y., for $52 million.

Partridge Creek is also located about two miles east on M-59 from Lakeside Mall, which is destined for demolition.

Out of the Box Ventures — a sub-

sidiary of Miami, Fla.-based Lionheart Capital LLC that paid $26.5 million for the 1.5 million-squarefoot mall nearly three years ago — is proposing to tear most of it down to clear the way for a $1.06 billion mixed-use project that is seeking $45 million in public bond funding to cover infrastructure such as streets, sewer, landscaping and more. A couple of department stores would remain at the mall, while the main shopping area would be razed.

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

Detroit residents still displaced, even with rent aid, study nds

A recent study from the University of Michigan showed the state’s emergency rental assistance program, while e ective in extending people’s housing during the coronavirus pandemic, often didn’t keep them from ultimately being displaced.

e study, “ e crisis is not temporary: Evictions after emergency rental assistance in Detroit,” also noted that $8.2 million in federal rental assistance funds went to landlords at properties that evicted tenants within six months of receiving payment. e rules prohibited evictions within 30 days of receiving rental assistance.

e COVID Emergency Rental Assistance program, CERA for short, has been praised for ensuring that tenants could continue to pay for housing and landlords received payment on their properties. But the new research, by Alexa Eisenberg and Kate Brantley, showed that even residents whose housing was paid for with the emergency funds were often displaced.

Eisenberg is a postdoctoral research fellow at the university’s Poverty Solutions department while Brantley is a project manager for Poverty Solutions’ housing stability and homelessness agenda.

ey found that of the 5,600 single-family rental properties in Detroit where a tenant was approved for a

rent relief payment between June 2021 and February 2022, landlords moved to evict 15% of tenants within six months of CERA approval.

ey also found that even residents who weren’t evicted often moved or faced housing instability as they awaited the results of CERA applications. Many cases were dismissed with the requirement that residents move out, the report said. And some landlords led for termination of tenancy, meaning they were ending leases regardless of whether tenants could pay.

“During CERA, Detroit landlords made extensive use of the court system to collect rental assistance, terminate tenancies and le serial lawsuits against tenants despite their widespread noncompliance with rental codes,” Eisenberg said in a statement.

“Even with unprecedented funding and more ‘tenant-friendly’ procedures in place during the pandemic, the court system still heavily favored landlords.”

e report called into question Detroit’s 80/20 program, which withheld 20% of CERA funds from landlords that weren’t compliant with city rules as a way to encourage them to come into compliance. e report showed 87% of units lacked a certi cate of compliance when they took eviction actions post-CERA, as compared to 90% when CERA was approved. Of those 757 properties, just 27 came into compliance.

And it said the nonpro ts that administered the city’s relief program weren’t set up to handle the volume of need, with delays that lasted months

and left people worried about their ability to stay housed.

“... Several interviewees expressed frustration and disappointment over the CERA rollout in Detroit and the harm it caused tenants,” the report said. “Some described Detroit’s nonpro t housing services ecosystem as redundant, siloed, territorial, and dysfunctional...”

Ted Phillips, the executive director of the United Community Housing Coalition, said he thought the 80/20 program was a good idea and was “still much, much, much better” than giving delinquent landlords 100% of their funds, though it was less successful than he hoped. He also called starting up the relief programs a “massive undertaking” that led to delays as UCHC went from an agency that spent about $400,000 a year to one that was tasked with distributing $60 million.

“Were there problems? Oh hell yeah, there were problems,” Phillips said. “On the whole, we got the payments out reasonably quickly.”

In an emailed statement, Courtney Hierlihy, executive director of Green and Healthy Homes for provider Wayne Metro, said administrators moved tirelessly to add sta and hours in order to prevent homelessness for people who were eligible for aid.

“ ere are always lessons learned to a ect future e ciencies, including

providing earlier intervention in court proceedings and the need to increase advocacy for quality housing stock in the area,” Hierlihy wrote.

e research showed landlords were more likely to repeatedly le for eviction if tenants had been approved for emergency rental relief. e research o ers recommendations to improve the system, including higher costs to le for eviction, required participation in an eviction diversion program and the enforcement of existing compliance rules. e paper also recommends sealing eviction lings and expunging the eviction records of those who were led against during the pandemic.

Phillips called the recommendations “feasible” and said he’d like to see records expunged and fees raised in most cases.

Still, a system that provides awless emergency relief isn’t enough, Brantley said in a statement.

“So long as the supply of quality housing for low-income renters remains deeply inadequate and dictated primarily by the interests of investors in the private housing market, even abundantly resourced or e ectively run emergency rental assistance programs will fail to stabilize tenants,” Brantley said.

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

The Mall at Partridge Creek in Clinton Township has lost both its anchor department stores in recent years but has added new, smaller tenants and restaurants since the pandemic. | COSTAR GROUP INC.

ARIELLE KASS

Homes on Detroit’s east side. GETTY IMAGES/ISTOCKPHOTO

Parade Co. launches public campaign for new headquarters

BY SHERRI WELCH

e Parade Co. is taking its $45 million campaign to fund a new home on Detroit’s riverfront public.

Its promotion of the project planned near Belle Isle, about three miles east of downtown Detroit, and new community-serving programs and uses envisioned for it comes just months before a new deadline for it to raise the money needed to make it a reality.

On June 13, President and CEO Tony Michaels said the nonpro t has raised 20-25% of the campaign’s goal so far. He declined to share lead gifts but said they include contributions from companies, foundations and individuals.

“We just need to get a little further down the road, and we’ll be able to make numerous announcements” on the project’s supporters, he said.

e hope is that if the Parade Co. can show signi cant progress on the campaign, the city will allow it to move forward with the plan even if fundraising isn’t fully completed by the deadline, Michaels said.

“ is is truly going to be an iconic Detroit building,” he said. “It’s going to house not only the Parade Co. production, but it’s going to be a building which does so much more for kids, the neighborhood, for education, events. It’s going to have a whole lot of options and good things coming out of it.”

e goal is to make the riverfront site, which will include a partial renovation of the historic armory there and a new, two-story building to accommodate oat production and an outdoor plaza connected to the Detroit Riverwalk, a destination for residents and tourists alike, Michaels said. Plans include re-installation of salvaged Depression-era artwork from the building, arts and crafts in nearby parks for kids, summer camps and

Have an industry credential?

You may have college credits.

BY SHERRI WELCH

A new searchable database will enable those who’ve earned industry credentials to quickly check if they can get college credit for them at the state’s community and tribal colleges.

People think industry credentials and college degrees are separate, said Erica Orians, vice president of the Michigan Community College Association and director of its Michigan Student Success Center. e new database is a recognition that there is a relationship between the two.

college credit for that credential.

Currently, the colleges award credit toward degrees for more than 500 professional licensures, certi cations, apprenticeships, training academy completions and other industry-recognized credentials, the association said. ey span industries including health care, information technology, manufacturing, culinary arts, digital media, skilled trades and business.

Colleges have been awarding credit for industry credentials for some time, Orians said. But they are expanding their award of college credit for industry-recognized credentials in response to local labor market needs.

educational opportunities, weddings and meetings, a permanent o ce for veterans’ groups and veterans’ events and tours of the oats and “big heads” or Italian papier-mache heads of celebrity personalities created for America’s anksgiving Parade and artists making them.

e Parade Co.’s campaign target has risen from its early cost estimates of $36.5 million included in its initial application to the Detroit Historic

District Commission in May 2020. It said in the application that it hoped to have fundraising completed in 2021 and to have construction completed within two years of that.

e Detroit City Council approved the sale of the R. ornton Brodhead Naval Armory property to e Parade Co. two years ago. At the time, Michaels said it had a year to raise the funding.

In April, the city extended its dead-

line to Sept. 30 of this year after Detroit City Council President Mary She eld requested an update on the project and $300,000 property sale to Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan’s o ce, and asked if the city would rebid the armory building if the Parade Co. sale wasn’t moving forward, the Detroit Free Press reported.

Contact: swelch@crain.com; (313) 446-1694; @SherriWelch

Orians

“We call those stackable credentials, where you might start o with a credential that is just a few credit hours but it grows into an associate degree and then a bachelor’s degree,” she said.

“ e ultimate goal is for more people to earn college degrees because Michigan needs a talented workforce.”

Housed on the Michigan Transfer Network’s website, the new database enables those holding a credential to enter it to see which of Michigan’s 31 community and tribal colleges award

At Macomb Community College, for example, there are 41 credentials and probably 100 industry courses you can earn credit for, she said. If a student had a credential for the American Academy of Professional Coders for coding, and they were a certi ed professional coder, they would earn credit for three courses for a total of seven credit hours.

Certi cates can be earned for completing as little as 16 credit hours, and associate degrees awarded by the state’s community and tribal colleges are typically right around 60 credit hours, Orians said.

Contact: swelch@crain.com; (313) 446-1694; @SherriWelch

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A conceptual rendering of the view of the new Parade Co. headquarters as seen from the Detroit River. | ROSSETTI ASSOCIATES INC.

Michaels

Embracing inclusion is how Michigan grows

More than a decade ago, I sat across from a top-performing employee at our company who told me he was resigning. His words, “I’m gay, and I don’t feel like I belong here — not at this company and not in this state,” hit me incredibly hard. at experience sparked my commitment to help create a culture within our company and across the state where people feel welcome, valued and included.

EDITORIAL

ree big weekends give Detroit a charge

Aweekend of violence in April put downtown Detroit on edge. Two people were killed and ve injured in a half-dozen shootings between Greektown and the RiverWalk.

In its wake, Mayor Mike Duggan and law enforcement leaders announced plans to take immediate action, including adding more police and setting up a hotline for business owners to call.

Less than two months later, the contrast couldn’t be more stark.

Downtown is coming o a string of successful weekends that have brought hundreds of thousands of people into the city for a variety of special events — and allowed Detroit to shine.

June 9 and 10 featured Taylor Swift’s twonight stand at Ford Field, plus the Motor City Pride festival that included a parade on Sunday. e previous weekend saw the Detroit Grand Prix return downtown, and the Movement electronic music festival was the highlight of Memorial Day weekend.

e three weekends featured distinctly di erent events. But they had a common result: they brought throngs of people, and energy, into downtown Detroit, allowing the city to show o what a vibrant, enjoyable place it is for people to gather.

e sight of Taylor Swift fans literally dancing in the blocked-o street outside of Ford Field, singing and taking sel es, showed it was a safe space that allowed them to get lost in the euphoria of the moment. Yes, there

were police all around, but the o cers were relaxed and contributed to the sense of calm and safety. Some even exchanged friendship bracelets with concert-goers.

With so much conversation about creating vibrant places that are attractive to people who want to help build a positive future, it was meaningful to see how fun and inviting downtown Detroit can be, and imagine what’s to come.

ere is a lot of anticipation, rightfully so, on the NFL Draft coming downtown April 25-27, 2024. e draft is expected to draw hundreds of thousands of people, bringing energy and excitement to the city’s core and lling hotel rooms for miles around. It will surely be an opportunity to put the best of the city on display, and write the next chapter of Detroit’s rebound.

Clearly, there is more work to do. But from the Detroit Riverwalk to the Joe Louis Greenway to Dan Gilbert’s reopening recently of the historic Book Tower, it’s hard not to sense that the momentum is headed in the right direction.

Would we like to see more people downtown day to day? Yes, of course. But as we come out of the lingering hangover e ects of COVID, recent weekends have been an energizing antidote.

Of course there are always great reasons to come downtown, even when there’s not a major concert, festival or parade. ere’s plenty of good shopping and ne restaurants — or just a nice stroll along the riverfront. And while the Tigers may not be winning as much as we would all like to see, an afternoon at Comerica Park is still a nice getaway.

Here’s hoping the momentum of the recent weekends carries forward and many, many more people experience the best of what downtown Detroit has to o er this summer.

It was immediately clear we needed to enact change at a companywide level to ensure we attract and retain top talent to our DTE family. I felt it not only as a moral imperative, but as a business necessity.

One of the important lessons I learned is that when people feel excluded, their energy dies, but when people feel a strong sense of belonging, their energy and engagement rises. I have been proud to lead DTE’s e orts to help create a more inclusive company where people feel a sense of belonging and use their energy to reach their full potential, which makes DTE an even better place to work.

We started our journey by updating our employment and non-discrimination policies to explicitly prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. We created workplace guidelines to support employees who are transgender. We relaunched our Power of Pride employee resource group, which has grown to more than 450 members and allies of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community.

is group of employees and allies gathers regularly for educational sessions and panel discussions, along with social networking and volunteer events. ey help us break down barriers of fear, intolerance and misunderstanding at work, which helps people feel safe and perform at their highest potential. eir leadership and teamwork has pioneered policy change and greater inclusion across the company.

A recent example of LGBTQ+ support and activation came last year, when we gave our

employees the option of adding a preferred rst name into their electronic pro le that’s used across company systems. We drove awareness about the importance of identity and encouraged our colleagues to support one another by using people’s preferred names as a sign of respect.

In March, I had the privilege of testifying to members of the Senate Civil Rights, Judiciary, and Public Safety Committee in support of the expansion of the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act to prohibit discrimination against LGBTQ+ people, which was signed into law by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on March 16.

We’ve come a long way, but we know there’s more work to do. is month, as the LGBTQ+ community and allies across the country and our state celebrate Pride Month, we can applaud and acknowledge the progress we have made in Michigan. But let’s also stay focused on what we need to do next as citizens and employers to build a more welcoming and safe working and living environment for the LGBTQ+ community.

We’ll continue to raise awareness, but the most essential form of allyship is taking actionable steps to overcome inequities and establish safe and inclusive policies that protect the LGBTQ+ community inde nitely. In Michigan, despite our progress, a wave of anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment is creating division in schools and communities and anti-LGBTQ+ legislation is still being introduced.

In fact, a recent Trevor Project survey of LGBTQ+ youth in Michigan reports that 89% say their mental health has been impacted negatively by anti LGBTQ+ rhetoric either sometime or a lot of the time. If these trends continue and these bills are passed, the community will face more discrimination and Michigan will become a less competitive and attractive state to live and work. I don’t want anyone else to leave our state because they don’t feel safe or heard.

As Michigan citizens and members of the business community, we can take action by calling on lawmakers to enact legislative change that gives equal rights to people who are LGBTQ+ and volunteering for advocacy initiatives, like door-knocking, writing letters to Congress and urging other companies and organizations to get involved.

I hope you’ll join me this month in making a long-term commitment to intentionally and proactively stand up for equality for all Michigan citizens.

IT WAS MEANINGFUL TO SEE HOW FUN AND INVITING DOWNTOWN DETROIT CAN BE, AND IMAGINE WHAT’S TO COME.

The annual Movement Electronic Music Festival brings tens of thousands to downtown Detroit over Memorial Day weekend. | MOVEMENT ELECTRONIC MUSIC FESTIVAL

DIANE ANTISHIN

Diane Antishin is vice president of human resources and chief diversity, equity and inclusion o cer for DTE Energy.

Alcohol sales at Big Ten games, other college sports may be near

BY DAVID EGGERT

Senate Bill 247, which the Senate approved 36-2 on Wednesday, was sent to the House for consideration next.

“If things go well, maybe fans have beers in their hands in the fall,” said the sponsor, Democratic Sen. Sean McCann of Kalamazoo.

e measure would let state liquor regulators issue up to ve licenses to a public university for sales within the public areas of university facilities that are customarily used for athletic events. Sales could occur starting one hour before an event until it ends.

e license for college sports competitions could be used for up to 100 days per calendar year. A license for

REAL ESTATE

Spartan Stadium | MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY

other events like concerts or professional sports could be used for no more than ve days a year.

“We’re really an outlier at this point when it comes to the Big Ten events,” McCann said, pointing to how many Big Ten schools in other states sell alcohol at games. “It’s worked well in other venues where it’s been implemented.

Lottery fraudster Viktor Gjonaj leaves federal prison early, now in ‘community con nement’

BY KIRK PINHO

A former commercial real estate executive who bilked more than $26 million from investors to fuel his gambling addiction has been transferred out of federal prison in West Virginia.

Viktor Gjonaj, 46, reported to Federal Correctional Institution Morgantown in December 2021 to begin a 53-month sentence for federal wire fraud stemming from a rampant Daily 3 and Daily 4 buying spree spanning several years in which he both won and lost tens of millions.

Emery Nelson, a spokesperson for the Federal Bureau of Prisons, said in a Wednesday email that Gjonaj was transferred June 8 from the institution (which some have referred to as one of the “best places to go to prison”) to “community con nement” — either home con nement or a halfway house.

His projected release date is now Jan. 21, 2024, a little over two years after beginning the 53-month sentence ordered by Judge Linda Parker in September 2021. Nelson said the bureau does not release inmates’ con nement conditions or reasons for transfers or release plans.

Gjonaj’s attorney Steve Fishman said time can be cut from what a federal inmate serves for good behavior, completion of addiction counseling and other things.

“ is situation is not unusual at all,” Fishman said. “All BOP inmates receive various credits that result in their time in custody being reduced. Keep in mind that this is solely the province of the BOP and has nothing to do with the sentencing judge.”

Gjonaj founded the now-defunct Imperium Group LLC real estate company following a long career in brokerage with several local rms. He admitted to convincing investors to give him money to invest in fraudulent commercial real estate deals and instead of investing the money, he used to it fuel a Daily 3 and Daily

It’s a place where our institutions want to be. ey think it increases the fan experience. Actually some people have come to them kind of puzzled that they’re not able to do this in Michigan venues, universities.”

Michigan’s ban is included in a 1998 law that regulates beer, wine and liquor. at law dates to 1933, when Pro-

hibition ended.

e bill is di erent from what was introduced in April. It originally would have authorized three licenses for sales in football stadiums and basketball and hockey arenas. Now a university could obtain ve licenses and sell at other sports venues.

e allowance for sales at non-intercollegiate athletic events in sports facilities is new, too.

McCann said his legislation would bring the University of Michigan and Michigan State University in line with other Big Ten schools. It could reduce pregame binge drinking and would also bene t other universities, he said.

Marlon Lynch, MSU’s vice president and chief safety o cer, said 11 of the 14 Big Ten schools have alcohol sales at athletic events.

“In my discussions with my peers and colleagues, they have not seen an increase in alcohol-related issues,” he told the Senate Regulatory A airs

Committee on Tuesday. “Also, they have not increased their sta ng for police and public safety at those games as a result. A majority have actually seen a decrease.”

e Michigan Licensed Beverage Association, a trade group for bar, restaurant and tavern owners, supports the bill after negotiating to limit consumption to one hour before and 30 minutes after — down from two hours before and after an event as initially proposed.

“At rst glance, this bill looks like it would increase the amount of alcohol consumed in total, but research shows the exact opposite,” executive director Scott Ellis said. “People don’t feel obligated to drink excessively before the game begins because they know they will be able to purchase a beer during the event.”

Contact: david.eggert@crain.com; (313) 446-1654; @DavidEggert00

4 gambling habit that at times amounted to up to $1 million per week.

e saga, details of which started to trickle out almost four years ago, involved the implosion of his company, a wild incident in an Ann Arbor hotel, lottery terminals rumored to be dedicated to feeding his near constant play and rampant speculation over Gjonaj’s whereabouts as lawsuits mounted seeking millions in lost investor money while he was nowhere to be found.

e former commercial real estate executive was accused in January 2021 of bilking at least two dozen investors in 66 sham real estate deals of $26.4 million, with none of the deals ever materializing as he used the funds to play the Michigan Lottery.

He won no less than $28 million playing at various Michigan Lottery retailers around Southeast Michigan, but primarily centered in Macomb County, where he lived.

Gjonaj has agreed to a forfeiture of approximately $19 million, which is the amount he gained after paying investors from his lottery winnings.

BIRMINGHAM

When everyone

is included, we all win.

LANSING — Lawmakers are advancing legislation to lift Michigan’s ban on public alcohol sales at Big Ten and other games hosted by state universities after making changes to also allow sales at events such as concerts.

Viktor Gjonaj

CRAIN’S AWARDS

While the previous two years were about managing staff during the pandemic upheaval, 2022 was about bringing staff back to the office, re-engaging them to stave off the “Great Resignation” and

 HR Team of the Year: Ghafari Associates THIS PAGE

 Overall Excellence: Gesher Human Services; Kristin Trecker, Visteon. PAGE 9

 Overall Excellence: Detroit Water & Sewerage Department; Matrix Human Services PAGE 10

implementing new processes to improve efficiency and prepare for future crises. Based on what we learned from our 2023 Excellence in HR award winners, exit interviews, creative connections and

WINNER: OVERALL EXCELLENCE / HR TEAM OF THE YEAR

Ghafari Associates

One of last year’s Cool Places to Work winners continues to shine with HR strategies focusing on robust hiring, onboarding, retention, diversity equity and inclusion and workforce engagement practices.

Ghafari, a global architecture, engineering and consulting rm with 11 o ces worldwide, worked with more than 300 clients and onboarded approximately 150 new team members in 2022. Last year, the $140 million company employed 550 people. e average Ghafari employee’s

tenure is eight years.

“People ask me, ‘How were you able to recruit all that talent?’” said Chief Human Resources O cer Christine McDermott. “I believe we’re successful because we understand this business. We are able to speak to the projects we do and the skill set required for our jobs.”

e HR department increased Ghafari’s talent pipeline in a few di erent ways.

An enhanced summer internship program includes project site visits,

 Recruitment: Aspen Search Group and Michigan Sta ng and Our Next Energy PAGE 11

 Employee Experience and Retention: University of Michigan Credit Union and Detroit Institute of Arts; Monica Dameron, Lear PAGE 12

imaginative recruitment strategies are key.

is year’s winners were selected from nominations by Crain editors and a judging panel of experienced HR professionals and former Excel-

 Employee Experience and Retention: Cathy Meyers, Community Financial Credit Union PAGE 13

 HR Technology: Emerge Consulting; Brose PAGE 13

 DEI: Detroit Pistons; Kim Dudley, Greenleaf Trust PAGE 14

lence in HR Award winners: Felisa Stockwell, vice president, Global People & Culture, Dawn Foods

Amy Ratli , vice president, Human Resources, GSTV

baseball game outings and end-ofsummer presentations with the interns’ leadership team. Last summer’s interns will join the company full time when they graduate.

e rm also partnered with DirectEmployers to produce a microsite for job candidates and ensure Ghafari’s job postings go to 1,000 diversity, disability, veteran and state websites so candidates of all backgrounds can apply.

e HR team also bolstered the in-person and virtual onboarding

process with not only training and completion of key paperwork but also the distribution of welcome bags. Company retention e orts include o ering quarterly touchpoints instead of annual reviews, which McDermott said improves employee satisfaction.

She said the meetings are a “dedicated, uplifting time” for team members.

Ghafari also strengthens workplace culture through a DEI learning collaboration with Davenport University’s Institute for Professional Excellence.

Team members participate in educa-

tional sessions created to foster a more inclusive organizational culture.

“As our work environment has evolved dramatically in the last three years, our HR team has quickly adapted our practices and policies to re ect the organization we are today: a team that may be more distributed physically but is no less connected and driven by a shared mission,” said President and CEO Kouhaila Hammer.

Natalie Tomlin, special to Crain’s Detroit Business

The Ghafari Human Resources Team (clockwise from back left): Christine McDermott, Jessica Michalski, Elizabeth Nouhan, Melissa Malofy, Kristin Garstka and Traci Tompkins. | GHAFARI ASSOCIATES

WINNERS: OVERALL EXCELLENCE

Gesher Human Services

“From completing publishing our salary ranges to create a more equitable workplace to nding creative ways to increase wages for front-line employees, our HR team led by Jane Brumer-Cullen moved Gesher’s HR practices forward in a meaningful way this year,” said Gesher President and CEO Paul Blatt.

Gesher Human Services made big improvements to its human resources department after merging with JVS Human Services and Kadima Mental Health Services.

“We went from due diligence to pre-integration to post-integration,” said Brumer-Cullen, chief human resources o cer at Gesher. “We’ve spent a lot of time merging the agencies.”

Bene ts, payroll, titles and information systems had to be integrated with the systems of the two joining rms. Gesher used the best system from each rm and replaced the weaker ones.

e $22 million nonpro t now employs 395 people and provides Metro Detroiters with behavioral health, workforce development and other programming.

e merger also forced Gesher to take a fresh look at its processes.

Kadima and JVS Human Services had outdated compensation structures, so the Gesher HR team took the opportunity to improve compensation overall. e team also updated and published the compensation plans.

“ e transparency part of it was so important to us,” Brumer-Cullen said, adding that it enables employees to understand and plan their career trajectories. And it adds accountability surrounding the organization’s diversity, equity and inclusion practices.

Gesher also upped its use of

Kristin Trecker

Senior Vice President and Chief People O cer, Visteon Corp.

Kristin Trecker elevated Visteon Corp. by focusing on software improvements, gender diversity and the decentralization of management.

“For more than ve years, Kristin has ensured that Visteon has attracted and retained the best talent in the industry,” said Visteon President and CEO Sachin Lewande.

technology by digitizing employee data, providing managers with instant access to new applicant resumés and moving bene ts enrollment online. e improvements increased hiring speed and reduced administrative work.

Moreover, the HR team hired a compensation consultant and recruiter, expanded its reach in other hiring venues, like job fairs, and lled 50 positions that were left vacant from the pandemic turnover.

Trecker, who has a background in software, made organizational changes to the software developer teams’ structures, roles and career paths, and hired key leaders for the departments. Her team also gathered $25 million from savings in other departments to nance new hires and technology.

While software upgrades were necessary for the auto supplier, it also needed to hire the right developers and engineers to build the software, she said.

e changes helped Visteon decrease attrition in the technology departments by 30%.

“We have moved beyond buttons and knobs to touchscreens and haptic controllers,” Lewande said.

Trecker also helped expand gender diversity within Visteon by im-

plementing the RISE program, which trains and mentors new or soon-tobe software engineer graduates. e number of female employees at the company grew from 24.5% in 2021 to 26% in 2022, and women made up 29% of new hires. Participation in Visteon's Momentum: Elevating Women in Leadership program also grew by 50%.

When Trecker joined the automaker, most of the decision-making came from headquarters. To improve communication and e cacy, she decentralized management by putting more decision-making power in the hands of on-site leaders.

“We had to make sure we had the right leaders where we had employees,” she said, adding that it allowed for more “nimble” movements by the company.

Ryan Kelly, special to Crain’s Detroit Business

Tashia Kelly, Andria Love, Jane Brumer-Cullen, Mary Orlando and Emily Birdsall. | GESHER HUMAN SERVICES

Ryan Kelly, special to Crain’s Detroit Business

WINNERS: OVERALL EXCELLENCE

Detroit Water & Sewerage Department

Sta shortages and an overall shift in the job market spurred the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department’s need to develop innovative solutions to bolster recruitment, retention and process e ciencies.

“We had to be strategic. We knew a department that was addressing high turnover, so we tried their approach. at allowed us to hire sta on the spot,” said DWSD Organizational Development Director Patricia ornhill. ornhill leads the 11 HR team members serving almost 600 employees.

She said the new process allows for immediate hiring rather than two to three weeks for onboarding. e initial impact of the change was immediate and drastic, particularly in terms of customer experience for the 700,000 Detroit residents DWSD serves.

“It allows us to provide good service,” ornhill said.

To further bolster recruitment efforts, the utility established a three-person recruiting team that, in part, holds on-site hiring fairs for customer service specialist and eld service technician positions, which make up 38% of the utility’s employee population. She said the time between requisition and hire is signicantly reduced.

DWSD’s HR team also made changes that aid in retaining sta . ey implemented an electronic exit interview process that helps the utility understand sta turnover and remedy issues and created a Merit Planning process. e pay-for-performance model provides sta with in-series promotions and equity in-

crease opportunities.

To manage the numerous changes and keep the utility moving forward, the organization launched the HR information system UltiPro and developed online training for compli-

ance-related training.

In addition, new collaborations with other city, state and community agencies are helping fuel the utility’s talent pipeline and improve relationships between DWSD management

and union personnel. DWSD built workforce development partnerships with Detroit at Work, the Detroit Training Center, the Michigan Department of Corrections, the U.S. Probation Ofce, CeaseFire Detroit, Center for Em-

ployment Opportunities, Southwest Economic Solutions, Here to Help Foundation and Wayne Metro. Natalie Tomlin, special to Crain’s Detroit Business

Matrix Human Services

When pandemic-related issues resulted in recruiting di culties, dissatis ed workers and high turnover, Matrix Human Services made signicant improvements. Matrix, which employs 450 people, provides Head Start, after-school and teen programming, adult education, workforce training, HIV outreach and other services to about 20,000 people in the Detroit area.

Burnout was rampant. Frequent COVID-19 outbreaks among sta drove a wedge between leadership and the largely unionized sta .

Members of the teaching sta quit in search of less stressful work. Attracting new employees was more dicult because of the in-person nature of the nonpro t’s work. Half of the HR team, including the department’s vice president, resigned.

However, less than a year after Matrix hired Tamika Johnson as vice president of HR in July, her team restructured the department, lled open positions and repaired relations with the union.

Her team outlined policies for handling COVID-19 outbreaks, set ground rules for grievance meetings and opened the communication between leadership and sta .

“I treated them like a partner,” she said. “We need to have positive relationships instead of an ‘us-versusthem’ relationship. It’s not just the work that we do, but how we get it done.”

e new union contract includes a

minimum wage of $17.40 an hour and lower health care premium increases. e HR team also improved the payroll system, began closely tracking applicant and exit interview data and released a new set of core values to guide expectations.

“Our HR team has taken the department to a new level during 2022 with a reliance on data-driven reporting and decision-making, innovative strategies for employee recruiting, plus an approach of tough love and open communication with our union to ensure good working relations,” said Matrix Human Services President and CEO Brad Coulter.

Ryan Kelly, special to Crain’s Detroit Business

Top row: Tantaneice Scott, Vincent Battaglia, Patricia Thornhill, Carla Calhoun, Kyra Johnson, Chai Spight. Bottom row: Dakeisha Hardwick, Yolonda Bradford, Aisha Perry, Teresa Creggett-Moore DETROIT WATER & SEWERAGE DEPARTMENT

Front row: Takia Maxwell, Kathy McClain, Ada Richardson, Kaitlin McQueen, Shirley Roberts, Ashley Porch, Mona Thomas. Back row: Becki Azeez, Cameron Reynolds, Tamika Johnson (vice president of HR), Brad Coulter (president and CEO). | MATRIX

WINNERS: RECRUITMENT

Aspen Search Group and Michigan Sta ng

When the double punch of the “great resignation” and COVID-19 turned the sta ng industry upside down, the recruiting teams at Michigan Sta ng and Aspen Search Group worked harder and longer to help Michigan companies ll open positions. Michigan Sta ng and Aspen Search Group are “sister” companies.

e rms, which serve over 120 businesses, have more than 600 contractors on assignment each week.

“It was three times the e ort,” said

Our Next Energy

Our Next Energy, a Novi-based energy storage company, has recently been in the news because of the $1.6 billion plant it’s building in Van Buren Township.

ONE, ranked No. 3 on Forbes’ 2023

Best U.S Startup Employer list, has been scaling rapidly since its founding in 2020. e company that started with fewer than 10 employees three years ago now has more than 200, including 60 hiring managers.

ONE HR Vice President Amy Helner said nding the right people is never easy. As a rapidly growing startup, she said that nding the people who will drive the business forward fast is imperative. Rather than handing o the hiring process after generating listings and identifying candidates, ONE’s acquisition team also extends o ers, negotiates wages and coordinates onboarding.

She said ONE’s recruitment success stems from a strategy and talent pool that enable them to get quali ed candidates quicker — with an average ll time of fewer than two weeks.

“We’re lucky to have referrals from our awesome team, which is advantageous for us. Our mission is also a huge attraction point,” she said.

If a candidate isn’t a good t for one position, they also redirect talent to other current or emerging positions.

“Because we’re a growing company, we can be exible. We’re able to pivot the process and share their prole with a hiring manager,” Helner said.

So far, ONE has achieved an employee turnover rate of less than 1%, with only three people leaving the company since its founding. “It really all does relate back to the shared mission to make the world a better place,” Helner said. “ at shared excitement forms an amazing team.”

ONE expects the battery plant to create more than 2,000 new jobs.

Francy Lucido, president and co-owner of both companies. “To reach 100 people, we had to reach out to 300.”

Michigan Sta ng and Aspen Search Group, which earned $20 million in revenue last year, hired new recruiters to walk around metro Detroit communities distributing yers, placing lawn signs and holding pop-up job fairs to reach more candidates. In many instances, the rms even provided transportation to get new hires to job sites.

Lucido said the agencies in-

creased their workloads by contacting three to six times the usual number of applicants, placing more than 3,000 employees, to meet the clients’ needs. ey also worked with their clients to set new base pay rates, attendance bonuses, stay bonuses and performance bonuses to attract new employees.

e recruiting teams focused additional e orts on strengthening client relationships and expanded their reach into diverse communities.

To keep their recruiting teams engaged, Michigan Sta ng and Aspen Search Group o ered more exible schedules and added bonuses.

Value-driven plans. More resources. Better business benefits. Attracting better talent starts with having better benefits, and we’re ready to help.

At Blue Cross, we know you want the best for your employees. That’s why we’re ready to help with plans designed to fit any budget, and coverage you can use anywhere, thanks to one of the largest networks of doctors and hospitals in Michigan. From maternity and menopause to mental health and virtual care, we offer whole health coverage and solutions that you and your team can trust.

Ryan Kelly, special to Crain’s Detroit Business

Natalie Tomlin, special to Crain’s Detroit Business

Senior Search Consultants Jenifer Pfa and Vicky Young, Talent Sourcing Specialists Stephanie Nastovska and Kelsey Wooten MICHIGAN STAFFING

Amy Helner, Vice President, Human Resources

WINNERS: EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE & RETENTION

University of Michigan Credit Union

Many workplaces have rewards programs, but what di erentiates the University of Michigan Credit Union is the buy-in the HR department gets from all levels of the organization, said Candy Keene, vice president of Talent Development and Human Resources at UMCU.

“It starts at the top,” Keene said. “ e CEO has to be committed all the way down.”

Ann Arbor-based UMCU has 17 branch locations in Metro Detroit, more than 115,000 members, $1.3 billion in assets and over 200 employees.

e credit union’s culture includes “ rst-in-class rewards” and recognition programs created and executed by the Talent Development Team.

“Engaging team members in the organization has the greatest return. When team members feel valued, our customers experience that benet,” Keene said.

e credit union’s programs are always evolving.

“One reward might not be as compelling to one team member as another,” she said. “We like to provide a variety so team members can nd their t.”

UMCU’s Full Court Wellness Program initially focused on rewarding team members for reaching physical health goals but branched out to other wellness-themed challenges, educational opportunities and entertainment events, including craft classes and company-sponsored movie theater rentals for a mental health break. And team members can claim a $150 wellness credit for quali ed physical, mental or nancial wellness-related purchases.

e credit union also recognizes employees through initiatives like its aMAIZEment Sightings program, where sta can compliment a col-

league for an outstanding service, and the employees can win prizes.

Onboarding at UMCU isn’t typical.

e Talent Development Team has new hires complete a Getting to Know You Form covering favorite foods, restaurants and music. Managers can recognize the excellent work an employee is doing by re-

Detroit Institute of Arts

After conducting its rst workplace inclusion survey in 2020, the Talent and Culture team at the Detroit Institute of Arts realized it had much work to do.

Led by Melissa Peña, executive director of Talent, Culture and Operations, the museum redesigned its inclusion, diversity and access, or IDEA, principles with the help of a $240,000 federal grant and incorporated them into its hiring, management, training, values, training and strategic plans and practices.

e team hired an IDEA director, created an IDEA committee and developed a related learning continuum to keep them and the Talent and Culture team on track.

ey also hired a recruiter and overhauled wages and bene ts to improve the quality of life and workplace culture for the DIA’s 350 employees. Changes included o ering health care to anyone working 20 hours or more, increasing pay to sta earning less than $50,000 and adding “family building” and paid parental leave bene ts.

In its e orts to give employees a career path, the team created a new internal recruiting process that encourages the promotion of employees rather than hiring outside applicants.

Monica Dameron Vice President of Human Resources and Seating, Lear Corp.

Monica Dameron helped steer Lear Corp. toward a model of collaborative decision-making that reduced absenteeism and increased production. Dameron said the e ort, referred to as “Together We Win,” is her HR team’s biggest accomplishment in recent years.

“Engaging employees is all about nurturing personal relationships and building a true team environment where every employee has a voice,” Dameron said. “Only then can we tie business goals to the people who can achieve them.”

questing that they receive a customized gift box.

UMCU’s bene ts seem to help. Keene, who watches turnover numbers within nancial services, said its numbers are less than half in comparison to others. e credit union has also earned the Best and Brightest Companies to Work For in the Na-

tion award from the National Association for Business Resources and the Best and Brightest Companies to Work For in Metro Detroit by the National Association for Business Resources for four consecutive years.

It is an all-hands-on-deck approach that involves everyone from the plant manager to the payroll clerk and allows teams that meet daily to x problems — from absenteeism and line stoppages to quality issues — much quicker, she said.

“Who better knows their responsibilities than people who work on the line,” Dameron said.

Absenteeism fell by 50%, and work processes, goal setting and management performance improved.

Dameron’s team rst enacted Together We Win at Lear’s Flint plant in 2017 and has since implemented the initiative at each of the seating and E-Systems supplier’s 23 locations.

Under her guidance, Lear developed “Together We Grow,” a diversity leadership program that provides one-on-one mentoring, training, career guidance and access to senior leadership at the company. More than 30 employees participated in the program last year, and more than 200 have been nominated as future participants.

Dameron also coordinates a mentorship collaborative between Lear and Cornerstone Schools that teaches students over 12 weeks what it’s like to work in a corporate setting.

e Talent and Culture team also launched employee belonging groups and hired and onboarded 100 temporary employees to support the Van Gogh exhibit. After the exhibit, they kept 30 of those individuals on sta .

“ eir e orts to retain sta during the pandemic, recruit new team members for the blockbuster ‘Van Gogh in America’ exhibition, and

particularly the work around belonging and inclusion, diversity, equity, and access have been the topic of many meetings and presentations and have been very well received,” said DIA board Chair Eugene Gargaro Jr.

e team also created an internal communications specialist role to open communication between team members and developed a peer-to-

peer mediation program.

To ensure the longevity of the changes, the team launched a culture, accountability, navigation, values, art, and service program to teach new hires about the DIA’s policies, values, cultural norms and customer philosophy.

“Monica has played a key role in piloting, implementing and growing groundbreaking initiatives that have truly shaped and transformed the culture at Lear. Her focus on interpersonal relationships and collaboration is foundational to her success — and ours,” said Dave McNulty, vice president of Global Human Resources at Lear.

Ryan Kelly, special to Crain’s Detroit Business

Natalie Tomlin, special to Crain’s Detroit Business

Ryan Kelly, special to Crain’s Detroit Business

Erica Botka, Brittany Bentz, Maria Ricciardi, Cory Cooper, Candy Keene, Jenny Douglas, Heather Green, Ti any Manier and Taylor Gomez. | INTRIGUE PHOTOGRAPHY

Shayla Turner, Learning and Development manager; Iris Tate, HR coordinator; Danielle Pfannes, recruiter; Melissa Peña, executive director, Talent, Culture and Operations; Nick Davis-Piotrowski, director, Talent and Culture; Olivia Contreras, Human Resources manager; Carla Tinsley-Smith, director, Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Access. Not Pictured: Ti any Perkins, HR generalist DETROIT INSTITUTE OF ARTS

Cathy Meyers

Chief People O cer, Community Financial Credit Union

“Cathy leads us in shaping the workforce of the future. She approaches human capital thoughtfully and strategically and always puts humans rst. From her involvement in the establishment of our emerging leaders’ program, to creative ideas for bene ts, to designing new types of roles to attract the best talent, Cathy epitomizes our belief in relentless care,” said CFCU President and CEO Tansley Stearns.

Cathy Meyers started as a CFCU teller 40 years ago. e credit union serves more than 80,000 members and has more than $1.5 billion in assets. Meyers now oversees its HR department of 25.

Meyers created the Emerging Leaders program nine years ago when she realized that tellers were leaving the credit union after three years. “As we grew as an organization, we had a number of individuals that were thriving but didn’t have a formalized path,” Meyers said.

e program combines selfstudy with instructor-led content to retain sta and create a management pipeline. Since its inception, 76% of the program’s participants have advanced in the company. In the last year, CFCU promoted 20 individuals internally.

Meyers’ retention e orts also include not over-hiring, even when mortgage lending demand rises. Instead, the credit union uses a job share model that allows sta to pitch in and earn extra income.

“We tend to utilize a more static model so we can use creative solutions during busy times,” she said.

Tapping into employee feedback, Meyers increased the credit union’s involvement in the community and began rewarding sta for donating their time. Employees, who get paid up to a day’s wage for volunteering at an organization of their choice, volunteered more than 4,700 hours last year.

Moreover, Meyers hired a team member dedicated to enhancing culture and belonging at the credit union.

“Where we really saw was a sense of belonging in terms of folks seeing their choices valued,” Meyers says.

CFCU was named one of the Best and Brightest Companies to Work For in the Nation in 2022.

WINNERS: HR TECHNOLOGY

Emerge Consulting

Joe Bamberger launched EmergeSkilled to connect human resources departments seeking a talent pipeline with high school students exploring the job market.

e technology platform gives Michigan companies more control over the recruiting process while making it easier for students to get jobs.

“We operate under the assumption that most students are not that proactive in their job search,” said Bamberger, managing partner and founder of workforce strategy company Emerge Consulting. “ e system creates automated matches that allow employers to reach out proactively to students to promote their employer brand, so students can be reactive. It kind of takes the pressure o of them.”

EmergeSkilled launched in 2021 with 10 employers and students at one high school. EmergeSkilled is completing a two-year pilot program that is free to schools and employers with a Michigan location.

e company generates revenue from the registered employers who pay to use a premium model.

Today, 5,000 students and 200 employers in Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Monroe, Shiawassee, Ingham, Jackson, Kent and Ottawa counties are using the technology.

Students create pro les, and the system matches them with opportunities such as internships, apprenticeships and jobs.

“ ink LinkedIn meets a dating app,” Bamberger said.

College enrollment is declining, and the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity predicts that 81% of jobs in the state won’t require a bachelor’s degree by 2028.

e platform aims to ll those jobs and help students choose careers and decide whether college is the right t.

EmergeSkilled has received endorsements from the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, the Michigan Works! Association and the Michigan Association of Intermediate School Administrators. EmergeSkilled is set to expand in other Michigan regions in the upcoming school year and has been included in Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s state budget proposal for next year.

Ryan Kelly, special to Crain’s Detroit Business

Brose North America

Brose North America, a tier-one auto supplier with 5,746 employees, saves more than 8,000 human resources hours annually thanks to custom process automations.

In 2016, the HR department, led by Lisa Basila, invested in a team of Mexico-based software developers focused on creating new and relatively low-cost software solutions that provide valuable data and transparency to the HR team and overall sta .

“Lisa is instrumental in bringing the unique voice of many employees to the forefront and understanding what it takes to create a sense of belonging for all inside of an organization,” said Brose North America President Wilm Uhlenbecker.

e HR Software Development team, now based in Mexico and the U.S., creates tailored digital solutions that allow them to keep track of employee data, more e ectively

share information and, as a result, increase e ciencies.

Neto Licea, Brose HR Information Systems coordinator, said recording employee certi cations and other skill data was di cult before the technological upgrade. e supplier’s Electronics Skills Matrix supports the systematic mapping of each production employee’s skill, which helps the company see gaps and ensure employees have the training they need.

“It’s cutting down on our manual work,” Licea said.

Another solution being rolled out reduces by 70% the required time for a production employee to create a certi cation. A Brose production location typically generates 15 daily certi cations, previously requiring an 80-minute paper-based process.

It is now entirely digital and takes 25 minutes.

Brose’s HR data systems also allow employees to view and interface with their own records. For instance, they receive an in-house created Total Rewards Statement that gives each employee a personalized and comprehensive look at their compensation and bene ts package.

Such transparency, he said, empowers employees and their HR business partners.

JOSH STODDART

Natalie Tomlin, special to Crain’s Detroit Business

Joe Bamberger | WATERHOUSE

Natalie Tomlin, special to Crain’s Detroit Business

Patricia Olalde, Marco Villa, Gerardo Hernandez, Neto Licea and Megan Raby. | BROSE

THE HR SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT TEAM . . . CREATES TAILORED DIGITAL SOLUTIONS THAT ALLOW THEM TO KEEP TRACK OF EMPLOYEE DATA.

Kim Dudley

Senior Human Resources Specialist and Senior Team Lead, Greenleaf Trust

Kim Dudley’s e orts to increase diversity, equity and inclusion at Greenleaf Trust, a wealth management rm with $16 billion in assets under advisement, have touched almost every part of the company.

Chair William Johnston created the Greenleaf Trust Scholarship program in 1999, but Dudley rapidly expanded it after some employees highlighted its importance.

“It was operating, but it wasn’t always touching all of our employees,” Dudley said. e program awards 18 scholarships a year to Western Michigan University students of color studying nance or personal nancial planning and has so far produced more than 100 graduates who have been recruited into industry jobs.

“I can attest to the fact that Kim Dudley’s passion and tireless e orts to improve our program annually has made a tremendous positive di erence for the scholars, their contributions to the program, their impact on the company and the value they receive by being Greenleaf Scholars. is program has become a model for internship and mentoring success and

would not be in that condition were it not for Kim Dudley,” Johnston said.

As part of her wider commitment to DEI, Dudley has helped grow the company’s non-white employee base from 7% to 18%. She has also developed programs that train emerging leaders, mentored team members in DEI practices, implemented book clubs focused on anti-racism, launched a Wealth Developers pilot program at three Kalamazoo schools, and helped build a partnership with Eliminating Racism & Creating/Celebrating Equity, a Kalamazoo nonpro t that provides virtual training to teams on racism.

Her team also formed committees that examine DEI practices in hiring, training, and culture.

In addition to her work at Greenleaf, Dudley donates her time to the Jericho Foundation, which provides scholarships to marginalized youth.

Ryan Kelly, special to Crain’s Detroit Business

Detroit Pistons

e HR team at the Detroit Pistons looked to its 280 full-time employees, 500 seasonal and parttime employees and corporate partners before developing the Pistons Strategic Framework. e sports organization’s diversity equity and inclusion initiative aims to develop and engage all employees, attract and hire diverse talent and collaborate with underrepresented businesses and other partners.

“We didn’t want to just present something that just appeared out of nowhere,” said Stefen Welch, vice president of DEI. He said they used the employees’ voices, which included one-on-one interviews, survey results and information gathered from departmental meetings “to see how we could connect with

the work they were doing daily.

“We’re nding ways to teach about DEI so that people don’t feel preached to,” Welch said.

e framework includes shutting down the business for experiential learning opportunities, including companywide visits to local museums and cultural centers like the Zekelman Holocaust Memorial Center, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History and Arab American National Museum.

e HR team also expanded employee resource groups and created employee-led volunteer groups that provide safe and inclusive spaces for sta . ese include Ally Starts with All (for LGBTQ+), Black Resources Insight Driving Growth

& Empowerment or BRIDGE, Pistons Parents and Pistons Women’s Resources or PWR.

Welch said surveys show sta satisfaction at over 90%.

But the Pistons’ DEI work doesn’t end at resource groups.

e organization also bolstered employee mentoring, matching over 30 employees with leaders throughout the organization to increase engagement, lower attrition and develop succession opportunities.

“When folks feel they have a voice in an organization, they are 70% more likely to stay with that organization,” Welch said.

Natalie Tomlin, special to Crain’s Detroit Business

Back row: Stefen Welch, vice president, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion; Megan Churches, HR business partner/associate counsel; Nicolet Lewis, chief people o cer; Justen Johnson, HR business partner. Seated: Amber Lewis, recruiter; Gabrielle Reed, human resources coordinator. | DETROIT PISTONS

STAFFING-SERVICE COMPANIES CRAIN'S LIST |

Ranked by 2022 revenue

25 TRILLIUM TEAMOLOGIESINC.

219 S. Main St., Suite 300, Royal Oak48067 866-TEAM-TTI; trilliumteam.com

ResearchedbySonyaD.Hill:shill@crain.com

|Thislistoftemporary-employer/sta ng-servicecompaniesandcompaniesthatprovidesuchservicesisanapproximatecompilationofthelargestcompaniesinWayne,Oakland,Macomb, WashtenawandLivingstoncounties.Itisnotacompletelistingbutthemostcomprehensiveavailable.Crain'sestimatesarebasedonindustryanalysesandbenchmarks,newsreportsandawiderangeofothersources.Unlessotherwisenoted, informationwasprovidedbythecompanies.CompanieswithheadquarterselsewherearelistedwiththeaddressandtopexecutiveoftheirmainDetroit-areao ce.TechnosoftCorp.(dbaApexon)whichwasNo.7onlastyear'slist,nolongerquali es afterthethemergerbetweenApexonandInfostretchCorp.wascompletedonApril13,2022.ArrowStrategiesLLCwhichwasNo.8andContractProfessionalsInc.(CPI)whichwasNo.19onlastyear'slistdeclinedtoparticipate.NA=notavailable. NOTES: e. Crain's estimate. 1. From Sta ng Industry Analysts.

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

State permanently revokes license of marijuana processor

DUSTIN WALSH

e Michigan Cannabis Regulatory Agency announced ursday it permanently revoked the business licenses of Candid Labs near Owosso.

Candid Labs, doing business as Layercake Farms 2, is a medical and adult-use marijuana processor owned by Ramon Hana at 1850 Parmenter Road in Corunna.

e state agency alleges Candid intentionally disabled its 38-camera monitoring system, a state regulatory requirement, at its facility to conceal the fact that it was processing illegally purchased marijuana crude and distillate.

Management of Candid Labs claimed the wires on the camera were chewed through by rats, the

CRA alleges in a press release issued ursday.

During an October visit, regulators found marijuana distillate oil labeled by the business “Hempire State Growers Hudson Valley New York” — a CBD farm co-op in Milton, New York. e product was con rmed by state testing to not be CBD distillate, but THC marijuana distillate.

It’s also illegal to import marijuana products across state lines.

e regulators also found several jars of distillate with no state identication tags, which the employees said came from biomass of marijuana in the facility. A test conducted by the state found that to be not true.

Candid Labs also operated its medical and adult-use processing operations in the same facility, a violation of state regulations.

E orts to contact Hana for comment at numbers listed for him were unsuccessful, but attorney, Rob Huth of Clinton Township law rm Kirk, Huth, Lange & Badalamenti PLLC, emailed Crain’s a statement.

“Ramon Hana is committed to moving in another direction with his career so that he is able to continue to support his wife and his ve chil-

PEOPLE ON THE MOVE

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

ACCOUNTING

Michigan CFO

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ADVERTISING / PR / MARKETING

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BOARDS

CPAN

CPAN, the consumer protection group ghting for fair auto insurance laws, is pleased to announce Tim Hoste as the organization’s new president. An experienced leader and passionate advocate for the rights of catastrophic crash survivors, Hoste has worked in the post-acute industry for over 14 years and serves as Area Director of Vocational/Day Programming and Support Services at NeuroRestorative Michigan. Hoste has also been an active member of the Michigan Brain Injury Provider Council Board.

NONPROFIT

Midwest Independent Retailers Association

Midwest Independent Retailers Association, the Midwest’s premier trade association for independent retailers in the food, beverage and petroleum industries since 1910, has named Bill Wild as President & CEO. Bill formerly served as the Mayor of the City of Westland from 2007-2022 and is well respected in the public and private sectors for his innovative approach to marketing, customer service and leadership. Bill will also serve as the chairman of the association’s charitable foundation.

dren with ages ranging from one year to twelve years. Mr. Ramon appreciates the CRA’s acknowledgment that he did not admit the truth of any of the allegations but was cooperative so the expense of an administrative hearing was not necessary,” Huth said.

It’s unclear what brands Candid Labs products were used to make.

e state has said it would recall any product on shelves it deems unsafe.

e state originally suspended Candid Labs licenses in February over a total of 28 regulatory violations. e state then sought to permanently suspend those licenses through the courts, which it achieved earlier this month.

Candid Labs’ Hana is also now prohibited from owning any marijuana facility or working for another

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Vella Group is adding two new associate partners. Brittany Guerriero has nearly 20 years of cross-sector fundraising and organizational development experience, including raising over $60 million at United Way and leading marketing communication strategies for U.S. Congressman John D. Dingell. She assists with fund development, brand positioning and leadership development at Vella. Lauren Pulte is a communications strategist and award-winning video producer with over 15 years of experience in journalism, media and sports. She was a producer for C-SPAN and POLITICO and lead communications for Tribune Publishing, The Onion and NCSA College Recruiting. Her Vella work includes leading video production and assisting with strategic communications.

marijuana rm. He also operates other facilities in Lansing, which he must close when the licenses expire.

“When licensees don’t act within the laws and rules that govern the cannabis industry, we must act swiftly to protect the public,” CRA Executive Director Brian Hanna, said in the press release. “By revoking these state operating licenses, we are holding true to the CRA’s promise that egregious actions jeopardizing public health and safety will be taken seriously and have consequences.”

e state has suspended several operating licenses for marijuana companies, including dispensary Green Culture in Flint and TAS Asset Holdings LLC in Lansing.

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

Boys & Girls Clubs launches industry club for design

Boys & Girls Clubs of Southeastern Michigan is launching a new program to create a pipeline of talent for the design industry.

A $300,000 grant from General Motors is supporting the rst year of operations for the new, design industry club program, which will expose youth age 6-24 to graphic design, illustration, animation, automotive, interior and shoe and apparel design. As with other “industry club” workforce and entrepreneurship development programs o ered by the nonpro t, the goal is to help build tangible skills that can be transferred to careers in those elds.

“It’s all about making sure we are doing that good work to really become an economic mobility hub for our communities,” Chief Program O cer Alise Dixon said.

“We want to harvest Detroit talent and motivate that talent to build up their communities.”

e new design program is the seventh launched by BGCSM since 2020. Other industry clubs focus on technology, sports and e-sports, entertainment, urban planning, risk management and fashion.

All of the industry club programs include paid experiences, $10-$15/ hour, for participants age 14-24, as they prepare to enter the workforce.

Since BGCSM’s launch of the industry clubs in the summer of 2020, 1,566 youth have come through the programs. Of those, 641 have received paid workforce experiences led by industry professionals, a spokeswoman for the organization said.

Companies that are currently sponsoring or have sponsored the industry clubs include Apple, Detroit Pistons, Amerisure and GM, which provided earlier support for the nonpro t’s fashion and urban planning/data science industry club programs. Entertainer Sean Anderson, better known as “Big Sean,” has also provided support for recording studios BGCSM sites in the region.

“Inspiring creative minds at a young age fuels every industry,” Michael Simcoe, GM’s senior vice president of global design, said. “On behalf

of everyone at GM, we’re thrilled to grow our support to BGCSM through this new design industry club. Our goal is to encourage Detroit youth to see themselves in a creative career, while providing them with real-world insight and experience.”

e design industry club will expose over 250 youth in year one to elements of the design industry and will include eld trips and master classes, BGCSM said. Fifty youth will receive paid workforce opportunities to build skills in shoe and apparel design, automotive design and interior design.

e rst, six-week cohort is set to launch July 10 with 15 participants who will learn how to design shoes. Participants will gain experience in using digital design software including Adobe illustrator, CAD and Photoshop, Dixon said.

Working with Detroit artist and fashion designer Sharyl Cross of Cross Creates Art, Penske Corp. as creative partner and the Detroit Grand Prix as sponsor, BGCSM piloted the design industry club, teaching youth to use Adobe Illustrator to design digital murals of cars. Seven of the designs were selected, printed out and displayed on the race track walls during the recent Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix presented by Lear, Dixon said.

ough related to the design industry club, the nonpro t’s fashion industry club, which began as a retail club, will continue to operate as a separate program, Dixon said.

e club parted ways with Detroit is the New Black, which was serving as a training site, last year. It’s now o erings lessons in pattern making, industrial sewing, mentorships with veteran, New York designers and the chance to see their fashions on the runway during New York Fashion Week after the club’s inaugural showing in February.

Contact: swelch@crain.com; (313) 446-1694; @SherriWelch

Advertising Section

Pulte

Guerriero

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Dixon

Detroit pending home sales hit 5-year May high — and investors may be the reason why

NICK MANES

House ippers around the country have had a rough go of it the last year and more, and national data is starting to bear that out. But in Detroit, the sentiments — and data — are a bit more muddled.

A new report shows that pending home sales in the city of Detroit hit a ve-year high for the month of May, typically one of the busier home-buying months.

e 606 pending home sales in the city last month represented an increase of 9.8% from April and was about 33.8% higher than one year earlier, according to the data from Farmington Hills-based Realcomp, which manages one of the multiple listing services used by metro Detroit Realtors.

While the report does not o er a speci c reason for the jump, residential real estate industry sources point to activity by the investor community as a key driver. However, the speci c maneuvers being done by investors di ers depending on who you ask.

Many landlords in Detroit — facing trouble collecting rent and mounting violation bills from the city — are liquidating their assets, according to Terrence Bowers, a vice president with South eld-based Bowers Realty and Investments and president of the Detroit Association of Realtors.

“ ey’re done with the headache,” Bowers said of the sentiment of many landlords he works with.

Erick Monzo, owner and Realtor with Mount Clemens-based e Monzo Group, said he’s seeing some liquidation of property portfolios by his investor clients, but nothing particularly out of the ordinary. Rather, he attributed the jump in pending sales to a shift in the overall market and investors feeling more comfortable parking money in Detroit residential real estate.

“It’s new ip investors investing in renovations in the city,” Monzo said of the pending sales boost, noting that comparable sales data has long been seen as a challenge for investors in Detroit, but has become more reliable. “ ey can build a system based on the other ips they’ve done. As housing gets more expensive, they’re looking for cheaper entry points.”

Additionally, Monzo noted he’s seeing strong interest — at least from many of his landlord and investor clients — in land contracts. e mechanism straddles the line between home ownership and renting, with borrowers paying to the property owner, essentially the bank.

A landlord contract allows the seller — the landlord — to be shielded from capital gains taxes, Monzo noted.

Investor perspective

Land contracts are just one reason that investors in the city are bullish for both the present and the future.

Israeli investor Shai Bar has ac-

quired approximately 450 properties in the region in recent years, largely working with Monzo and a handful of property management rms. Bar, representing a group of investors, said his group has sold about 150 properties and another 50 on land contract.

Between the demand for rental properties and land contract deals, Detroit makes for a “big opportunity,” Bar told Crain’s.

e investor said he’s purchased properties in inner-ring suburbs such as Warren and Eastpointe, but rental rates in Detroit have kept up or surpassed what can be charged in those communities, leading to substantially better returns in most cases.

Investor Nate Fanning and his family have myriad real estate interests around the city, including roughly 50 rental properties, commercial property and they own Uptown Barbecue, near Livernois Avenue and the John Lodge Freeway.

Fanning said he feels now is an opportune time to venture into real estate investing in Detroit, believing that high interest rates will eventually fall, leading to spiking prices from rampant demand.

Asked about his experiences dealing with the city of Detroit — which has been on a tear enforcing blighted properties — Fanning said it amounts to a cost of doing business, and the efforts are needed for the sustainability of the city.

“It’s a little bit of a headache,” Fanning said of the city’s e orts to address blight and enforce rental code violations, some of which can be tenant responsibilities. “But if we want better services this is what has to happen. You have to take the good with the bad.”

To that end, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan has issued warnings to residential landlords in the city that enforcement is likely to continue.

“We have too many landlords in this town who own too many houses and can’t keep them (in compliance), Duggan said during a March news conference announcing a new down payment assistance program for lower-income renters in Detroit.

“ e city’s enforcement of our rental code is only going to get stricter and stricter and those nes are only going to pile up,” Duggan continued. “If you own too many houses and you can’t keep them up to code, as a landlord you should think about talking to a couple of your tenants and say to them ... ‘I can sell this house to you and there’s down payment assistance available.’”

Since the program was announced

in late March, city sta has approved 23 down payment assistance grants totaling $547,813, according to data from the city. ere are an additional 40 approvals with a pending or upcoming closing date for a total of $955,875.

“We are pleased with the early roll out of the city’s downpayment assistance program, but at this time, we aren’t able to make that connection between landlords selling their properties and tenants purchasing them,” Julie Schneider, director of the city’s Housing and Revitalization Department, said in an emailed statement to Crain’s. “We expect to have further information about the program and metrics soon.”

Fanning said he’s had a handful of tenants approach him about buying the properties they live in, but the landlord said he’s not interested in selling at this time.

Investors hitting pause

Census data from late last year show that Detroit has returned to a city in which the majority of homes are owner-occupied, albeit by a narrow margin of just more than 51%.

Meanwhile, a report released last year by nonpro t think tank Detroit Future City found there’s approximately 42,000 landlords in the city, the vast majority of which own just one to two properties.

However, many investors nation-

wide are hitting pause.

A report late last month by online brokerage rm Red n found that investors bought nearly 49% fewer homes in the rst quarter compared to a year earlier, with higher interest rates, softening rents and declining values cutting into their ability to make money.

Monzo, the Macomb County-based Realtor, was quick to note, however, that much of that decline in activity is skewed by investors re-evaluating markets in areas of the West Coast and elsewhere in the country.

Michigan, he said, remains on the radar for many investors coming from outside the area — including from international markets.

“ ey’re coming to the areas that are a ordable, and thank God we’re one of them,” Monzo said. “ ere are a lot of investment markets in the country, and we’re kind of kicking their ass right now.”

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

Apartments for rent in Detroit’s North End neighborhood. NICK MANES/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

Bowers Monzo

Apartments for rent in Detroit’s New Center neighborhood. NICK MANES/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

Microbusinesses can get early stage funding without a business plan

SHERRI WELCH

e New Economy Initiative is ipping support for microbusinesses in Wayne County on its head.

In a reverse of the normal order of loan support for those businesses, it will provide loans rst and then help applicants develop a business plan and put in place the nancial projections and management systems.

e Capital On Ramp Program pilot is aimed at helping established microbusinesses with 10 or fewer employees secure funding to sustain and grow their businesses, NEI Executive Director Wafa Dinaro said.

“ e biggest barrier that we hear from entrepreneurs is access to capital. So we’re piloting this program... (and) requesting a lot less documentation than if they went to a bank or...a traditional capital provider.”

Instead of asking microbusinesses looking for a loan for a full business plan, a marketing plan, personal nancial statements and pro t and loss statements as a condition of providing a loan, the CORP pilot will ask them for narrative description of their business and plans to grow it, Dinaro said.

“We’re going to talk through and have them submit a narrative which answers all the stu that would be in a business plan, but it’s less structured.”

“ ey have the business plan in their head, but it’s really another barrier to ask them to format it and put it on paper,” she said.

e one-year pilot will focus on

MEDICAID

From Page 3

is means the state has to nd the enrollees, who may not have upto-date contact info as most live in poverty and are more transient than those not on Medicaid. e state sent out roughly 100,000 application packets that Medicaid enrollees are required to complete to maintain eligibility.

“(Passive redeterminations were) lower than we were hoping,” said Nicole Hudson, senior adviser on special projects for MDHHS and the lead for the Medicaid redetermination process. “We want that number to be as high as it can be. We were hoping around 40% to 50% for passive renewal.”

Several other states are facing a similar challenge as the technology used to identify up-to-date information on enrollees proves problematic.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued a memo urging states to rely more heavily on managed care plans — the insurance companies that issue health coverage under Medicaid — to help nd and ll out the proper paperwork for redetermination.

In Michigan, health plans and community bene t organizations are already assisting MDHHS in basic outreach and education on the

helping microbusinesses that have been in operation and have cash ow, said Chanell Scott Contreras, executive director of ProsperUs Detroit, one of four mission-based lenders working with NEI on the new program.

“Maybe that business owner hasn’t had the time to write a business plan and work on … nancial projections,” she said.

“ is program will allow them to receive capital on the front end… and receive support with some of their future business planning on the back end.”

NEI is making grants totaling $407,000 to ProsperUs and three other mission-based lenders to fund technical assistance and cover six months’ worth of payments for microloans of $25,000-$50,000 to the 50 or so businesses expected to take part in the program to give them a

chance to focus on what they’ll need to do to grow and sustain the business. e other three lenders are:

Black Leaders Detroit, Detroit Development Fund and Michigan Women Forward.

ose groups will provide the microbusinesses with more than $1 million in loans and then help them to create business plans, put in place nancial management systems and support their human resources, legal and other operational needs to help them grow further and sustain that growth.

“We really are trying to meet entrepreneurs where they’re at, so as a part of the lending, they are going to get technical assistance where they will learn all of those hard skills,” Dinaro said.

“You know, the the one thing that we nd is small business owners, they might be really good at, you

know, cutting hair or baking cupcakes, and they might not have the skills to write a business plan or their credit score might be low,” she said.

“ is is working on some of those more technical skills...in order to to give them the skills and the resources to be able to grow and scale their business.”

Funding for the pilot program is part of a $2 million round NEI made from its Inclusive Small Business Support Network Fund to drive small business growth in Detroit, Hamtramck, Highland Park and other Wayne County communities. e fund was launched with $19.5 million of support from funders, including the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan, Ford Foundation, Hudson-Webber Foundation, J P Morgan Chase, e Kresge Foundation, Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Foundation, William Davidson

Foundation, and W.K. Kellogg Foundation. To date, it’s awarded $11 million of that, NEI said.

Among other grants made in the most recent founding of funding, NEI is providing $100,000 to bring national nonpro t Right to Start, which is active in 21 other states, to Michigan to drive grassroots advocacy among small business owners to prompt policy change.

Right to Start will partner with the recently formed Michigan Small business Coalition, co-founded by NEI and the Michigan Municipal League Foundation, to help raise awareness about long-term policies and systemic changes that are needed to sustain and expand the region’s small business support ecosystem.

Contact: swelch@crain.com; (313) 446-1694; @SherriWelch

Pallone said the health insurers are eager to increase the assistance they are already providing the state and hope to be able to assist enrollees in lling out the reapplication packets in the coming months.

Insurers have a vested interest because they paid a predetermined amount each month for every Medicaid member on their books. If they lose members that should remain on Medicaid, that’s revenue lost.

“We’d like to do that sooner rather than later,” Pallone said. “We’re still worried there will be a number of people that shouldn’t lose eligibility who will do so over procedural reasons. is is all hands on deck.”

For the roughly 100,000 in the rst cohort MDHHS has yet to gure out eligibility, Hudson is hopeful the application packets will be returned before they lose eligibility on July 1. But she has no estimate on how successful the agency will be.

process, said Dominick Pallone, executive director of the Michigan Association of Health Plans.

“As we’re interacting with members, we’re trying to push the messaging any way we can,” Pallone said. “But there’s a data lag. It takes days or sometimes weeks for us to know who we should be talking to as

they interact with us. So we’re still worried.”

Hudson said the state is moving fast to broaden its abilities to nd enrollees. MDHHS is expected to get access to wage match data from the Unemployment Insurance Agency and tap some data from the Internal Revenue Service for later cohorts,

Hudson said.

“In the coming months we’re hoping to bring that (passive enrollment) number up,” Hudson said.

“We have a lot of stale data and we’re not able to passively renew people. If we can get better data, as we think we can, we will see better numbers.”

“I don’t think we have a good sense of who is going to lose coverage yet,” Hudson said. “We know there will be people who lose coverage because they are over income or now have employer coverage, but we just don’t know how many. But we’re hopeful our outreach campaign and outreach by others will get folks to complete their packets by the end of the month.”

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

A new pilot program is lowering the up-front requirements for microbusinesses to apply for microloans in an attempt to help them expand into thriving businesses like Skinphorea Facial Bar & Acne Clinic. SKINPHOREA FACIAL BAR & ACNE CLINIC

Wafa Dinaro, executive director, New Economy Initiative.

BLOOMBERG

PINE LAKE

What Pine Lake is doing now in one fell swoop, other clubs throughout the nearby a uent suburbs have been doing for the past few years.

One of its main competitors, Orchard Lake Country Club in Orchard Lake Village, wrapped up a $7.1 million renovation in 2019, and Forest Lake Country Club in Bloom eld Township is nishing a $10 million overhaul. Birmingham Country Club recently poured millions of dollars into its course and banquet space as did Meadowbrook Country Club in Northville Township and Red Run Golf Club in Royal Oak.

Oakland Hills Country Club in Bloom eld Township — a degree or two of swank above the others — is rebuilding its clubhouse for $80 million after it burned to the ground last year. at follows the completion of a $12 million restoration of its famed South Course in 2021.

Pine Lake club member Joe Creal said most members eagerly supported the renovation because it will preserve the club’s legacy and carry it through the next 20-30 years.

“ ere was an appetite by the membership to really take on and improve the quality and types of services we could provide,” he said. “I think they looked at other clubs in the area and said, ‘Look, we need to update to make sure we can attract new members and also service the existing membership.’”

e club’s membership includes 560 families, 400 gol ng members and 250 stock members with voting power. Membership has dipped since a spike during the COVID-19 pandemic when usage of golf clubs soared across the nation. Disruptions at the clubhouse and closure of the course also led to an expected decline, Opie said. Per its bylaws, 310 stock members is considered full.

Club o cials expect membership to increase signi cantly as the construction is completed. e clubhouse work, led by Rochester-based Frank Rewold & Sons, has included new men’s and women’s locker rooms, a new youth room, renovated pool, deck and dining terrace, as well as a new kitchen expanded by 1,500 square feet. A new patio bar is scheduled to be ready for service by next fall.

Spread across 120 acres, the 18hole heathland golf course is in need of new life, Creal said. Most of the course has not been updated since the late 1990s, and some improve-

GOTION

From Page 3

Multiple requests to the committee for more information have been unanswered.

O cials with Big Rapids Township, which was eventually cut out of the factory footprint due to board opposition, called for a CFIUS review earlier this year, as did U.S. Congressman John Moolenaar, who represents Michigan’s 2nd District.

e company itself then submitted to the federal review in May to “dispel the horrible rumors that Gotion has bad intentions for Mecosta County,” elen said in an email to Crain’s last month.

During the CFIUS review, the company paused pre-development activity, including environmental permitting and a request to rezone

ments date back to 1972. Aging infrastructure has led to drainage issues, and the cart paths have reached the end of the road. e bunkers and greens, developed by a hodgepodge

of architects with a slew of di erent turf types, also need uplifting. e vision for the Willie Park Jr.-designed course is to bring it back to its golden-age roots while provid-

ing 21st century amenities, said Terry Poley, golf course superintendent. Similar to the clubhouse, the course renovation started smaller until needed repairs cascaded upon closer inspection.

“As we started adding up the numbers to x these individual things, it just made sense to hit it at once, do everything, x it all,” Poley said.

About half of the $20.4 million will go into course work, with the bulk of that going into irrigation and new turf. Bunkers and cart paths will be replaced. Fairways and greens, currently composed of a Heinz 57 grass, will be replaced with creeping bent grass, and fescue will be planted on about 20 acres along the perimeter of the holes. Sustainability is the goal, Poley said.

“ e beauty of the creeping bent grass is it requires 50% less water, 50% less fertilizer and 50% less pesticides,” he said.

e general contractor for the course renovation is New Jersey-based LaBar Golf Renovations, renowned for its work on some of the

country’s most prestigious courses including Oakland Hills, Pinehurst in North Carolina and Los Angeles Country Club, host of the upcoming U.S. Open Championship. Others on the golf course project include Toledo-based architect Drew Rogers and Mount Pleasant-based irrigation contractor ielen Turf Irrigation Inc.

e course is slated to reopen by July 2024. By that time, Opie said, membership will be on the rise as will the cost to join. e initiation fee for a full stock membership is $35,000, up $5,000 from two years ago. at will likely go up to $50,000 or $60,000 soon. Dues run $1,200 per month, plus an $1,800 annual food and beverage minimum.

“What happens is as soon as you get everything done, demand goes up dramatically,” Opie said. “Everybody pays for what’s been done, so the value of the club is more than when it started.”

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

184 acres adjacent to the 245 acres already zoned industrial in Green Township.

“Gotion decided to not burden the township or county with the e ort until we have our CFIUS result from the treasury department …” elen said in the email.

CFIUS reviews historically applied only to acquisitions of U.S. companies by foreign entities, but the scope was expanded under the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act of 2018 to include certain real estate transactions, said Gary Peters, attorney at Royal Oak-based Howard & Howard who specializes in corporate law.

e only real estate transactions that are covered by CFIUS, though, are deals involving land that is part of air or maritime ports, or land near military installations.

“ e location of the proposed Gotion plant, and because it’s green eld land, there would be no CFIUS review or action required,” Peters said.

Gotion’s battery plant has been rife with controversy since plans were announced in October 2022. Besides concerns over the environment and impact on quality of life, the main criticism of the project has been the company’s ties to China.

Gotion Inc. is a subsidiary of China-based Gotion High-Tech Co. Ltd. that was established in California in 2014. Volkswagen is the company’s largest shareholder, with a 24.7% stake.

Chinese national Li Zhen, who is founder and president of the company, is the next largest shareholder at 13.6%.

Critics have scorned the company’s ties to the Chinese Communist Party, pointing to its articles of association as a major red ag. As of last July, they stated: “ e Company shall set up a Party organization and carry out Party activities in accordance with the Constitution of the Communist Party of China.”

In response, elen said those terms apply to parent company Gotion High-Tech Co. Ltd. but not the North American subsidiary. e executive has also repeatedly said the company is prepared to walk away from the project if it isn’t welcome.

Gotion isn’t the only corporation facing blowback for its ties to the Far East. Ford Motor Co. has been criticized for its partnership with Chinese battery giant Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd. on a $3.5 billion battery plant in Marshall.

e massive EV battery plant proj-

ects in Michigan have drawn scrutiny from the local communities to Washington, D.C., to Beijing amid elevated tensions between the U.S. and China. Also the subject of hot debate is whether these plants should qualify for lucrative federal subsidies designed to develop U.S. battery making capabilities — an industry dominated by China.

Construction on Gotion’s factory, which would produce anode and cathode materials for lithium-ion batteries in electric vehicles, was expected to start this summer and take two years to complete. In April, the state Legislature gave nal approval for a $175 million subsidy on top of a $540 million, 30-year tax break for the project, which promises to produce 2,350 jobs.

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

Thelen

Renovations to the clubhouse at Pine Lake Country Club began two years ago. | KURT NAGL/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

Pine Lake Country Club’s 18 hole golf course will close next month for renovation. KURT NAGL/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

From Page 1

In the eyes of the endowment, it’s an opportunity for return on investment down the road. at depends on a variety of factors, including the state of the still-COVID-shaken o ce market — which is far from recovered from the e ects of the global health crisis — and what, if anything, ultimately gets built on the undeveloped land and other factors.

It has ramped up its holdings and could play a part in new multifamily housing, along with its developer partner e Platform LLC, or other uses on the surface parking.

“You’ll have to stay tuned for what will be happening there,” Interim President Teresa Woodru said in an interview with Crain’s.

Other investment

This is not the first flag the university has planted in the area.

It has been working on a new medical research center in conjunction with Henry Ford Health as part of a broader $2.5 billion vision to construct a new hospital tower, plus commercial uses like residential, retail and perhaps hotel space with the health system and Detroit Pistons owner Tom Gores. In addition, the endowment had earlier this year been identified as an investor in a $38.2 million workforce housing development called Piquette Flats in the Milwaukee Junction neighborhood being spearheaded by Peter Cummings’ The Platform.

Woodru said she anticipates others to follow suit.

“We believe in that part of Detroit and Detroit itself, and in particular in the New Center region,” Woodru said. “( at) speaks to the values that we have in terms of putting our dollars to work on those kinds of projects that will, of course, impact the

community and community outreach and engagement that we have. But they really are investments that are, we believe, very promising, and we’re very astute in the way we’re thinking about it.”

“We know that more development was happening in that area,” Woodruff said. “And so that makes it a very good part of our endowment strategy. And my hope is that what we see, as we look back from the distance of time, is not only (that we have) had a positive impact, as we absolutely expect with the investment dollars, but that there is a parallel development and those two things really have to go together.”

One part of the broader equation: a new startup incubator inside the Fisher Building, said David Washburn, who leads the MSU Research Foundation putting the space together.

Although the amount of square footage the foundation would take inside the building for the incubator has not yet been determined,

Washburn said, the incubator is envisioned to be a sort of petri dish for new companies and technologies, perhaps in the areas of medicine and health.

“We intend to continue to collaborate with the university and their partner, Henry Ford, and that ecosystem I anticipate will build over time as we bring the entrepreneurial ecosystem services” to Detroit, Washburn said.

Collegiate competition

e endowment’s investment helps broaden the university’s footprint in Detroit, where it currently has a presence in the Brush Park neighborhood in a Woodward Avenue building south of Mack. at’s not expected to change.

It also comes at a time when its interstate rival University of Michigan works on building a new graduate school and advanced-education building in conjunction with a pair of billionaires’ development companies to the south: Stephen Ross’ New

York City-based Related Cos. and the Ilitch family’s Olympia Development of Michigan.

at $250 million new building has not yet started construction, although $200 million has been committed so far — a $100 million earmark from the state last year and another $100 million personal commitment from Ross — and a bevy of local and state tax abatements have been agreed to for a series of other ancillary developments totaling an anticipated $1.53 billion in new construction and redeveloped buildings.

Construction on the University of Michigan Center for Innovation is required to start this year in order to receive the state earmark. e other developments would be built over the next several years, with the rst one being a new o ce tower in front of Comerica Park.

For Woodru , the rivalry is on the football elds, baseball and softball diamonds, soccer pitches and basketball courts — not between two possibly burgeoning Detroit hubs for two of the state’s three research universities.

“I don’t think it’s competitive,” Woodru said.

“I think in fact, it’s all part of the positive upward trajectory of Detroit and the state of Michigan. We do not have time to be in competition or to try and tear each other down. We’ve got to be part of an overall higher education solution to enabling every member of our state to be able to achieve their goals. And so in Detroit, as there are more investments that are coming into the city from not only Michigan State and the University of Michigan, but many other partners, and as we attract and draw in more folks to come back to the state of Michigan and to Detroit, there’s going to be a win-win for everyone. And that’s really what this is all about.”

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

A rendering of the Piquette Flats apartments, which is getting an investment from Michigan State University. | X-IDENTITY

The Fisher Building is illuminated green to commemorate the Michigan State University endowment’s purchase of a majority ownership stake in the building. NADIR ALI

“WE BELIEVE IN THAT PART OF DETROIT AND DETROIT ITSELF, AND IN PARTICULAR IN THE NEW CENTER REGION.”

—Teresa Woodru , Michigan State University interim president

nancial o cer, Jay Rising, is creating an advisory group that by mid-July should work through the e ects of the proposed legislation on some of those land-owning businesses.

“We do not want to undo the urban farms. We’re supportive of them,” Duggan said. “We are going to sit with the urban farmers. We’re going to work it out.”

But that doesn’t mean there aren’t concerns. An announcement for the land value tax proposal talked about the impact on small businesses, new developments and even side lots, but Tep rah Rushdan noted Detroit’s farms didn’t make the cut.

“I’m concerned and I’m hoping we can gure out a solution,” said Rushdan, the co-director of Eastern Market’s Keep Growing Detroit and the co-founder of the Detroit Black Farmer Land Fund.

She worried people who have sculpture gardens, water retention areas or who have otherwise beautied greenspace may be left behind. Farmers whose land isn’t zoned for urban agriculture might also slip through the cracks, she said.

“It’s an excellent idea and it makes it easier for homeowners, businesses,” Rushdan said of the tax. “Let’s take one more step of intention for people who have been doing this good work for so long.”

Vacant or unproductive?

Duggan has been clear on what he hopes the tax structure change would do.

“Blight’s rewarded, building is punished,” the mayor said on Mackinac Island. “We don’t tax blight. ... ere are people who bene t from the fact that we don’t tax blight.”

“If we can pass this, the average Detroit homeowner will get a 25 percent tax cut,” Duggan told reporters after the announcement. “And the people who own vacant land and buildings will get a tripling of their taxes. at’s the gist of what we’re trying to do.”

Philip Kafka takes issue with the premise. Kafka, the president of Prince Concepts who owns about 20 acres in Core City, wishes the city would stop thinking about whether land and buildings are vacant and start considering whether or not they’re being put to a productive use.

He’s developed several properties into parks, he said, and is wary of a proposal that will discourage people from creating greenspace — even if the proposal as a whole is better for his bottom line. One of the things that makes Detroit so unique, he said, is the amount of space in the city. A push to eliminate that robs it of its character.

“I think that’s a dangerous thing,” Kafka said. “At the end of the day, all I know is if the city raises taxes on land I have as public parks, it’s bad. ... Even if it bene ts me, I don’t want to be in a city that discourages the use of farms and public parks. It’s not as interesting a game anymore if it’s discouraged.”

Kafka’s properties remain private — he hasn’t deeded them to the city. But the largest landowner in the city is still the city, with the Detroit Land Bank Authority holding more than 83,000 parcels, according to data from Regrid. Another 6,600 are held by the land bank on behalf of Detroit’s planning & development department and more than 1,700 are held by Detroit, the planning depart-

ment or parks & recreation. e largest private landowner according to Regrid, Hantz Woodlands, did not respond to a request for comment.

Development, Kafka said, is not objectively good. People who buy land, maintain it and plant trees on it shouldn’t see their taxes rise. Kafka said he hopes the city sees that as productive, not vacant. He’s also concerned that the proposed tax system targets some productive uses — particularly by penalizing junkyards, something he called part of the city’s culture.

“Let Detroit be Detroit,” he said. “Detroit has junkyards. Detroit is a car city. ey’re the ones who stuck it out.”

Junkyards, scrap yards, warehouses

Moe Bazzy, a part owner of T.K. Junk Car Removal in Detroit’s Midwest-Tireman neighborhood, said there are plenty of junkyards that out the rules and shouldn’t be open. But he said there would be unintended consequences of pushing junkyards from the city en masse.

“Even if there are ve times the amount there are now, it’s not enough,” he said. “All you’re going to see are junk cars laying everywhere. Look around you. ere’s cars everywhere.”

Bazzy’s operation takes up much of a block. He’s also bought land across the street that he wants to expand onto, but can’t, because Detroit has a moratorium on new junkyards and some other auto-related businesses.

Bazzy said he thinks his taxes are already too high. He doesn’t know what else might want to build near him — certainly not something like a jewelry store or a new shopping plaza.

“ is is bullshit for the tax to go up on the land,” he said. “If they close down junkyards, that’s people losing their jobs.”

Scrap yard owners are also concerned. Mark Wierszewski, the owner of City Recycling, said he feels like they’ve been singled out in the proposal. He called it “unfair and unjust.”

e Duggan administration, he said, doesn’t look fondly on his type of business, even though he helps keep materials out of land lls, reducing waste and pollution by allowing them to be recycled. He’s been outside of Eastern Market for 32 years.

Wierszewski said he wishes the city would just approach him about relocating or selling his property instead of what feels like tightening a vice. ere’s a market now for him to sell, he said, but he’s disinclined to move. He has a great clientèle and relocations don’t always pan out.

“I love Detroit, but I don’t feel like Detroit loves our business,” he said.

And anyway, Wierszewski said, it

seems like 40% of the city is vacant. Why is there a need to drive business out of Detroit?

Kevin Goldberg, the owner of Sikora Metals, said if he could airlift his business to another city, he’d do it. He’s been northeast of Hamtramck for 20 years.

He understands that no one wants a scrap yard next door. But he thinks the city should focus more on improving the crime rate and education.

“Until they x that, it doesn’t matter what they do,” he said. “I don’t think taxes is what’s keeping people from owning a home in Detroit.”

For the Duggan administration, the e ect on warehouse operations is also a priority. In Detroit, unlike the suburbs, warehouses have acres of unused space, Duggan said at Mackinac. He hopes by the time the tax is fully phased in — by 2027 if all goes to plan — some of those owners might consider expanding or otherwise making use of the excess property.

“Maybe you sell that extra land to somebody else who does something else,” Duggan said. “I want to make the choices better for Detroiters. I don’t have the answers. I just know we have to have the incentives go the right way.”

Carrot or stick?

Darin McLeskey co-owns Radar Property Management Group and is a broker with Denovo Real Estate. He estimated he owns 100 parcels in the city, many of them side lots, in addition to rental properties. On the whole, he said, the change would be a wash for him — taxes would go up on land as much as they would go down on homes. He’s in favor of the tax plan, but said he sees it as more of a carrot than the stick the administration is making it out to be for owners of vacant land.

A big tax increase on a low base “doesn’t really move the needle”

when the alternative is holding on to land for years and maybe getting a $100,000 payout for property that cost $100, McLeskey said.

“I don’t think it penalizes someone for having vacant land as much as make it easier to develop,” McLeskey said.

Rising, Detroit’s chief nancial ofcer, said topics the working group will consider include required parking. ere are already discussions about creating credits in the system for parking that’s required by the city’s zoning rules, he said. Other exemptions will also be discussed.

“If there’s some unintended consequence, we want to understand what that is,” Rising said. “ ere’s a lot of implications, but I think we’re thinking them through.”

At the nonpro t Recovery Park, CEO Gary Wozniak said he pays about $28,000 in annual property taxes for about 350 lots, most of them vacant. Wozniak said the change would amount to “a huge increase for a small nonpro t” that gives jobs to recovering addicts and returning citizens, and said he thinks exemptions are paramount. He questioned whether the city’s plan would succeed if demand for property stays low.

“Who am I going to sell to?” he asked. “I don’t think people are going to be jumping up and down saying, ‘Taxes are down, let’s go build!’”

Wozniak is in favor of a test period in a portion of the city to see if the proposal works before a land value tax is rolled out more broadly. And he said if there is a tax hike, he’s more likely to think in terms of the number of employees he can a ord to pay rather than the amount of property he owns. While an increase would hurt Recovery Park, he said, it would not force the organization to sell its land.

Other property owners are waiting for more information. Bedrock and Crown Enterprises declined to comment or did not respond to requests for comment about the proposal.

Keith Bradford, president of Olympia Development of Michigan and e District Detroit, said in a statement that he applauds Duggan for putting an emphasis on property tax reform. Bradford said he supports “the activation of valuable land to bene t the community and (looks) forward to hearing more details in the months ahead.”

Cashing out

Questions also remain over whether the proposal can achieve what Duggan wants.

“ ere’s a concept and there’s what happens in practice,” said Alex Alsup, the vice president of research and design for Regrid. “Conceptually, I’m excited about it, supportive. ... We’ve seen some neighborhoods choked o by speculation, seen how easy it is to sit on vacant homes, certainly vacant lots, forever.”

Duggan compared land speculators to holders of lottery tickets. Alsup echoed the metaphor, saying people are cashing out on the city when development nally comes to their holdings.

“ at dynamic needs to change,” he said.

Detroit Property Exchange Owner Michael Kelly said he’s sold o a lot of properties the last few years, calling his current holdings “very insignicant.” Crain’s couldn’t immediately verify what he owned, but e Detroit News reported in 2020 that he held more than 500 properties. Kelly has been sued previously by the city and has had more than $2 million in property tax debt and blight nes forgiven, according to reporting by WXYZ.

Kelly called Duggan “remarkable,” but said he probably wouldn’t change his process in response to a tax change.

“Just like everyone else, we seek value,” Kelly said. “I don’t see how raising taxes incentivizes people to build.”

Herbert Strather, who owns the dilapidated Mammoth Building and other properties, said he has questions about how a tax change might a ect his ability to depreciate property. He’s alsoconcerned about what the change might do to low-income housing tax credit construction. Other developers had similar questions. e city’s tax rate is currently among the highest in the country, said Nick Allen, a doctoral student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who helped create the land value tax proposal. He said it’s the city’s job to make a strong case that the tax change would create more than it destroys.

Values would be much more stable with a land tax, he said, and it will no longer be so cheap to just hold on to property. But there are still decisions to be made about some of the nuances.

“We’re trying to tackle the part of it that’s most consequential in the hopes that in the future there’s even more we can do,” he said.

Parking continues to be relatively pro table, Allen said, because the tax structure rewards it. But maybe in the future, a land value tax will make other uses more lucrative instead.

“Surface parking lots, it’s a horrible use of our most valuable real estate,” Alsup said. “It’s just really, really destructive.”

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

Senior sta writers David Eggert and Kirk Pinho contributed to this story.

Jay Rising, Detroit’s chief nancial o cer, said among the topics the working group will consider is parking. There are already discussions about creating credits for parking required by the city’s zoning rules, he said. LAURÉN ABDEL-RAZZAQ/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

Herbert Strather, who owns the dilapidated Mammoth Building and other properties, said he has questions about how a tax change might a ect his ability to depreciate property. He’s concerned about what the change might do to low-income housing tax credit construction. | ARIELLE KASS/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

Collaboration with larger banks aids growth of small Detroit lender

Detroit-based First Independence Bank, one of the few Black-owned banks in the region, has experienced a growth spurt in recent years. Under the leadership of Chairman and CEO Kenneth Kelly, the lender has more than doubled its assets in the last few years, in part through new equity partnerships, as well as geographic expansion.

Kelly, who last month was named as a nalist for the Michigan and Northwest Ohio Entrepreneur of the Year by consulting rm EY, spoke with Crain’s about what that growth has meant for the bank and how the partnerships are positioning the lender for the future.

 How would you characterize the bank’s overall growth the last few years?

It’s been signi cant and changing. Our growth from the time of the pandemic — which really was a period of high uncertainty — was (such) that we had to really do some adjusting and planning around to be sure that we could manage through whatever that bottom was going to be because it was very unde ned right as the pandemic (started). But we’ve now grown from just over $200 million (in early 2020) and we just crossed $500 million in assets in April.

 To what do you attribute that growth?

Part of that has been because of our decision to strategically move into another market, Minneapolis. We’ve been able to bring in equity, which was important. We needed equity and we’ve had investments from several investors that has allowed us to grow. So I’m very hopeful that we’re gonna get to a point of being steady state and being in a position to where we can provide service to a broader audience because of the growth.

 What has that growth enabled the bank to do?

I don’t know if there were things we couldn’t do. What comes with growth are the size of opportunities. What also comes with growth is the diversi cation of your bank to some degree. That creates a little bit more stability. But I would tell you, what’s most important about our growth has been the partnerships and the collaboration that we have with other institutions. We have become a little bit more a part of the ecosystem of banks (through equity partnerships with Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citi and U.S. Bank).

RUMBLINGS

Previously that was not as prevalent as it is today. And so that’s a positive thing that has come through this process ...

I’m hopeful it will create more long-term stability for banks like ours and having the collaboration and partnerships with larger institutions.

 And what have been the tangible results of those equity partnerships?

Some of the tangible impacts have included seeing credit opportunities that we wouldn’t have had access to before. Also, understanding the level of sophistication in which they bank.

Our teams interacting with their team on some projects where we’re getting to see the breadth and depth of experience that those large institutions have. So as you can imagine, some of that rubs o on us.

The ability to be a co-partner and compete on business that we otherwise wouldn’t be able to as a small institution is another impact. We are part of a U.S. Treasury program with U.S. Bank. It’s part of that mentorship. So those things help us gain experience that to be honest, it’s not likely you would see happen but for these level of relationships.

 What would you say this all means for clients of First Independence Bank?

Well, I think long term it will mean a more e cient institution capable of serving them in ways that they need to be served. That will include the things on the front and back o ce sides. As an example, we were searching for a

BY | NICK MANES

human resources director and we relied on our partner bank, U.S. Bank, who really helped us scope and shape that just from a very professional level, not just taking resumés and hiring someone o the street. They had the ability to do that and the capacity to do that. They were very helpful in us deciding what was really needed and identifying the right person to bring into the organization, speci cally to help us grow. Because we knew we were going to need more personnel, and we needed an HR director who had the capacity to sure really understand that.

In the past, and particularly in the wake of the murder of George Floyd in May of 2020, you’ve spoken about some of the commitments toward greater racial equity that companies — and many banks — have made. What have you seen in the years that have followed?

I will tell you that the pronouncements were very profound. I think we have seen incremental movement in areas that can be impactful to those discussions. I’m not sure that we have seen the pronouncements fully executed, is the way I would also describe it.

What do you mean by that?

So, there is still more work to be done. The good news is that there are conversations being had that were not before, and I think that’s a positive thing. What we have to continue to do, I think, is continue to keep the message out there that these pronouncements were made, and what are the tangible results? And so we will have to count on individuals and leaders ... to continue to elevate this discussion that will allow us to really reassess and create kind of a scorecard of where we really are..

Taylor Swift’s shows led to best weekend of the year for hotels

Owen Burke would not mind if Taylor Swift made a pair of Detroit concerts an annual occurrence.

“I wish she did ve shows in a row,” said Burke, a partner at Firebird Tavern in Greektown. “I’ve never seen fervor like that for any event, other than the Super Bowl, the All-Star Game and a deep run in the playo s.”

Swift’s brief Ford Field residency June 9 and 10 was pro table for the singer, as well as for local bars, hotels and other businesses. Nearly 120,000 people attended e Eras Tour in Detroit — 59,269 on Friday and 59,392 on Saturday, according to Ellen Trudell, a communications executive with the Detroit Lions. More than that came to the city to buy merchandise before the shows or to simply

experience Swiftie nirvana.

Hotel occupancy downtown was 80.7% over the weekend said Chris Moyer, a spokesperson for Visit Detroit, the convention and visitors bureau. It was even higher for upscale hotels, 82.1%. Moyer said any weekend over 60% occupancy is good; he

And while the downtown area’s rates are usually 80% higher than those in the region, Moyer said they were about 120% higher last weekend.

“ is was a particularly strong weekend,” he said. “It’s unquestionable.”

At Firebird Tavern, Burke said between Friday and Saturday, 1,200 were served before 10 p.m. with an additional 300 or more coming back after the show.

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said this was the best weekend so far this year.

e average daily rate of $337.23 for Taylor Swift’s visit was nearly 20% higher than the average for the last month of weekends, $281.79. Moyer said rates from last weekend brought up the average.

“ ey weren’t even drunk, just exhausted,” he said. “Taylor Swift was probably the biggest economic impact we had since before COVID. It was exactly what we thought it was going to be, and more.”

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

Taylor Swift’s two Ford Field concerts brought throngs of fans downtown, including many who had no tickets to the shows and came to revel in the vibe. |

MICKEY CIOKAJLO/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

Kenneth Kelly, chairman and CEO, First Independence Bank BY ARIELLE KASS