Crain's Detroit Business, June 24, 2024

STUCK IN PLACE

These Detroit development projects have been sitting idle for more than a year — and in some cases much longer

Detroit — as do other major cities, to be sure — has a long history of proposed construction projects never getting out of the ground. But even in addition to those, there are quite a few large ones around the city that have started construction, to one degree or another, and have been sitting idle for a year or more.

It happens from time to time, and all projects have their own quirks and bumps.

One proposed multifamily project is currently just a hole in the ground in the Elmwood Park neighborhood. A few years ago, a developer started erecting struc-

tural steel in the Milwaukee Junction neighborhood for a new apartment building but later removed the beams and the project ultimately failed with the land now for sale. A new o ce building downtown was delayed for months when its unique windows were causing problems. A large mixed-use project near Campus Martius Park started construction with a groundbreaking ceremony but was pretty promptly put on ice for a redesign that was years in the making. at’s just to name a few.

By | Kirk Pinho

“We’ve hit a lot of unforeseen roadblocks. Some roadblocks due to things we couldn’t control and some of that is what it is. Our vision is still there.”

Chris Nichols,

co-owner

of SteelHaus LLC

Meet the people making a difference to help patients and employees I PAGE 8

CANNABIS

How Michigan has now topped California in weed sales. PAGE 3

I-75 ‘lid’ idea has models over I-696

By David Eggert

Backers of a plan to put a cap over Interstate 75 in downtown Detroit and make it a park that unites both sides don’t have to go far for examples.

ere are three such “lids,” also called decks or covers, along a nearly 1-mile portion of I-696.

Two are in Oak Park and one in South eld — all of them parks. One also has a road, Church Street, that runs over the freeway.

Caps, while not widespread, are gaining in popularity nationwide as an option to reconnect cities that were divided by sunken freeways long ago.

In Michigan, the lids have provided green space and enabled Orthodox Jews in that area to walk to synagogues and other places on the Sabbath. ey do

pose some challenges, however, that I-75 deck proponents will have to consider as they work to complete a feasibility analysis by year’s end.

e main ones likely are the cost, both to construct and repair caps, and the potential for dangerous icicles to form underneath.

e price tag of an I-75 overbuild, if it’s done, is unknown. But it would be signi cant and come amid competition for transportation dollars. Pavement conditions on I-, U.S.- and Mnumbered highways are projected to decline precipitously in coming years, for instance. At the same time, advocates are pushing the state to get serious about making public transit more viable in metro Detroit.

CONVERSATION

Vehya CEO Will McCoy is reimagining the EV charging startup. PAGE 19

The SteelHaus Detroit project across from Michigan Central in Corktown in Detroit sits half-built. | KIRK PINHO

See I-75 on Page 17

A “lid” park built across I-696 in Oak Park could provide an example for a stretch of I-75 in downtown Detroit near Comerica Park where of cials are studying the feasibility of capping the sunken expressway. | MATTHEW POLLOCK

Piston Group hires former Honda exec as new CEO

By Kurt Nagl and Carly Schaffner, Automotive News

Piston Group founder and Chairman Vinnie Johnson is handing over the CEO reins at the automotive supplier to a former Honda executive.

Mamadou Diallo, 49, will start his new role at the Southeld-based company immediately, the Piston Group announced June 10.

Diallo, an auto sales ace who spent 23 years in various leadership roles at American Honda Motor Co., joins Piston Group as the supplier takes on signi cant new business from automakers. e company is also entangled in a bitter legal ght over its minority certi cation that has dragged on for years.

Founded in 1996 after Johnson retired from the Detroit Pistons basketball organization, the company has grown to more than $3 billion in annual revenue as the largest Black-owned supplier in the country. e Michigan Minority Supplier Development Council revoked the company’s certi cation — arguing that dayto-day management was left to white men — which led to an ongoing lawsuit.

As incoming CEO, Diallo, who is Black, will be “involved in manage-

ment of issues including the group’s overall operational performance,nancial management, planning and reporting, as well as nancial controls and performance” of each portfolio company, according to a news release. ose companies are Piston Automotive, Piston Interiors, A Lava and Detroit ermal Systems.

A Piston spokesman told Crain’s that the legal dispute with MMSDC had no bearing on its selection of Diallo for the CEO role. Nor does the move mean that Johnson is stepping back from his role in the company, the spokesman added.

“Johnson will continue to lead, along with his Board, and now with the addition of Mamadou, and to provide direction in strategic decision making, leadership and vision, and relationship building,” the company told Crain’s.

Johnson took on the CEO role formally last summer when Gordon Fournier departed Piston Group.

“Mamadou is a proven market leader with deep knowledge of the automotive industry and OEM internal processes and procedures,” Johnson said in the news release.

“His 23 years of experience at American Honda Motor Co. …will prove to be a valuable addition to our team and overall approach to growth and customer satisfaction.”

Piston business

Piston Automotive took on Honda as a customer in 2019 through the acquisition of Ohiobased Marion Industries, which makes brake modules.

e supplier has since worked to strengthen its position in EVs, making big strides toward that end with a recent contract win from General Motors Co. Its deal to provide value-added assembly to GM’s Orion Assembly through a new factory at the former Palace of Auburn Hills site — Johnson’s former NBA stomping grounds — marks the supplier’s largest piece of business to date.

It was awarded despite the lingering question of Piston Group’s minority business enterprise status. Whether the supplier will ultimately retain the certi cation is still in the hands of a Detroit judge.

Following closing arguments six months ago, the judge said she would “do my best to try to get this to you as soon as I can.” ere

is still no word on a decision.

Honda career

Diallo spent more than two decades at American Honda, acquiring a broad knowledge of product planning, marketing, production, vehicle distribution and logistics.

Diallo, who stepped into the automaker’s top sales role in April 2023, led Honda through a post-pandemic recovery, an inventory balancing act, a major lineup refresh and the launch of Honda and Acura’s rst new-era electric vehicles, the Prologue and ZDX.

After joining Honda in 2001, Diallo spent meaningful time in the eld in the Mid-Atlantic, Central and Southwest regions as well as in more corporate leadership roles at the company’s Torrance, Calif., headquarters.

Starting in 2014, his work primarily centered on supporting the Acura brand. Diallo received regular promotions within the division until his promotion to the top Acura sales position in 2019. He became vice president of auto operations for American Honda in 2021 as part of a post-pandemic restructuring that aimed to create a leaner and more e cient organization.

In April 2023, he replaced Dave

Gardner, now retired, as senior vice president of auto sales, during a critical time when the automaker was recovering from the global microchip shortage that impacted factory output, left dealers will scant inventory and severely suppressed sales. At the end of 2023, as production began to normalize, American Honda closed the year up 33% with sales of 1.31 million vehicles. Diallo said in his nal interview with Automotive News last month that he projected the automaker would achieve combined sales of 1.4 million in 2024 — a 10% increase versus last year.

Diallo also helped navigate Honda’s entrance into the electric vehicle market. e automaker is spending $4.4 billion to construct an EV and battery hub in Ohio. A collaboration between Honda and General Motors Co. also yielded two of its rst new-era EVs, the Honda Prologue and Acura ZDX, which went on sale last month.

Part of Honda’s electri cation strategy also includes adding well-appointed gas-electric hybrid powertrains to its top volume models like the Accord, CR-V and Civic, which will help mitigate stringent emissions standards as well as secure pro ts that can be re-invested into R&D of electric vehicles.

Mamadou Diallo

How Michigan topped California in weed sales

Michigan is the top weed market in the country.

Crain’s has been reporting that for a year, at least on a per-capita basis. But new numbers show we’re buying more raw quantities of weed in total than the much-larger Golden State.

Since late 2022, Michigan has sold more “units” of marijuana than California, according to data from market intelligence rm BDSA. Meaning consumers here bought more packages of gummies, pre-rolls and grams of ower than those sun-kissed Californians.

Maybe this is surprising, given the population of the Golden State is nearly four times that of Michigan’s. But the answer to

the question of why is simple, and it isn’t necessarily that we like being stoned more.

It comes down to prices.

It’s undeniable that California’s weed market is bigger in dollars. Raw sales data will tell you so. Last year, Californians purchased more than $5 billion worth of legal marijuana, compared to $3.06 billion for Michiganders.

But California is a much more expensive state to buy legal marijuana. For instance, a one-gram pre-roll joint of multistate brand Cookies’ Ridgeline Lantz strain currently costs $17.50 at Dr. Greenthumb’s Cannabis dispensary on West Centinela Avenue in Los Angeles. At Gage Cannabis in Ferndale, the exact same pre-roll costs just $7.

at’s 60% cheaper. A consumer can buy two joints in Michigan with enough left over to buy a Pepsi for the same cost in LA. e big di erences between Michigan and California come down to two major things — taxation and the illicit market.  California’s government collects a 15% excise tax on top of state sales taxes, which range from 7.25% to as high as 10.75%. And municipalities can also tack on additional local taxes. Some consumers in California face taxes on weed purchases as high as 38%. Michigan recreational marijuana, on the other hand, only faces a 10% excise tax alongside a 6% sales tax. And local taxes aren’t allowed in Michigan.

Poultry industry wants state to do more to control bird u

LANSING — A top agriculture o cial said June 12 the state has found no bird u within the poultry industry in the last six weeks while dairy farms continue to be impacted, with more cases detected this month.

The state’s response to the outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) has been “very effective” but also has been complicated because it is the first time the virus has been

found in cows, Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development Director Tim Boring told lawmakers while giving an update to the Senate and House agriculture committees.

Legislators, including one who is a dairy farmer, applauded MDARD’s e orts despite chicken, egg and turkey producers — which have dealt with bird u for years — wanting the state to do more to control the spread within the milk industry.

Fain investigation threatens image of union leaders

UAW President Shawn Fain and his fellow reform caucus candidates who swept into power less than two years ago were supposed to represent a fresh start for a union plagued by scandal.

But the revelation that the UAW’s court-ordered federal monitor is investigating Fain — who is accused of retaliating against other leaders and obstructing the investigation — tarnishes that image and complicates his ambitious push to organize autoworkers in southern states where skepticism of union leadership abounds.

e monitor, Neil Barofsky, said in a June 10 ling that he is looking into allegations that Fain punished Secretary-Treasurer Margaret Mock and Vice President Rich Boyer by stripping them of key assignments. Barofsky said the union had not produced requested documents in a “complete and timely manner.” He also revealed the opening of an unrelated investigation into an unidenti ed regional director over allegations of embezzlement.

While the veracity of the claims has not been determined, they echo the kind of wrongdoing uncovered by a yearslong corruption probe that landed two past presidents in jail and led to the rst-ever direct election, which Fain won. e alleged lack of cooperation also mirrors complaints Barofsky made against Fain’s predecessor, Ray Curry.

“ e real cost to the union is that it will drain their time and energy,” he told Automotive News. “It makes it more di cult to focus on the issues.”

Opposition ammunition

One issue at stake is Fain’s ongoing push to organize nonunion automakers.

While he had success at a Tennessee Volkswagen plant in April, the UAW su ered a defeat at an Alabama Mercedes-Benz plant last month. e union hasn’t made visible progress at other plants since.

“The real cost to the union is that it will drain their time and energy.”

Marick Masters, a labor expert at Wayne State University in Detroit, emphasized that it’s premature to draw many conclusions about the investigation but said even the perception of scandal could be a drag on the UAW’s agenda.

“It wants to maintain as pristine an image as possible, and this is a blemish its opposition will spin to great advantage,” Masters said. “ e union has to steady the ship, so to speak, so workers don’t have those [corruption] concerns and they can focus on what the real bene ts of the union would be.”

Even before the monitor’s latest

e outbreak has hurt both poultry and dairy farms across 11 counties in the western and central parts of the state. Saranacbased Herbruck’s Poultry Ranch, the largest egg producer in Michigan, announced plans to lay o 400 people at ve farms it operates in Ionia County and hire many back later. At least 6.5 million of the state’s 15 million egglaying hen population has been decimated.

David Eggert

By Michael Martinez, Automotive News

By Dustin Walsh

In this le photo, pregnant dairy cows peer out of their barn at Horning Farms in Manchester, which houses more than 400 head of dairy cows. LON HORWEDEL

Marick Masters, labor expert at Wayne State University

Shawn Fain | MICHAEL MARTINEZ/AUTOMOTIVE NEWS

See FAIN on Page 18

Workers including Samantha Wilder (left) trim cannabis at Glacial Farms. NIC ANTAYA

See WEED on Page 18

Gores seeks partners for Detroit housing developments

Detroit Pistons owner Tom Gores and his team are looking for development partners to work on the multifamily housing portion of the Future of Health project around the New Center area.

Palace Sports & Entertainment LLC has issued a request for proposals for real estate development, property management and consulting rms to help them as they work to build 660 or more apartments in an e ort that’s expected to cost $323 million.

Responses to the RFP are due June 27.

e Future of Health project — a collaboration between Henry Ford Health, Michigan State University and Gores — was announced in February 2023 and re-envisions the neighborhood surrounding the century-old Henry Ford Hospital. A new 21-story, 1.2 million-square-foot hospital tower will serve as an anchor, with residential and commercial developments planned as well. e state signed o on a $231.7 million transformational brown eld package for the housing and other components totaling about $773 million of the $3 billion Future of

Health project this spring.

On June 10, a groundbreaking ceremony kicked o construction of the $335 million Henry Ford Health + Michigan State University Health Sciences Research Center, another component of the

overall Future of Health project.  Palace Sports & Entertainment issued the RFP in recent weeks seeking a property manager for the 150-plus unit ground-up project at 725 Amsterdam St. expected to start construction next year. Separately, the company is looking to hire a company that would work in development and management support roles, which could include leasing, a ordable housing property management, Low-Income Housing Tax Credit consulting and project manage-

ment and design.

Both are open to what Palace Sports calls “emerging developers,” which is de ned in the RFP as “a developer who comes from a background that confers a historical disadvantage in accessing business, capital, political and/or investment opportunities.”

“‘Emerging’ should not be taken to mean new or inexperienced talent, but rather talent that is underrepresented among traditional allocators of opportunities,” the RFP says.

e project includes more than 130 units of “deeply a ordable housing”

Overall, the multifamily component of the Future of Health project includes the 154-unit, $79 million 725 Amsterdam building; a 105unit, $54 million apartment building at 675 Amsterdam; and a $189 million redevelopment of Henry Ford Health’s One Ford Place headquarters into 403 housing units.  Crain’s has previously reported that the buildings would have 311 studios averaging 540 square feet, with 63 of them being considered a ordable; 288 one-bedroom units averaging 749 square feet, with 57 of them being considered a ordable; and 63 two-bedroom units averaging 1,076 square feet, with 133 of them being considered a ordable.

A separate RFP from Palace Sports was also issued seeking an emerging developer to work on the expansion and buildout of the Brennan Recreation Center, a $20 million project on the city’s northwest side in Rouge Park in the Cody-Rouge neighborhood.

“Engaging local Detroit emerging developers and creating meaningful opportunities to participate and support on both our Future of Health project and the Rouge Park Community Center project is an important part of our development strategy,” a spokesperson for Palace Sports said in an emailed statement. “We look forward to engaging with developers who are interested in participating and share our community-minded approach as this process moves forward.”

DTE breaks ground on battery storage facility on former coal- red plant site

By David Eggert

DTE Energy Co. broke ground June 10 on a $460 million battery facility at the site of its former Trenton Channel coal- red power plant, a 220-megawatt project the utility expects to be the largest of its kind in Great Lakes region.

It will store electricity when there is low demand and distribute it when there is high demand. e cost will be partially o set with $140 million in tax credits through the 2022 federal In ation Reduction Act.

DTE Chairman and CEO Jerry Norcia hailed the “rebirth” of the facility, which will be named the Trenton Channel Energy Center, be completed in 2026 and have capacity to power nearly 40,000 homes.

e coal plant was retired in 2022 after operating for 98 years. Its two red-and-white, “candy cane” smokestacks came down in March.

“We’re really, really excited to be here ushering in this new era for Trenton and for our state,” he said at a groundbreaking ceremony that was attended by federal, state and

local o cials including Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, Michigan Public Service Commission Chair Dan Scripps and White House climate adviser Ali Zaidi.

e facility will be the biggest coal-plant-to-energy-storage conversion in the Great Lakes region and one of the largest battery arrays in the Midwest, Norcia said. He said it will reinforce DTE’s commitment to bring more renewable energy online.

“It’s really a peak resource where when it’s really, really hot out we can turn this facility on and it’ll support the grid and make the grid more stable and reliable for our customers across our territory,” Norcia said.

Trenton Channel will deliver nearly 10% of the 2,500 megawatts of energy storage that is required statewide by 2030 under a law Whitmer and legislators enacted in 2023. Storage is viewed as key amid the transition from fossil fuels because wind and solar are intermittent.

“ at’s a big deal,” Whitmer said

of the Trenton project’s role. “Reaching the standard will help us store enough energy to strengthen our grid and increase reliability during peak demand. Basically, we can produce more clean energy when it’s easily available and cheap and store it for later when we really need it.”

In March, state regulators approved contracts to support the construction of the center. DTE will seek to recover costs in a future rate case.

Norcia said those costs will be lower due to the federal tax incentives and the site’s location, where there are existing assets like a substation to take the stored electricity to the grid. e company estimates $40 million in savings from reusing the site and existing infrastructure. Asked if DTE plans to redevelop more of the site — about 100 acres will remain available after the battery project — Norcia told reporters it is still “a very strategic site.” It could be used to expand the battery facility in the future, he said, and to potentially add power-generating resources.

Kirk Pinho

In this site plan for the Future of Health development, a partnership between Henry Ford Health, Michigan State University and the Detroit Pistons, residential and mixed-use buildings are denoted in orange in the New Center neighborhood. | SCREENSHOT OF FUTURE OF HEALTH SITE PLAN

Family-owned pasta producer plots growth

By Jay Davis

What started as a small business run out of the family basement is now a Michigan staple with designs on entering new markets.

Mama Mucci’s Pasta is celebrating 35 years in business this year and to commemorate the milestone the Canton-based business has expanded into new retail stores and launched new products, including tru e linguine, paccheri, short rib tortelloni and caprese ravioli. To keep up with demand, the company added a 100-foot cooking and chilling line straight from Italy to its facility that can produce up to 1,000 pounds of pasta an hour.

“We started out making only 3 to 5 pounds of pasta a week,” company co-founder and CEO Vince Mucci said. “Now we’re at 25,000 a week. We make our pastas exactly the way our mom did, all of these years later.”

Mama Mucci’s and its staff of 25 people operate out of a 32,000-square-foot space at 7676 Ronda Drive. The company has run out of the space since 1994 and has added 18,000 square feet of space to the facility over the last 30 years.

Tilde “Margherita” Mucci and her sons Vince and Frank started the business in 1989. Margherita learned how to make pasta from her mother in Montelongo, Italy, before moving to the United States in 1957. e business began with Margherita making sauces in the family’s home and o ering restaurants samples of her pasta. e company’s rst production space was a 700-square-foot kitchen in downtown Plymouth.

Mama Mucci’s now produces more than 1 million pounds of pasta each year and works with more than 200 restaurants and retailers in Southeast Michigan. e items are available in more than 80 independent stores in 53 Michigan cities and a selection of Kroger locations in their frozen Discover Local section. e list of partners includes Marrow and Woodward Corner Market in Detroit and all three Nino Salvaggio

store. Kroger has 120 stores in 82 cities in Michigan.

Nino Salvaggio has worked with

Mama Mucci’s for more than 15 years, according to Nino Salvaggio Director of Operations Fred Rayle, calling it a fruitful partnership.

“As a family-owned, Michigan-based business ourselves we are always on the lookout to partner with other businesses that are family owned and based in Michigan,” Rayle told Crain’s in an email. “We are very proud of their success. ey are a great partner, and their products are wonderful. Our customers certainly love them.”

“We started out making only 3 to 5 pounds of pasta a week. Now we’re at 25,000 a week. We make our pastas exactly the way our mom did, all of these years later.”

Vince Mucci, co-founder and CEO

locations. Mama Mucci’s works with Traverse City-based distributor Cherry Capital Foods, which helps deliver products to some clients in other Midwest states and Canada.

e partnership with Kroger comes as the Cincinnati-based grocery chain committed to featuring more locally made products, pledging in September to add at least 30 new products per

Mama Mucci’s pastas are made with all-natural ingredients including whole eggs, herbs and spices. e dry, fresh and lled pastas are low in fat and sodium. All of Mama Mucci’s pastas are rolled and sheeted, which creates a homestyle pasta with a rm texture.

Mama Mucci’s features dry and frozen retail lines, and a tomato basil sauce. e company also offers home delivery throughout the continental U.S. e company website even features a handful of Margherita’s recipes.

Vince Mucci said the company will add more specialty restaurants as partners and some airline companies that he declined to disclose. Mama Mucci’s is doing well,

he said, with annual revenues topping eight gures. Mucci declined to disclose more nancial details.

Pasta making can be a lucrative business.

Pasta was a $68.35 billion industry in 2023 and is projected to hit $71.42 billion this year and grow to $100.24 billion by 2032, according to online global market research rm Fortune Business Insights.

e stage is being set for a second generation to eventually take the reins.

Vince, 62, and Frank, 57, plan to

remain involved with the family business for a while. Vince’s daughter Ella Mucci, 28, joined three years ago. She is Mama Mucci’s business development manager, tasked with taking the business farther.

Ella Mucci, who earned a business degree from Hope College in Holland, Mich., told Crain’s that it’s always been in her plans to work in the family business. She took a bit of a detour, though, taking a sales position with Nestle Purina PetCare before joining Mama Mucci’s.

“The company started before I was born so it’s always been a major part of my life,” she said. “As I got older and decided to study business, my dream started to become an actual plan. My family, my Italian heritage and pasta specifically are some of the things I’ve always been the most passionate about. I even moved to Italy for three months after graduation to study the Italian language.”

Vince Mucci believes his daughter has the drive to push the family business to another level and that she will keep Mama Mucci’s products alive and growing.

Vince Mucci said his mother, who died in 2021 at 83, would be proud of how the family business has matured.

“ ere will always be great demand for high-quality pasta that is still made with century-old techniques,” he said. “My mother would be so proud. She never thought that her dream could get this big.”

Mama Mucci’s Pasta co-founder Frank Mucci, business development manager Ella Mucci and co-founder Vince Mucci are taking the family business forward. | MAMA

MUCCI’S PASTA

Michigan’s education woes start with structure

Michigan’s schools are in dire need of a rethink.

As outlined in our recent Crain’s Forum, the state has fallen to 42nd in the nation in K-12 achievement. And we’re behind most other states in reworking our practices and curricula to t the needs of the current century.

Business leaders have been shouting this for years, through such e orts as the School Finance Research Collaborative and Launch Michigan, a coalition group of business, education and nonpro t leaders who have studied the structure and details of Michigan education deeply and thoroughly.

Launch Michigan’s recommendations, outlined in a 2022 report, have basically gathered dust. ey bear consideration. One problem is structural. As Business Leaders for Michigan CEO Je Donofrio points out in Crain’s Forum, Michigan has one of the nation’s most decentralized education systems, with most key decisions being made at the level of the more than 800 school districts in the state.

Relics of decisions and con icts from decades ago produce situations like the city of Warren, which is served by six different school districts, each with its own school board and superintendent.

While “local control” has its place, that decentralization makes turning around a ship that’s going in the wrong direction all but impossible.

Michigan’s system is also unusual in

COMMENTARY

that we have an elected state school board that hires the superintendent of public instruction, who runs the Department of Education but doesn’t report to the governor.

at has prompted Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to seek create what amounts to a second Department of Education, called the Michigan Department of Lifelong Education, Achievement and Potential.

Whether you view that move as a workaround or a power grab or something in between, creating a whole second education department is certainly a symptom of a system that isn’t working.

To create and maintain a 21st-century workforce, a high school diploma should convey con dence that students have speci c learning and skills. Right now, they really don’t. And there needs to be a mechanism by which that list of skills evolves quickly and keeps up with the world outside school walls.

As Launch Michigan said in its framework recommendations, “We envision a future where the attainment of a high school diploma means more than just having been present from kindergarten through 12th grade.” at requires a system that can evolve as quickly as technology and society. e system we have can’t possibly do that. It also needs e ective accountability measures for those in power and those teaching in the classroom.

Changing the structure of public education in Michigan would be a di cult proposition, likely requiring a ballot drive to amend the state Constitution. It would likely be a tough sell to voters.

But the fact remains that serious change is needed. e business community has outlined the problems and put forward potential solutions that have been proven out in other states. e status quo just can’t be an option.

Embezzlement case is a wake-up call, but don’t let it tarnish a sector

Like you — whether a local or national colleague or a fellow Michigander — I have been shocked by the startling magnitude and historic nature of alleged fraud at the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy.

We should all react to this situation as an eye-opening jolt.

It has certainly prompted me to re-check my nancial leadership and our organization’snancial management practices. Across my six years as CultureSource’s executive director, we have experienced revenue growth well over 500 percent and doubled our sta . Amid that progress, I have adhered to business advice of nancially savvy leaders and mentors: sign all checks, segregate duties, avoid expense management that leads to “death by a thousand cuts,” and be aware that leaders of color receive little forgiveness for screwing up.

External to my looping mental monologue, I am most concerned right now that relative to this single, potentially extraordinary case, a narrative is forming regionally that nonpro ts are uniquely vulnerable to fraud or being duped, that their

business practices inherently lack rigor, that limited or dull attention to detail is pervasive in them, and that they require burdensome levels of scrutiny. ese targeted characterizations are unwarranted and unfair. ey wrongly reinforce outdated conceptions of nonpro ts being charities solely operated by volunteers who are well-intentioned and creative though frightfully under-skilled and under-engaged in administration.

e nonpro t arts groups the CultureSource works with are sophisticated businesses that choose to do mission-focused, social impact work and receive regulated bene t from the generosity of volunteers’ time, talent, treasure, and ties. ey sell products, create full-time jobs, contract services to support operations, and employ MBA-holding sta . Fraud can happen to any group; that is true. However, as Crain’s wrote recently: As an industry, nonpro ts represented the smallest percentage of cases (10%) in the Association of Certi ed Fraud Examiners’ “Occupational Fraud 2024: A Re-

port to the Nations” study. And they saw a median loss of about $76,000 — roughly half the loss for-pro ts and government groups reported.

Entering the term “fraud” into the search bar of the Wall Street Journal or New York Times highlights widespread scams and returns almost daily articles published about a hacked regulation or process. And as our auditor told our board this month at CultureSource’s annual audit presentation, spiritual communities can see particularly signi cant instances of fraud as spaces of high trust. (I imagine many CEOs and nance committees have recently adopted “trust but verify” as a mantra.)

In response to the allegations of nonpro t fraud in our region, the calls I am hearing for increased nancial management standards should be directed to ALL businesses (publicly traded, privately held, and nonpro t) and ALL agencies (governmental and non-governmental).

hibit engagement of those groups’ supporters. If the fraud allegations are true, re exive micromanagement and mistrust of nonpro ts writ large would be exponentially damaging and detrimental to their mission-based work our communities rely on. Additionally, enterprises led by women and people of color would be disproportionately negatively impacted.

CultureSource continues to be there for the nonpro ts, philanthropists, and startup enterprises we serve — whenever they need us. As we join others in grieving an erosion of community trust, Culture-

I do not want oversized skepticism of nonpro ts to dampen enthusiasm or inhibit engagement of those groups’ supporters.

Everyone can improve and learn from this situation.

I do not want oversized skepticism of nonpro ts to dampen enthusiasm or in-

Source is aggregating resources, best practices, and standards for sound scal management and controls to share with our members. In these times, I hope everyone turns to their own advisers, trade associations, and favorite bookseller’s business and nance sections for necessary and routine scal health check-ups.

Omari Rush is executive director of CultureSource, a nonpro t membership organization for arts and culture nonpro ts.

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Sometimes heroes wear scrubs, white coats or business attire. Sometimes they’re well known by the public. But more often than not, they are working behind the scenes to make a difference — like nding ways to give nurses more time to spend with patients, improving outcomes when the diagnosis is cancer, and building stronger systems of mental health support. We requested nominations of people who should be recognized for expanding access to care, innovating new programs and procedures, and opening doors for diverse talent. Peers, colleagues and patients delivered. Crain’s Detroit Business editors and Senior Health Care Reporter Dustin Walsh ranked Health Care Heroes nominees through an online system. We then selected the highest-ranking candidates in each category. Health Care Heroes was managed by Leslie D. Green, assistant managing editor of special projects for Crain’s Detroit Business.

ADMINISTRATOR HERO

Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Director of the Muslim Mental Health Conference and Consortium, Michigan State University

ROX GATIA

Vice President of Pharmacy Shared Services, Henry Ford Health

KIMBERLY

FARROW-FELTON, M.D.

President and CEO, Central City Health

Dr. Farha Abbasi is working through fear, politics and stigma to treat mental health in Michigan’s Muslim, minority and LGBTQ+ communities, while navigating geopolitical events.

As an assistant professor of psychiatry and the director of the Muslim Mental Health Conference and Consortium at Michigan State University, Abbasi has created new safe spaces for students and faculty while maintaining her long-existing programs around mental health.

Institutional reactions to the con ict in Gaza feel hostile to her and others who identify as Muslim, she said. e current reaction to students’ protests around the Gaza con ict has also contributed to students’ and faculty’s fears of talking openly, she said.

“When we see that it’s being completely silenced or you can’t even express or talk

Henry Ford Health’s Centralized Pharmacy Services Center in Detroit is the brainchild of Rox Gatia.

e largely automated facility distributes common non-narcotic medicines to the system’s ve metro Detroit hospitals and 40-plus ambulatory medical centers with hundreds of outpatient clinics — and marks the rst health system-owned centralized pharmacy center in the country.

Hospitals and clinics send their drug orders to the center. e system then sends a tote down the more than 800 feet of conveyors to a workstation that’s coordinated for each health care location.

Employees scan the tote and are shown a list of what drugs are needed. ey then fetch the drugs from the labeled shelving; pack the drugs into the tote; and send it down the line. A sta pharmacist gives a

While treating patients at local hospitals, Dr. Kimberly Farrow-Felton gathers information to develop programs in her role as president and CEO of Central City Health.

“ at is my superpower,” she said. “Interfacing with the patients, interfacing with the community, hearing what their struggles are, hearing what they need in terms of support. I take what they say, I take real-life examples, and I develop programs around it.”

Central City Health serves underhoused and at-risk populations in metro Detroit with medical care such as pediatric, dental, mental health and life counseling services to people regardless of their ability to pay.

e number of patient services it provides has increased under Farrow-Felton’s watch and is almost back to

about it, or you feel very disenfranchised as an American citizen,” she said.

Many in Muslim communities feel unsafe discussing their mental health problems with others, as heightened surveillance from federally led “Countering Violent Extremism” e orts that aim to engage health professionals and teachers, among others, to report individuals who they feel are vulnerable to extremism.

“How do you have that safe space, where you can process that experience without being re-traumatized?” Abbasi said.

To help people process their feelings around the geopolitical climate, Abbasi has started “healing circles” for students and faculty to talk about trauma with a sense of validation, trust and safety.

Abbasi, who identi es as Muslim, noted that while Muslim youth currently have

nal check of the order, and the tote is then sealed, labeled and placed on a pallet for shipment.

Later this year, the center will begin to serve the system’s 33 outpatient facilities as well.

Gatia, Henry Ford Health’s vice president of pharmacy, said this use of automation provides a level of service rarely seen in health care, one that works to free up the hands and minds of caretakers, who can then provide better care to patients.

e new center is a more e cient method than the previous distribution model, which relied on each hospital to oversee drug orders, ensuring each drug was where it needed to be when it needed to be.

“ is allows us to capitalize on eciencies … across the entire enterprise,” Gatia said. “By using this approach, we

its pre-pandemic level of 55,000 patient services per year.

Central City Health received a $4 million federal grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration last year, which it is using to expand treatments that include outpatient mental health, substance abuse and psychiatric rehabilitation.

It recently started a program to allow transient populations, such as the homeless and underhoused, to use lockers to store medications for conditions such as HIV. It also extended its operating hours to serve patients in the evening to help more people who work during the day.

“Aside from the emergency rooms, there is no place for them to receive services,” Farrow-Felton said.

Central City Health also hired more clinicians with HIV experience and developed training in HIV treatment. e clin-

higher rates of drug abuse, suicidal ideation and bullying than other faiths, her work isn’t limited to helping practitioners of Islam.

Abbasi created and continues to teach “ e Cultural Psychiatry Curriculum” to create awareness around communities that identify as Black, Indigenous and people of color, adding that Asian Americans ages 15 to 24 are the only racial group with suicide as the leading cause of death.

She also works to create LQBTQ+ inclusion in faith communities.

Abbasi said that during her 25 years in the U.S., this is the hardest time for her work that she can remember, though she is still optimistic for the future of mental health.

“ ere cannot be health without mental health,” she said.

— Ryan Kelly

are providing a consistent and standardized approach. e more we can standardize and centralize these operations, it frees up the hands on deck at our hospitals and pharmacies to do the real work of caring for patients. Our team members should be operating at the top of their license, not managing medications.”

e $16.6 million center is reducing pricey redundancies within that drug distribution network at HFH, saving the health system an estimated $30 million over its rst ve years of operations. Gatia, who aspired to become a pharmacist beginning in high school, said the entire operation is an act of service, to his colleagues, to patients and to the pharmacy industry writ large.

“I am a service-oriented individual,” he said. “I am a rm believer that you should leave a place better than you found it.” — Dustin Walsh

ic also brought in an oral surgeon so it could provide tooth extractions and other procedures that typically involve long wait times for patients on Medicaid.

“Alternatively, we have to send them out, and the waiting list for Medicaid patients for oral surgery is very, very, very long,” she said.

Farrow-Felton and her team face challenges when trying to reach their patients, who could be sex workers, the underhoused or drug abusers. To help connect with patients, her team has created partnerships with other health care centers and referral programs.

She is also guiding the expansion of Central City Health with two new satellite locations. One was opened at Abbott Street and ird Avenue in Detroit, and another is planned for the campus of the University of Detroit Mercy.

— Ryan Kelly

COMPASSIONATE IMPACTFUL DEDICATED LEADERS

Congratulations to the following Karmanos Cancer Institute distinguished leaders and physicians honored as Crain’s 2024 Health Care Heroes.

Boris C. Pasche, M.D., Ph.D., FACP, president & CEO, has been recognized in the Advancements in Care Hero category.

We’re honored to have Dr. Pasche among our exceptional team of cancer experts. He’s a compassionate physician, driven inventor and trailblazer whose research contributions have transformed countless individuals’ lives and helped direct the future of cancer research.

Michael Dominello, D.O., Neuro-Oncology Multidisciplinary Team leader, and medical director of Gamma Knife Radiosurgery, has been recognized in the Physician Hero category.

We commend Dr. Dominello for his steadfast commitment to patient care and his innovative treatment planning with patients. His diverse treatment options have significantly improved patient outcomes and advanced the field.

You’re not just our heroes - you are heroes to the countless lives you’ve touched.

Michael Dominello, D.O. Neuro-Oncology

Multidisciplinary Team Leader

Medical Director of Gamma Knife Radiosurgery

Boris C. Pasche, M.D., Ph.D., FACP President & CEO

ast year Wendy Kim and her team started the Henry Ford Milk Bank-Jackson, the second donor breast milk bank in Michigan, and it has already collected close to 50,000 ounces of milk.

Studies show that babies who consume breast milk are less likely to have issues like earaches, stomachaches and colds, or develop chronic conditions such as obesity, asthma and diabetes.

And babies born prematurely can be more exposed to those risks, said Kim, who is the vice president and chief nursing ocer at Henry Ford Central Market.

“Human milk is the perfect source for those babies who are in need,” she said. “Moms are well aware of the bene ts.”

e collected milk is currently being used primarily for premature babies or babies with underproducing mothers born in Henry Ford Jackson Hospital and Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, though Kim’s team is working to make it more accessible.

Moms in Michigan don’t have many options to obtain breast milk beyond their friends and social media networks, Kim said. e milk in those networks is not rigorously screened and pasteurized, as is required by the Human Milk Banking Association of North America.

Her team is advocating for legislation to make it easier for mothers outside hospitals to obtain a supply from the milk bank because current laws don’t allow mothers to easily receive it.

“We’re trying to support other initiatives that are out there,” Kim added. “ ere are still some hurdles for moms to be able to access it.”

Her team has requested to become a supplier to Michigan’s Breast Milk Initiative, a state program that provides free pasteurized breast milk to birthing persons with HIV and it is working on a partnership with the Black

WENDY KIM AND THE TEAM OF THE HENRY FORD MILK BANKJACKSON

Vice President and Chief Nursing Of cer, Henry Ford Central Market

Mothers’ Breastfeeding Association.

Kim and her team are also looking at grants to o set the cost of human donor milk for those who want to purchase it, as it requires a prescription for some moms.

e milk bank, a nonpro t, is funded with a $700,000 state grant and Henry Ford Health capital funding.

It stores around 27,000 ounces of raw breast milk and 13,000 ounces of pasteurized milk. e milk bank is supplied by more than 100 donors in all parts of Michigan that the center nds from word of mouth, advertising and existing networks of breastfeeding moms.

“Moms are so passionate about the bene ts of breastfeeding,” she said. “It just warms your heart.”

— Ryan Kelly

ith the discovery of a syndrome that causes neurological and developmental delays in children, geneticist Dr. Caleb Bupp and his team at Corewell Health have given a ected families a treatment path and advanced the practice of rapid whole-genome sequencing in Michigan. e discovery came after his team treated a young girl with developmental delays, low muscle tone and hair loss.

“Before this, that one patient, we didn’t know what was wrong with them, so now we have an understanding,” said Bupp, who is the division chief of Medical Genetics and Genomics at Corewell Health.

His team developed a treatment by repurposing a drug that was used to treat West African sleeping sickness and pediatric cancer. e treatment, a mix of water and a powdered e ornithine, has improved mobility, hair growth and cognitive function in the four patients who have taken it.

“We have been able to give this answer to patients around the world now that this disease is discovered,” Bupp said.

His team is treating three patients and plans to begin treatment on a fourth. A clinic in Europe has also started treating a patient with the syndrome.

Bachmann-Bupp syndrome, named after Bupp and his colleague Dr. Andre Bachmann, a professor of pediatrics and human development at the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine, has only 17 known cases.

Its discovery has led to an increase in understanding around a metabolic process in the body called the polyamine pathway that controls various cellular functions, Bupp said, and three new con-

When Dr. Boris Pasche was hired in August to be the next president and CEO of the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit, nearly 30 years of groundbreaking cancer treatment technology was on the cusp of reality.

Pasche had been working with a startup he founded that created a device to treat cancer cells using radiofrequency waves. When he moved to Detroit last September, that company, eraBionic, came with him. And on the day of the move, Sept. 26, Pasche received U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for the treatment device.

And this year, patients with liver cancer at Karmanos will receive the treatment.

“It’s very symbolic for me,” Pasche said. “We received the letter of approval from the FDA on the day we moved. We have the devices here and we’ve demonstrated this new technology. Patients will be receiving the treatment, hopefully, in the next two months but de nitely by the end of the year.”

e device, the eraBionic P1, emits low levels of radiofrequency electromagnetic elds, much lower than the elds emitted by a smartphone, and has shown to block the growth of tumor cells and even shrink tumors. e device can be used by the patient at home. It’s a small device with a spoon-shaped antenna that the patient places on their tongue during three, one-hour sessions per day.

e FDA approved the treatment for patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma, the most common type of liver cancer. It’s an incurable cancer with an average survival rate between six and 20 months.

As of now, the FDA approval only allows the device to be used as a treatment

CALEB BUPP, M.D.

Geneticist and Division Chief of Medical Genetics and Genomics, Corewell Health

ditions have since been discovered.

“Just understanding new things and it’s a little bit of a domino e ect, right?” he said. “One thing leads to another, leads to another, leads to another.”

e discovery also led to the formation of the International Center for Polyamine Disorders, a joint venture of MSU and Grand Rapids-based Corewell Health.

It has also validated Bupp’s devotion to more rapid whole-genome DNA sequencing in Michigan to diagnose conditions.

His team has been spearheading a drive to increase its use in the state and helped start an initiative around it called Project Baby Deer.

“Now that we have greater access to genetic testing, it has allowed us to nd this stu where previously we never had any clue,” Bupp said.

— Ryan Kelly

BORIS PASCHE, M.D.

President and CEO, Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute

for adults who have already tried the two other most common treatments, immunotherapy and a drug routine of tyrosine kinase inhibitors.

Pasche said the device has proven to not only shrink the primary liver cancer cells, but also the metastases in the brain, bone and other locales. He said there is also evidence that the device works for prostate, gallbladder and ovarian cancers as well.

A clinical trial of the device for patients with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer is expected to start in the coming months, he said.

“ is is what we call a systemic targeted therapy; it only targets the cancer cells,” Pasche said. “ ere are no side effects. ere’s no drop in blood counts, which is especially important for cancers like liver cancer. We think we’ve got something really special here.”

eraBionic currently is only a three-person company, but rapid growth is expected by next year as the device enters the market, Pasche said.

— Dustin Walsh

ince assuming the role of CEO for the Detroit-based Neighborhood Service Organization six years ago, Linda Little has been leading the nonpro t into a new era, providing holistic, integrated physical, behavioral and community mental health programs, as well as some housing options, to vulnerable populations in Wayne and Oakland counties.

During her term, so far, Little has:

◗ Launched the nation’s rst Healthy Housing Campus, a $30 million project, and Detroit’s rst Healthy Housing Center. Opened four community-based clinics.

◗ Increased the number of NSO clients receiving preventive and wellness visits annually from 25% of clients to 60%.

Reduced emergency department use and hospitalization rates among those NSO serves to below the city’s average.

◗ Boosted the number of clients who have a medical follow-up visit after hospitalization or an ER visit to 90%.

“My entire career has been around integration and cross-continuum collaboration,” said Little, who began working as a registered nurse in critical care, and has since worked in hospital administration, serving as the chief clinical o cer for a health plan and consulting.

When the NSO CEO job became available, they didn’t have to ask Little twice.

“I call this my ‘love job’ because I’m able to take everything that I have seen, learned and really mastered previously in my career and bring it to the NSO, this organization that I’ve loved and been connected to for the last 20 years,” Little said.

Her rst step was to integrate the organization itself so its many departments worked together for the bene t of the

In October 2022, Grace Wolf moved to Michigan to launch both a physical crisis center and mobile crisis services for the Detroit Wayne Integrated Health Network to serve Wayne County children and adults su ering from behavioral, substance and mental health crises.

Wolf was formerly the North Carolina state director for four crisis units and about 15 outpatient programs run by a nonpro t organization.

In the year and a half since moving to Michigan to serve as vice president of crisis services for DWIHN — the state’s largest community mental health agency — Wolf has launched 12 mobile crisis units and is on track to open a 32-bed, yearround, around-the-clock crisis service center in June.

“All of our services are not only physically, but nancially accessible to anyone in Wayne County,” Wolf said. “Anyone who’s in crisis or knows of someone in crisis can call the dispatch line and our mobile crisis team will go to them. One of the beautiful things about this program is that we don’t de ne what a crisis is for someone. If you call us and say, ‘I need help, I need someone out here,’ we’re going to go.”

Wayne County residents can access crisis services through DWIHN (which organization insiders pronounce “D-win”) by calling its dispatch phone number 1-800-241-4949. e service is free to the user and drives directly to those in need via unmarked minivan.

“A master’s level licensed clinician and a support specialist, someone with lived experience, go out into the community together to assist people in de-escalating and resolving their crises,” Wolf said.

e organization is working with po-

LINDA LITTLE

President and CEO, Neighborhood Service Organization

nonpro t’s clients, rather than in silos.

“ en the pandemic hit, and we had the stay-home order,” Little said. But many of the 12,000 people annually who seek health services from the NSO didn’t have homes.

at need lit a re in Little to create a holistic model of care to serve those people, with COVID-19 testing, food distribution, primary care and substance-abuse treatment, as well as recuperative care for people who needed continuing care but didn’t have any place to go when they left the hospital.

Inspired by the success of those programs, Little sought to expand on that idea permanently, post-pandemic.

“At the time, I didn’t know I was building the nation’s rst healthy housing campus. I was just looking at what we needed for the clients we serve and trying to deliver that.”

— Katie Merx

Vice President of Crisis Services, Detroit Wayne Integrated Health Network GRACE WOLF

lice departments to increase the use of DWIHN teams rather than law enforcement whenever possible to avoid having people in behavioral and substance abuse crises end up in jail or emergency rooms that are often not best equipped to help them, Wolf said.

“We are proud that 85% of the folks we encounter are able to remain safely in the community and do not need to go to the emergency department or any higher level of care, and we’ve had zero instances where we needed to call law enforcement,” Wolf said.

In June, DWIHN expects to open the walk-in 707 Crisis Care Center on Milwaukee Street in Detroit as a short-term crisis residential facility to help stabilize people from ages 5 up and connect them to services.

DWIHN is planning additional crisis centers in Ecorse and on Seven Mile Road near South eld.

— Katie Merx

he daughter of a family a ected by gun violence, Alia Harvey Quinn is actively reducing gun violence in the city of Detroit daily, saving lives and helping families across the community.

Harvey Quinn is the founder and executive director of FORCE Detroit, a Detroit-based nonpro t that brings together interfaith, grassroots and public-sector leaders to reduce gun violence in the city. e nonpro t has e orts speci cally targeted in the Cody Rouge neighborhood on the city’s west side.

FORCE approaches gun violence as a public health epidemic and addresses the issue with evidence, data and solutions aimed at helping people in deep cycles of trauma to reimagine and recast their lives with taught behaviors and skills, as well as assistance that can range from a ride and help acquiring an ID to relocation out of a violent situation.

e White House and Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan have both lauded Harvey Quinn and FORCE Detroit with reducing gun-related violence in the city, citing an 18% reduction in gun-related homicides and a 16% reduction in non-fatal shootings in Detroit in 2023 from 2022.

FORCE data estimates that every murder costs Michigan $1.6 million, and every gun injury costs the state $1.1 million.

Under Harvey Quinn’s leadership, FORCE applies what’s known as the community violence intervention, or CVI, approach. CVI trains specialists to work with individuals in the community to disrupt and de-escalate violence by engaging directly with at-risk individuals.

“Less than 2% of the population will shoot a gun repeatedly and in ict harm,”

As the medical director for quality and medical director of Gamma Knife Radiosurgery, Dr. Michael Dominello has made changes to surgery processes at Karmanos Cancer Institute and published dozens of peer-reviewed journal articles around the improvement of patient care.

In the past three years, Dominello has published or contributed to 33 articles in peer-reviewed journals, including a quality guideline on best practices in a cancer therapy called stereotactic radiation, a study on patient-reviewed outcomes that was used to improve practices across Michigan, and one about his team’s development of a radiation delivery method that minimizes doses to the heart when treating certain breast cancers.

“I’m able to do so many things because it’s not just a job for me,” he said. “ is is my passion.”

Several improvements initiated by Dominello, such as a method of delivering radiation that minimizes doses to the heart, are now considered standard.

His team, which includes a neuroradiologist, neurosurgeon, neuro-oncologist, neuropathologist and medical physicist, has introduced changes to surgery preparation as well.

It will meet the day before surgery to review the case and work from a fresh MRI that the patient receives the morning of the surgery, which Dominello said helps his team spot new cancer growth.

“We very often, and I don’t say ‘more often than not,’ but I would say pretty close to it, we nd additional metastasis,” which is the spread of cancer to other

ALIA HARVEY QUINN

Harvey Quinn said. “So, in a neighborhood, this looks like: ‘ at’s Kevin. at’s Rafael.’ If you leverage network theory, then you can place credible messengers to help challenge them toward positive behavior. You can help them realize options.”

And many of the options FORCE o ers are tangible, Harvey Quinn said.

“We will relocate you, connect you to safe housing, help you get a job or build a business,” Harvey Quinn said. “It may be as simple as not having an ID, not being able to get their basic needs in place. We have a case manager to help them navigate those things.”

FORCE is helping people caught in cycles of trauma with no easy answers and no easy steps to change course, she said.

“We treat that trauma with love and understanding and provide access to the resources people need to achieve their basic needs,” Harvey Quinn said. —Katie Merx

anis Russell has spent 25 years at the helm of Genesee Health System as its CEO — hired the same year General Motors closed Buick City, an exclamation point on Flint’s economic collapse.

He’s spearheaded mental health care for the Flint region amid almost unbelievable tragedies, including the Flint water crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic.

e one-two punch of crises meant GHS had to respond and evolve. For Russell, this meant trying new things.

“We recognized we needed to take care to the community,” Russell said. “We did a little of that before, but the water crisis brought home how important that is. It really changed the model for us. We were going out and if someone wanted to meet at a Starbucks or McDonald’s, that’s what we did. Not everything has to happen at an o ce. ere were resources available but they were not easily accessed, so we did outreach to provide that information in the community.”

Much of this was done thanks to assistance from the Children’s Health Fund in New York, which asked GHS if it would like to borrow a mobile clinic.

“We had never seen one or knew anyone that used one, but at that point we weren’t refusing resources,” Russell said. “Initially, we had no idea what we were going to do with this thing, but some important people made sure we got this, so we gured we’d better use it.”

at mobile clinic allowed GHS to provide primary care, testing and resource o erings to the community during the water crisis. When it came time to return the mobile clinic to the fund, GHS went out and bought a new one, which be-

CARE HEROES PHYSICIAN

body parts, he said.

Dominello has also led and designed studies within Karmanos, including an investigational therapy study for brain tumor patients and a drug study to decrease headaches in Gamma Knife radiosurgery patients.

e Gamma Knife, which treats brain cancer, is a machine that uses beams of gamma rays to treat a tumor with doses of radiation concentrated in a small area.

Karmanos has the only outpatient Gamma Knife in the U.S., and Dominello played an integral role in helping Karmanos Chief Medical O cer Justin Klamerus bring the machine to Michigan.

Since the latest machine was installed in 2019, Dominello and his team have treated nearly 600 patients with it.

—By Ryan Kelly

s a new doctor working as a resident specialist in breast surgery in her homeland of Ghana, Dr. Evelyn Jiagge was shocked to see patients as young as 17 and pregnant patients not only being diagnosed with breast cancer, but dying from it at a higher rate than the global norm. e experience drove her to investigate why, and to seek a cure.

While in that role, she met university researchers from the University of Michigan who’d traveled to Ghana to investigate why Black breast cancer patients in America weren’t faring as well as white patients. Black breast cancer patients are 41% more likely to die of breast cancer than white patients, according to the American Cancer Society.

e introduction to the U.S. doctors led her to doctorate studies in Michigan and the research she now leads to identify the genes controlling breast cancer tumors in African and African American people, and to develop e ective treatment protocols for that population.

Now a Henry Ford Health physician scientist and assistant professor of hematology and oncology in Detroit, Jiagge heads a collaborative program between Henry Ford Health and 11 African health institutions working to identify the genes responsible for the di erent rates of occurrence and treatment success among African and African American patients.

Her research revealed that the patient populations on both continents often shared the same type of breast cancer, what’s known as triple-negative breast cancer, or TNBC. TNBC is breast cancer that does not have any of the receptors

came a mobile COVID-19 testing unit during the pandemic.

“ e big blue bus (it’s painted in GHS’s colorway and logos) is now how we deliver care and that will always continue,” he said.

While transitioning care to a more mobile option, Russell also led an expansion of health services for Flint children, those most impacted by the water crisis.

Russell and his team secured tax credits and foundation funding and built a new 60,000-square-foot integrated health facility for kids, consolidating its operations from several facilities into one.

“It provides a place for families to go, most importantly,” Russell said. “Mental health has always lagged behind on facilities. Frankly, there we’ve never had the money to spend on facilities. So sometimes mental health centers are not great looking. Ours is and it shows people that we care enough about them and respect them enough to provide quality care.”

— Dustin Walsh

commonly found in the well-studied breast cancers for which there are targeted treatments, such as hormone therapy. Without those targeted treatments, the patients’ only course of treatment can be chemotherapy, with outcomes that are not as good as targeted treatments.

While TNBC occurs in one of every 10 breast cancers in white patients, it accounts for three of 10 cancers in African American patients, and eight of 10 in western African breast cancer patients.

To nd a cure, Jiagge knew she needed to study TNBC in a population with the highest proportion of the disease. So, she established a collaborative between Henry Ford and 11 institutions in western and eastern Africa where she and other researchers collect tumors from willing participants. ose fresh tumors are then transported to Henry Ford Cancer – Detroit for study.

— Katie Merx

DANIS RUSSELL

HR STRATEGIES

Gallagher 2024 Time Away From Work Poll – Insights

Trends and emerging policies in employer-sponsored paid leave programs

Arthur J. Gallagher (Gallagher) conducted its rst Time Away From Work Poll as part of its quarterly Organizational Wellbeing Poll series. e Poll ran from February 7, 2024, to March 1, 2024, and garnered responses from over 600 employers across all industries and sizes in North America.

Our custom Time Away From Work poll captured emerging time away trends that aren’t found in typical industry surveys, which provided valuable and competitive insights that employers are seeking.

Poll results con rmed that some policies have peaked, some are status quo, while others are newly emerging.

Top 5 observations

1. Bereavement leave has experienced signi cant changes

2. Family Care and Caregiver Leave is increasing in prevalence

3. Unlimited PTO policies continue to gain momentum

4. Parental leave shows consistent interest, albeit not at the pace of past years

5. PTO accruals remain fairly at as employers focus on other Time Away Policies

Let’s get into the details of the All Employer responses data set…

e Chart below re ects results from the poll, which show:

• e breakdown between employers with traditional vacation and sick, and PTO (combined) remains close at nearly 50%, which it’s been for many years. e design is typically determined by employer industry, number of locations with paid leave mandates, corporate culture or nance factors.

• Parental leave remains consistent. While the rush to o er Parental Leave leveled out in the past couple of years, employers o ering this leave continues to increase. Younger candidates speci cally look for this

leave type during the job search process for a potential employer.

• Sabbatical, which has seen a small uptick in recent years, remains a less common leave except in speci c industries like higher education and technology companies. is may gain momentum as companies shi focus to o ering more tenured workers enhanced bene ts.

• While there is a lot of buzz around Pawternity and Grandternity Leaves, none of the 600+ employers who responded to the Poll o er these bene ts today.

e intriguing results from the poll show:

• Employers are beginning to further embrace Family Care Leave (bonding and caregiving) and Caregiving Leave, which aligns with the trajectory of required Paid Family and Medical Leave laws across North America.

• Company paid Military Leave and Volunteer leave are increasing trends, which we saw as an outcome of the pandemic.

• Of note is the increase in employers o ering Unlimited PTO. ese policies have continued to gain momentum since 2017. Some industry surveys show up to a 20% response rate to Unlimited PTO being o ered to some or all employees. Our survey showed an increase from 8% to 10% of employers polled o ering Unlimited PTO in the past year. e results re ect the embrace of these policies by Health Systems and other industries outside the typical employer, such as Technology.

Let’s dig deeper into the results of these important ndings:

e data showed:

• 32% of employers are “topping up” pregnancy-related STD bene ts to 100% of pre-disability pay. A ‘Maternity Bene t’ is typically o ered by employers with strong family-

forming and female-friendly cultures. ere may be some cooling-o of this trend as employers consider discrimination or inequality implications when not topping up non-pregnancy disability bene ts.

• When Parental Leave and Caregiver Leave are o ered, the majority of employers o er equal time o for both leave reasons.

Bereavement Leave

Bereavement Leave has seen the most signi cant changes in policy over the past few years, with employers permitting leave for pregnancy loss, reproductive loss and loss of a pet. With the current, national focus on fertility and DEI, results show 37% of employers o ering bereavement for pregnancy loss with the majority o ering 5 days.

Bereavement durations o er insights into this evolving policy. In the past 2-3 years, since the COVID-19 Pandemic, we’ve seen leave for loss of spouse and child increase to 5 days with an emerging trend for 10 days to grieve and address immediate family needs.

While none of the Poll respondents o er Pawternity Leave, they do include the loss of a pet as a covered

reason under their Bereavement Leave policy.

Additionally, statutory mandates in some states require an employer to provide paid / unpaid bereavement leave to employees, with pregnancy loss/reproductive loss required in California and Illinois:

As we explore means for employers to o er greater workplace exibility and incentives to attract and engage employees, poll results indicate:

Compensatory Time Off

• 65% of employers do not o er Compensatory Time O to either exempt, non-exempt or both, however, 32% of employers do o er Compensatory Time O to either exempt, non-exempt or both.

4-day workweek

• 35% of employers currently o er a 4-day workweek or are actively considering it. e 4-day workweek is a hot trend coming to the U.S. a er signi cantly successful results from a global study started in 2019 – ‘4 Day Week Global’ is a not-for-pro t community to assist and support employers who want to learn about and implement a 4-day workweek. Learn more about the program here.

• California bill AB-2932 Workweek proposes to formally change the workweek from 40 hours to 32 hours, without making up lost hours or cutting wages.

Lastly, PTO and vacation accruals have remained essentially at, as employers add additional time o under di erentiated policies like parental, caregiver, bereavement, and state-mandated Paid Family and Medical Leave. Rather than more vacation/PTO employers are refreshing policies with concepts such as milestone awards, hire credits and faster accrual rates.

is article provides key highlights from the Time Away From Work Poll. For full Time Away From Work Poll

results, more information about these trends and approaches, and to learn about your speci c employer industry and size Poll results, please contact Mary Armstong-Flippo, or one of your local Gallagher Consultants, Nancy Snell at, Nancy_Snell@ajg.com or Justin Hadley, at Justin_Hadley@ ajg.com. We welcome the opportunity to talk with you about your Time Away programs and strategy!

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Mary Armstrong-Flippo is a Principal and National Time Away ought Leader in the Absence & Productivity Practice at Arthur J Gallagher, Group Bene ts Services. Mary has nearly 30 years of expertise in advising employers about their Time Away Programs. Mary.Armstrong-Flippo@Buck.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/maryarmstrong- ippo/

BCBSM dropping coverage of Wegovy, other weight loss drugs

By Dustin Walsh

Michigan’s largest insurer is dropping coverage for the country’s most popular, and most e ective, weight loss drugs.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan con rmed June 12, it plans to stop paying for GLP-1 obesity drugs, including Wegovy, Saxenda and Zepbound, for all fully-insured members starting in January, the company said in a statement to Crain’s.

Dr. James Grant, BCBSM’s chief medical o cer, told Crain’s that the costs were too high and the long-term impacts unknown.

“Costs were incredibly high and there is only so much we can spend, we have to nd the dollars for other drugs too,” Grant said. “After studying our costs, we discovered a great number of people were not staying on the drugs for more than nine months. We just don’t know the long-term e ectiveness, long-term side e ects or long-term impacts. And since we were an outlier — most other plans in Michigan have never covered them for weight loss — add all that together and we had no choice.”

Health Alliance Plan and Priority Health also do not cover GLP-1s for weight loss for fully-insured members, but self-funded employer plans can elect for coverage, just like BCBSM. e Blues will continue to cover the GLP-1 drugs, such as Ozempic, for diabetes treatment.

e recently introduced drugs have seen runaway demand as they’ve proven to be highly e ective in helping people lose weight. e

drugs were rst approved for use in diabetics, but the surge in use began in 2021 when Wegovy was rst approved for weight management and continued after it was approved for adolescents in late 2022.

A study from Michigan Medicine, released on May 22, showed a 594% increase in GLP-1 use among adolescents in data using a national database that represents 92% of U.S. pharmacies. is study did not identify whether the patients were taking the drugs for weight loss or for diabetes treatment.

But the costs have quickly packed on for insurers like BCBSM. e Detroit-based insurer reported a $544 million operating loss on revenue of $36.3 billion in 2023 due to a $1.4 billion yearover-year increase in claims costs and a $1.8 billion rise in pharmacy costs driven by the rise in highpriced specialty drugs.

GLP-1s were the largest contributor to its pharmacy costs, costing the Blues $350 million more than in 2022. ough, Grant said GLP1s for diabetes, which BCBSM will continue to cover, are a large share of that gure.

In January, BCBSM said that

Wegovy cost the insurer about $1,600 per month, per patient and Zepbound costs about $1,200 per month, per patient.

e costs have been rippling through the health care system and BCBSM joins other plans in dropping or limiting coverage of Wegovy and Zepbound.

North Carolina’s Medicaid plan dropped coverage for the drugs earlier this year after projecting a $1.5 billion loss by the end of the decade.

Michigan’s Medicaid program continues to cover the drugs, but costs are rising. Medicaid covered GLP-1s, including those used to treat diabetes, for more than 67,000 patients at a cost of $393 million, up nearly 340% from GLP1 costs in 2021.

Employers are also trying to cope with the costs.

University of Michigan limited its coverage of the weight loss drugs for employees to a lifetime bene t of 24 months starting May 1 this year.

GLP-1 is a hormone in your small intestine and the medicine works by triggering the release of insulin from the pancreas as well as preventing glucose from entering the bloodstream. But it has been found to also slow down digestion and increase the sensation of a full stomach — making it an e ective drug for obese patients needing to lose weight.

e drugs were approved by the FDA in March to treat heart disease and is being reviewed to treat depression and other mental health ailments.

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Detroit entrepreneur Pickard dies at 83

By Dustin Walsh and Kirk Pinho

Heralded Detroit entrepreneur

William Pickard died June 12 at the age of 83 at his home in West Palm Beach, Fla., his family said in a statement.

e cause of death was not disclosed.

In the statement, the family asked for privacy and said funeral arrangements will be made public soon.

Pickard was born in 1941 in La Grange, Ga., and moved with his family to Flint when he was a child. ere he attended Mott College before transferring to Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo in the early 1960s. He later earned a master’s degree from the University of Michigan and a doctorate from Ohio State University. He’s most widely known for becoming one of the rst Black owners of McDonald’s franchises in 1971, which grew to dozens of stores throughout the city.

Pickard also founded Global Auto Alliance in 1989, which became one of the largest Blackowned automotive suppliers in the country, as well as Supply Chain Management.

He also served as chairman and CEO of GAA subsidiary Vitec LLC, a Detroit-based fuel tank supplier, and was CEO of Bearwood Management Co. Pickard was also co-managing partner of MGM Grand Detroit and co-owner of Real Times Media, which owns ve African American newspapers, including the Michigan Chronicle.

Besides his large entrepreneurial shadow, Pickard was well known for his philanthropic efforts throughout Detroit.

He donated millions of dollars to hundreds of organizations, individuals and community e orts. Among his contributions was a $3 million gift to Western Michigan University, which was used to build a residence hall in honor of Ronald E. Hall Sr., Dennis W. Archer and Pickard (Hall-Archer-Pickard West/East), who were college buddies there in the 1960s.

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Mark S. Lee, president and CEO of e Lee Group, said his father, a banker, provided Pickard a loan in the early 1970s that helped launch and expand the McDonald’s franchises Pickard was opening.

He described Pickard as “a true Detroit legend.”

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C.F. Burger Creamery, a family-owned and operated dairy company, was named a Top Workplace in Michigan 2023 by the Detroit Free Press. This prestigious award recognizes companies in their commitment to creating a positive and supportive work environment. The company was praised by its employees for its competitive bene ts package and opportunities for advancement. Steeped in Midwest tradition since 1926, their Detroit location is proof of their commitment to family values.

“He cared deeply about our city,” Lee wrote. “Mr. Pickard provided job opportunities and community and educational support through philanthropic e orts to Detroiters and beyond ... He will be truly missed.”

Pickard donated $2 million to Morehouse College, a historically Black college near his hometown in Georgia, to nancially support Black male students from Flint and Detroit.

He also donated more than $1 million to the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., and the William F. Pickard Living Center is named in his honor at Grand Valley State University in recognition of his undisclosed gift to the Grand Rapids-area university. In 2018, Pickard supported the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History and the Motown Museum each with $1 million gifts.

William Pickard was best known for becoming one of the rst Black owners of McDonald’s franchises in 1971, and he founded Global Auto Alliance in 1989, which became one of the country’s largest Black-owned automotive suppliers. | PROVIDED

Metro homes among the most overvalued in U.S.

By Nick Manes

Metro Detroit stands near the top of housing markets in the country primed for a price reduction, according to research from a pair of Florida academics.

Detroit and its suburbs trail just the sprawling Atlanta metro region in terms of where current buyers are paying a “premium” for homes when compared with historical averages, according to the research from the Beracha and Johnson Housing Market Ranking. e two professors — Eli Beracha and Ken H. Johnson, from Florida International University and Florida Atlantic University, respectively — aim to “provide information that will allow for more informed real estate decision making.”

Using data from the Zillow Home Value Index, the researchers show that as of April 30, buyers in the metro Detroit region — as de ned by the U.S. Census Bureau as including Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Lapeer, Livingston and St. Clair counties — were paying an average of $252,395 for a house or condo compared to an “expected” price of $179,282, representing a roughly 41% premium. ose in the Atlanta metro region pay the same premium, while Cape Coral, Fla., comes in third with prices 37.6% higher than historical norms, per the data presented by the professors. Johnson cautioned he’s not expecting any sort of overall crash in prices, but does expect that the average price paid by buyers will likely atline or start to come down and become more in line with historical norms.

e last time metro Detroit buyers paid a discount relative to the historical averages was late 2017, based on the data included in the research.

“I’m worried about the metro Detroit market because it shouldn’t be going up, especially this rapidly,” Johnson told Crain’s. “Detroit is going up faster now than at any time in the past 30 years in terms of property appreciation values … and price. at’s a little unnerving.” at Southeast Michigan home prices are on the upswing comes as little surprise to anyone even slightly familiar with the local market.

For three consecutive months

The metro Detroit housing market is among those more at risk of a correction than they were leading up to the housing crash of 2007, according to researchers. $240,000

than $1,400 per month — were paying just a 2% premium over historical norms, according to the research.

e key, however, is to ensure that renters are investing that savings in assets that generate wealth down the road.

“It’s such a close call between renting and reinvesting or homeownership and building equity in a home in terms of wealth cre-

ation that there isn’t a single call to only rent or only buy,” Beracha, director of the Hollo School of Real Estate at FIU, said in a statement. “While renting and reinvesting seems to be the wisest choice, homeownership is a close second at this point.  However, renting and not reinvesting is wealth destroying and should never be considered as an option.”

While certainly welcome news for sellers, metro Detroit remains near the bottom of the index in terms of overall appreciation, meaning that homes in the region are worth less than most other major metro areas of the country.

Still, Johnson cautioned that just because Southeast Michigan homes are more a ordable than most other metro regions, that doesn’t mean there are no issues with the price of homes here.

“A ordability might not mean price stability,” Johnson said, adding that the rapid increase in home prices coupled with the region’s stagnant population might make for a negative outcome in the future.

“Detroit is going up faster now than at any time in the past 30 years in terms of property appreciation values ... and price. That’s a little unnerving.”

Ken H. Johnson, professor, Florida Atlantic University

around the end of last year, metro Detroit led the nation in home price growth, as tracked by the monthly S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Indices. While the region has since lost the top spot, the pace of increase in the region continues to outpace the national gure.

Local Realtors say the ndings of the research come as little surprise.

Andrea Carollo, an agent in the Birmingham o ce of Max Broock Realtors, shared as a recent example of a home in Royal Oak where she was representing buyers who made an o er $20,000 over asking price and her clients were also willing to cover any gaps in the appraisal, ac-

knowledging that they would have to pay when the property under-appraised.

“All of my listings are going for more than what they could appraise for, and the buyers acknowledge that,” Carollo said, adding that the dearth of inventory means hungry buyers have few options to choose from and will go the extra mile to get an o er accepted.

To Carollo’s point, bidding wars have become more common in Southeast Michigan’s housing market in recent months.

e Realtor agreed with the conclusions of Johnson: Some form of correction is likely in the future, but when that might happen remains unknown.

“Whenever you have something that has gone so crazy in any direction, it’s bound to settle,” Carollo said. “I think … right now, everybody agrees that the values are overvalued.”

e research by Johnson and Beracha also speaks to a long-running debate over whether it’s more cost-e ective to rent or own.

In metro Detroit, at present, renting would seem to be the better option, based on the research. As of April, renters in the region

is just

EEO Employer/Vet/Disabled.

But the projects below that have halted have been so for a variety of reasons, ranging from legal complications to ballooning costs to changing market conditions to contractor issues, and a whole host of issues we don’t precisely know yet.

e Duggan administration says it and the Detroit Economic Growth Corp. work to help developers that encounter unexpected hurdles in their projects.

“Real estate development is a process by which we make informed decisions about future variables, such as interest rates, construction costs and market demand,” Brittney Hoszkiw, deputy group executive for economic development, said in an emailed statement.

“In limited instances, projects experience unanticipated circumstances that do not allow for a project to proceed at the originally envisioned scope or timeline. In those instances, we continue to provide support to help those projects be realized. However, the use of performance-based incentives ensures that developers only realize tax savings if a development project is completed.” Here is a rundown of some — although almost certainly not all — of the projects around the city that have been stalled for at least a year after starting major work.

Two mixed-use buildings next to Little Caesars Arena

A decade ago, the Ilitch family unveiled a grand vision for the vast swath of real estate it controlled in the area it had branded as e District Detroit, which is now anchored by the $862.9 million Little Caesars Arena for the Detroit Red Wings and the Detroit Pistons.

Much has been written, including in Crain’s, about that vision’s lack of progress against its original plans. Part of that includes a pair of mixed-use buildings that started construction pre-pandemic and were never completed.

ose two buildings, 111 Henry St. and 120 Henry St., have gone through a host of proposed uses — residential and o ce uses, to name two — but generally just remain structural steel, some shielded from view with a white covering, other portions not. ey were originally slated to be developed as apartments by Harper Woods-based American Community Developers, but the company backed away from its joint-venture deal with Olympia prior to the pandemic. ey’ve been in limbo for more than ve years.

In an interview earlier this year, Keith Bradford, president of the Ilitch family’s Olympia Development of Michigan and e District Detroit, said the company is “taking a completely di erent look” at those two projects based on market conditions that have changed.

e company has said it was pivoting its original plans for rst building an o ce tower in front of

Comerica Park, and instead focusing on a new residential high-rise next to the under-construction University of Michigan Center for Innovation as part of a kickstarted District Detroit vision that includes New York City megadeveloper Stephen Ross, a Detroit native.

In addition, Olympia said it is still moving forward with planned construction of a large new hotel next to Little Caesars Arena, and what to do with the 111 and 120 Henry buildings is part of the discussion on the broader Chevrolet Plaza there.

“If we are going to delay on ofce for a moment and let the market correct,” Bradford said, “we’re probably not going to build o ce in one of those buildings.”

“So what is the right combination of retail, even hospitality there? Is there a di erent segment to look at? And residential,” Bradford continued. “ ey are all being considered. What use would best complement that hotel experience — that’s the game plan. I don’t have an answer to that yet. at’s what this year we’ll be sorting through.”

Temple Hotel and Residences

Near Cass Technical High School

and the Masonic Temple, Christos Moisides’ e ort to convert the former Standard Accident Insurance Co. building at 640 Temple St. into a new hotel and apartments hasn’t seen work in more than three years.

Construction on the $72 million project kicked o six months prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and was halted in late 2020 or early 2021, Moisides said.

Moisides said he has been working to buy out the Valade family from its ownership interests in the deal, which has become entangled in lawsuits tied to a former attorney for the late Carhartt Inc. heiress Gretchen Valade.

“ e goal is for construction to restart in Q4 of 2024 with a completion by Q1/Q2 of 2026,” Moisides said in an email, noting that the project is about 40% complete.

An email was sent to a Valade family spokesperson seeking comment.

Moisides said interior demolition, abatement and remediation have been completed, along with installation of new water, gas and electrical taps. Six of the eight oors have been framed out with metal studs in place. Equipment for new and remodeled elevators has been purchased as well,

connection to the project in various stages of the legal process.

Park Avenue Building residential project

It’s been more than six years since Rino Soave, the founder of Novi-based In nity Homes & Co., purchased the Park Avenue Building in the District Detroit area at 2001 Park Ave.

It’s also been more than 18 months since any major work has been done on the 1922 Albert Kahn building.

Chalk that up to increased construction costs causing Soave to revisit his original plan for about 80 apartments in a $19 million renovation, he said.

“Our heating and cooling budget was for like $1.6 million or $1.8 million,” Soave said. “ e lead time on equipment went from 90 days to almost 15 months and then the cost basically more than doubled.”

Moisides said.

Remaining works includes framing the first floor and eighth floor penthouse, as well as drywalling all eight floors. Food and beverage space, along with furniture, finishings and equipment need to be installed, among other things like mechanical, electrical and plumbing work to be done.

e ultimate vision is for 101 hotel rooms and 64 apartments. e plan also includes a 225-seat ballroom, two restaurants, a spa, a lounge and a rooftop pool.

David Sutherland, the Grosse Pointe attorney who earlier this month was acquitted of two charges and had a mistrial in two others related to his handling of a Gretchen C. Valade trust, was also involved in the project and is named in two of the complaints, as is Byzantine Holdings LLC, a Moisides/ Sutherland company in the Temple Hotel project.

There are three separate lawsuits involving the Valade trust, the Plante Moran Trust that took over the Valade trust after Valade ousted Sutherland, Moisedes, Sutherland, Byzantine, and Chemical Bank tied to investments and loans made in

Soave said interior demolition has taken place, as has asbestos abatement and window replacement, and there has been some exterior restoration work. e roof has also been replaced.

He said he has been reevaluating the redevelopment plan for the building and intends to have a new plan in place by the end of the summer.

Soave said he was disappointed at the U-turn.

“It ballooned by about 40% to roughly around $27 million,” he said. “It’s awful and it’s disappointing because we spent such a great deal of time and a ton of time on architectural designs getting the units right. We did a ton of research on what we thought was going to be good for the market. Everything was ready to go. We had plans and permits with the city. But you can’t force something that’s not there. Market conditions change as they do.”

SteelHaus Detroit project across from Michigan Central

Next to the popular SuperGeil restaurant on Michigan Avenue and across from Michigan Central Station in Corktown sits an imposing three-story structure, halfbuilt.

It’s made of shipping containers, but no work has been done since December 2022 due to a contractor dispute, said Chris Nichols, the co-owner of SteelHaus LLC, the Detroit-based company developing the SteelHaus Detroit project with his wife, Nicole Stopka-Nichols.  Nichols said they have assembled a new contractor team and are working on lining up newnancing to get the project started again, in hopes of resuming in the fall or by the end of the year. It would take about a year after it resumes to get a certi cate of occupancy, Nichols said.

e project consists of 11 shipping containers — costs for which increased from about $1,500 to $2,000 each during the pandemic to $4,500, Nichols said — that are forming the basis of a mixed-use development with three residential units and two commercial spaces.

The partially built 120 Henry St. building in the Ilitch family’s District Detroit area. | PHOTOS BY KIRK PINHO

The former Standard Accident Insurance Co. building near the Masonic Temple. A developer is working to turn it into a hotel and apartments, but the project has been stalled for years.

It’s been about 18 months since work was done on the Park Avenue Building at 2001 Park Ave.

The Perfecting Church property at Woodward Avenue and Seven Mile Road in Detroit.

e current vision is two one-bedroom, one-bathroom units and a two-bedroom, two-bathroom unit. ere are two commercial spaces envisioned, one with 1,250 square feet and another with 810 square feet. ey’ve started marketing spaces for lease.

“We’ve hit a lot of unforeseen roadblocks,” Nichols said. “Some roadblocks due to things we couldn’t control and some of that is what it is. Our vision is still there. Our vision is still really good and I’m excited about it and we’re really excited to get it going. It’s unfortunate it has sat the way it has. I love Corktown. We’ve lived in Detroit for 10 years, and eight years in Corktown. We want our project to add to that as much as possible.”

“It’s been a very di cult and stressful process, but I’m really excited about the team we have to nish the work,” Nichols said.

Perfecting Church at Woodward and Seven Mile

Perhaps the granddaddy of them all, the Perfecting Church project at Woodward Avenue and Seven Mile has generally been delayed for two decades.

Although a small building on the 15-acre site was razed this spring, there has been no substantial work in more than a decade on the property at the northeast corner of Woodward Avenue and Seven Mile Road that has been the subject of a recent legal ght.

e city led a lawsuit describing the property at 19150 Woodward Ave. as a public nuisance, but dropped the complaint last year after coming to an agreement with Perfecting Church to restart construction in the spring.

at has not yet begun, but Damon Tooles, the owners rep on the project through his Detroit-based Tooles Contracting Group LLC, said construction could start by the middle of July — if the appropriate city approvals are issued.

Tooles said nancing for an undisclosed amount has been secured through an out-ofstate bank that specializes in construction loans for the ecumenical community. He did not know the loan amount, but said the project is expected to cost $21 million and take 18 months to complete once work starts.

Previous plans for the property called for a 4,200-seat church, a 35,000-square-foot administration building and a 1,000-space parking structure.  ey have since been revised, with the parking structure and administration building scrapped. Instead, there is now a 168,000-square-foot church with 3,365 seats and a 120-seat Woodward-facing amphitheater as part of the plans.

Crain’s has reached out to the city seeking comment.

From Page 1

e I-75 cap is being targeted for a nearly half-mile stretch between Cass Avenue and Brush Street, in the vicinity of Ford Field, Comerica Park and Little Caesars Arena.

For context, it’s expected to cost $43.4 million to replace one of the existing lids, the Victoria Park Plaza Bridge in Oak Park. Construction will begin next March.  at cap, which like its neighbors was built in the 1980s, has had the most signi cant icicle issues.

Unlike a concrete deck, which is sloped so water can drain away, a park cap tends to be at and has ll dirt and vegetation over the concrete. Water can saturate the soil and doesn’t drain as well.

Side-by-side concrete box beams were used back then, allowing water to seep into cracks and turn into icicles in cold weather. e new deck will have fewer joints and have more traditional I-beams that are spaced farther apart. It also will be sloped and have a PVC liner as an extra layer of redundancy, said Rebecca Curtis, the Michigan Department of Transportation’s chief bridge engineer.

“We hope … that we will be able to remove the water fast enough that, while concrete normally cracks, it won’t be able to saturate and build up to the levels that the icicles formed like we have in the existing structure,” she said.

MDOT monitors the icicle formations and currently spends $300,000 annually to remove them.

Interstates, Curtis said, are built to get people from Point A to Point B but unfortunately cause a division between neighborhoods. A typical pedestrian freeway bridge has to be taller for safety reasons, she said, and might feel more conned and less comfortable. A cap is “more wide open and a comfortable space for pedestrians to use” and, depending on the design, can accommodate both vehicle and nonmotorized tra c, she said.

Half of the Victoria Park project cost, $21.7 million, is being covered by a federal grant made available through the 2021 Infrastructure Investment Jobs Act. Funding from that law and the 2022 In ation Reduction Act is geared toward stitching together communities and neighborhoods that were harmed by past infrastructure choices.

Detroit has bene ted from the initiative.

A $104.6 million grant, for instance, will help pay for the $300 million conversion of I-375, which is near I-75, into a street-level boulevard. e I-75 study is being partially funded with a $2 million federal reconnecting communities and neighborhoods planning grant for the Downtown Detroit Partnership, which is overseeing the analysis and coordinating with the city and MDOT.

Detroit received a $1.9 million federal grant for the project. District Detroit developers Olympia Development of Michigan and e Related Cos. kicked in $400,000 as part of tax incentives and a com-

munity bene ts agreement. e Kresge Foundation contributed money, too.

Downtown Detroit Partnership CEO Eric Larson wants the study to be nished within six months. He said caps are not a new concept, pointing to I-696 and projects in Boston, Atlanta, Washington, D.C., and Dallas. e design, engineering and construction practices for lids have “advanced considerably” since I-696’s construction, Larson said, including to deal with expan-

sion and contraction and freezeand-thaw cycles. Every project is di erent, he said, and depends on factors such as the span’s length and whether it’s de ned as a tunnel.

“Part of our process over the next six months and then obviously moving into a more formal design will be testing all of those considerations and really trying to determine the pros and cons of the design and how we ultimately end up at a solution,” he said.

Larson hopes to “guide expectations” by stressing that the lid would be a park, not a commercial development.

“We’ll look at a bunch of di erent options both in terms of how it can be built as well as how it can be programmed,” he said. “We’ll end up with an overall preferred alternative that will hopefully be in line with our public partners that represents the communities’ input as well how we best can reconnect a section of the city that

has been divided now for the last 60 years. … Our expectation and I think the community’s expectation is yes, we’re capping the freeway, but what ultimately is the cap is a public space. It’s increasing access for the greater public. It’s creating connections.”

e intent, he said, “is not to build a structure that could support a dense, built environment on top — o ce or residential or anything of that like. It really is intended to be a public space.”

e Downtown Detroit Partnership will convene sessions to get input from those in the study area and businesses and organizations with a citywide perspective.

Among the issues to be looked at is the size of the potential deck and whether there should be one contiguous lid or multiple segments. Other issues include how I-75 relates to I-375, I-96 and mass transit corridors.

Larson anticipates the creation, at most, of 4 ½ to 5 acres of new public land.

He wants to move quickly. He hopes that if “everything worked perfectly,” an application for construction funding could be led late this year or in early 2025 and work would start in late 2025 or early 2026.

“It’s a project that should fall in line in this decade, which is really exciting,” Larson said. “You think about moving into 2030 and beyond, to have both I-75 and I-375 recon gured and reconnecting the communities in which they serve is not only extremely impactful but also a great demonstration that Detroit continues to innovate and do things di erently than a lot of other places around the country.”

I-75 runs below grade in this stretch north of Comerica Park. Of cials are studying capping the stretch with a lid that could be a park. MICHAEL LEE

A park that sits atop I-696 in Oak Park where the expressway runs below grade.

report, anti-unionists in Chattanooga attempted to paint the UAW as untrustworthy by reminding workers of its history of corruption through signs, billboards and online messaging. e nonpro t Center for Union Facts began highlighting the monitor’s investigation of Fain as soon as the news emerged.

Expect more of that, experts say. “It’s all ammunition,” Art Wheaton, a labor relations expert at Cornell University, told Automotive News. “Every story that’s written that puts them in a bad light, the management and anti-union rms will absolutely use that against them.”

Report allegations

At issue, according to the monitor’s 36-page report, is Fain’s February decision to reassign oversight of multiple departments from Mock, with approval from the union’s International Executive Board. According to the report, Mock said the move was retaliation for her refusal or reluctance to authorize certain expenditures for Fain’s o ce. e monitor also is investigating Mock’s actions.

Barofsky also is looking into Fain’s decision in late May to remove Boyer from heading the Stellantis department, purportedly because of what Fain called Boyer’s “dereliction of duty” on collective bargaining issues, according to the report.

“Over the past several months, since we settled our 2023 contract, we have heard our Stellantis members loud and clear: this company is running roughshod over our agreement and over our members,” Fain

BIRD FLU

From Page 3

On June 11, the Michigan Allied Poultry Industries wrote a letter to the chairs of the committees ahead of the hearing, saying the state has been hit harder than nearly every other state. Michigan’s May emergency biopractices order has no limits on the movement of herds or products in or out of dairy farms, while Minnesota immediately quarantined an infected herd for 30 days after its last positive test, according to Peter Ruddell, a lobbyist for the group.

“There are simple, commonsense measures that have been adopted in other states, but are not being adopted — and from what we can tell — are not even being considered in Michigan,” he wrote.

But Boring told legislators it is notable there have been no detections at commercial poultry operations in six weeks, saying that is evidence of the effective mitigation of transmission from dairy farms to poultry operations. He also said Michigan has the most “known” dairy infections, but noted it is a top 10 dairy production state and contended its experience is not par-

ticularly different from that a lot of other states.

“This outbreak isn’t limited to just Michigan. We have detected it because we’ve prioritized testing,” Boring said, noting that states like Minnesota and Iowa have confirmed outbreaks in poultry and dairy farms in recent weeks. “The fact that Michigan has detected cases in both dairy cows and farmworkers isn’t perhaps an indication that this is only a Michigan virus but (that) we’re the only state to date to this extent that’s been testing and finding those cases.”

Twenty a ected dairy farms each will get $28,000, Boring said, a “perhaps starting point for what dairy farm assistance needs to look like as we understand what the rami cations to this might be.”

response of our department needs to be, and we’re coordinating with federal officials on what that response looks like as well,” Boring said.

The state has called on dairy farmers to be compensated for bird flu-related losses similarly to how poultry farmers are, he said. He said there have been no major supply-chain disruption of eggs on shelves but it is reasonable to expect cost increases for eggs and turkey meat. The same goes for milk, he said, because the affected farms are continuing the bulk of production.

“There are simple, commonsense measures that have been adopted in other states.”

Peter Ruddell, Michigan Allied Poultry Industries lobbyist

On an infected dairy farm, he said, 15% of a herd tends to test positive, and there is a corresponding drop in milk production. Many of those cows never come back to full milk production, he said.

“We’re building out the understanding of what the economic impact for a lot of farms is. We’re building out what the

“There are not only economic costs for lost milk revenue on farms, but on the dairy side especially, sick cows require a lot of extra care,” Boring said. “On farms where is pretty tight in the first place, there is a lot more time being spent tending to sick cows than doing things like planting corn or cutting silage or haylage in a timely fashion.”

ing he encouraged the monitor “to investigate whatever claims are brought to their o ce, because we know what they’ll nd: a UAW leadership committed to serving the membership, and running a democratic union.”

He added: “Taking our union in a new direction means sometimes you have to rock the boat, and that upsets some people who want to keep the status quo.”

Still, Barofsky accused UAW ocials of stonewalling his investigation. e report said his o ce had received only about 2,600 out of as many as 116,000 documents requested.

‘Out in the open’

Wheaton said the decision to change UAW board members’ assignments is within the president’s purview, according to the union’s constitution, noting that it has happened abruptly in the past before contract negotiations.

“On the face of it, reassigning some duties doesn’t sound at all that unusual,” he said. “ at’s the choice of the president, historically.”

said in a May 31 letter to members explaining his decision. “It is not a personal decision. Vice President Boyer and I are friends. In the old UAW, that would have meant he and I decide to not rock the boat, and if that means the members fall a little bit further behind, so be it. In the new UAW, it means we step in and take corrective action when needed.”

But Boyer alleges he was reassigned for refusing to “engage in acts of nancial misconduct to bene t others,” the report said, without further describing those acts.

After Barofsky’s report was published, Fain issued a statement say-

WEED

From Page 3

e high prices in California provide little incentive for black market weed buyers to move into the legal weed market. Coupled with the fact that California was the country’s largest supplier of illegal weed for several decades (see Humboldt County) the legal market faces a much larger hurdle there than in Michigan.

Michigan quickly stood up its legal recreational industry in late 2019 with unlimited state-level licensing, meaning anyone with the nancial means, wherewithal and approval from a local municipality can have access to an operator’s license.  e quicker-than-typical legalization process and the potential for big windfalls resulted in a massive amount of weed production very quickly in Michigan. Oversupply collapsed marijuana prices from an average of $494.77 per ounce of marijuana ower in February 2020 to just $88.15 in May this year.  at produced hard times for industry players who watched their pro t margins disappear.

But for consumers, it meant legal weed prices competed with, and often outcompeted, illegal market marijuana, driving more and more consumers to Michi-

Masters said it’s important for the UAW to be proactive and demonstrate that it’s complying with the investigation. e longer the issue drags on, he said, the higher the chance it could sour members’ perception of their leaders, even if some of the in ghting described in the report is common.

“I really think this is a function of the normal internal frictions that arise within a union,” he said. “Before, these normal battles among the leaders probably just would have been fought out, perhaps in a vicious way, but among themselves. It’s a di erent era now, and things are out in the open, and the union has to be mindful of that.”

gan’s legal market.

Michigan’s weed industry sold more than $278 million in recreational marijuana in May. While other states have seen marijuana sales slow, Michigan’s continue to rise.

e state is on pace to surpass $3.2 billion in marijuana sales this year.

Colorado, the rst state to legalize marijuana sales, has seen sales decline over the past two years, down to $1.53 billion in 2023 from a peak of $2.23 billion in 2021. Marijuana sales in Washington last year declined to $1.4 billion from $1.5 billion the year prior.

According to an analysis by Oregon cannabis market economics rm Whitney Economics, more than 75% of marijuana sales in Michigan are done in the legal market. In California, it’s estimated at only 44%. at means California’s marijuana market as a whole is worth more than $11.5 billion annually. In Michigan, it’s only about $4 billion.

So while Michigan tops California in units sold and other metrics, that state of a airs is unlikely to last.

Sure, California’s weed market is e ectively crashing and many industry players are bowing out, but simply put, California has a much longer runway to draw more people into the legal market.

UAW President Shawn Fain (left) reassigned oversight of multiple departments from Secretary-Treasurer Margaret Mock in February. Fain and Mock are pictured at the 2023 Labor Day parade in Detroit. | PHOTOS BY MICHAEL MARTINEZ/AUTOMOTIVE NEWS

UAW Vice President Rich Boyer (left) was removed from his position as head of the Stellantis department in May. UAW Secretary-Treasurer Margaret Mock said she was stripped of duties because of her refusal or reluctance to authorize certain expenditures for President Shawn Fain’s of ce. A union monitor also is investigating Mock’s actions.

Will McCoy reimagines EV charging startup

Will McCoy, the 41-year-old founder and CEO of Vehya, aimed to plug into the automotive electri cation boom by launching a business built around EV charger installations at car dealerships. Then EV demand slumped, carmakers walked back mandates for dealerships and McCoy was left to pivot the business. Now, the electric vehicle supply equipment startup is targeting individual consumers and branching out from just EV chargers. Vehya, based around an app that functions as an “end-to-end marketplace” for electrical equipment installation, saw revenue soar to $11 million last year. It’s expected to double this year thanks to new lines of business.The following conversation has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity. By |

How did you get into the EV charging business?

I had a real estate company in Washington, D.C., that I sold back in 2019. I got into the EVSE industry kind of by accident because my wife’s family owns (Heidebreicht Chevrolet) dealerships. ey were going through electri cation, and I started out helping dealerships with electric vehicle charging stations. I always wanted to have a technology company that did this. Over time, we kind of understood that there was a need both from a technology standpoint to have an easy way to get these products to people, but then also a scalable way to implement these products, whether it be installation or service. And that’s how I got into the business.

Can you tell me more about what your company offers?

So, we provide a software and service marketplace for implementation of sustainability products, such as EV chargers, solar battery storage, and now we’ve moved into the heat pumps and electric hot water heaters. So thumbnail, high view, we’re an end-to-end marketplace for logistics, implementation and service of sustainability products.

You started out as just EV charging, right? It sounds like you’re going beyond that now.

We saw similar needs … People with EV chargers were saying, I’m looking at some solar power and battery storage. Can you help me do this? And naturally we were like, yeah, it’s a very similar process. We can do that as well, and now with the (In ation Reduction Act) giving rebates on other products like heat pumps and electric hot water heaters, we see our platform as an easy button for all those innovations as well.

So who is the target customer?

Well, kind of like Uber has an enterprise play and consumer play, and Amazon has the enterprise play and consumer play, we did the same thing. We started o as an enterprise play for dealerships, and then we found out that the dealers’ customers had the same need at their homes and small businesses. So, we moved on to residential and small businesses as well. So we are both an enterprise and direct-toconsumer play as well.

Kurt Nagl

Can you tell me a little bit about the nancial situation of the company?

Two things happened last year. We 22-timesed our revenue, went from $500,000 to $11 million. at got the eyeballs of a few investors. We raised about $2.1 million. We are looking to expand out of Michigan into California, Texas, Florida and the Northeast.

You have business with Stellantis, right?

Yes, we actually are a supplier to Stellantis. ey utilize our technology to implement EVSE at their dealerships. ey also utilize that technology to install EVSE at some of their sta ’s homes and o ces …  To get a supplier (deal) is very di cult. It’s a lot of interviews. It’s a lot of inspecting your technology. So, it’s not an easy process for people to become suppliers to auto OEMs. We are one of the youngest, and also it was done in the quickest time, but now that we’re in there, they utilize us for a lot of di erent things.

Can you highlight one of your most signi cant projects?

From a monetary standpoint, it’s not as big, but from an implementation standpoint, it was huge. So we had a project

that Stellantis wanted us to do with Utilimaster, where they wanted to put in four DC fast chargers inside of this building because Utilimaster and Stellantis had gotten a contract with Amazon to build these electric vehicles. Everybody told us it was gonna be years for us to get it done. It took like three months to get all the paperwork done and three months to actually implement it. It was a huge project because it took a lot of power, so everything from switches to transformers we had to basically bring in, and all that was done through the Vehya platform. And the reason why we were able to do it in such a quick time period is because everybody, from Stellantis to Utilimaster to the utility company, could all be in one place and communicate and walk through the step-by-step process of putting it in.

What is your revenue/growth outlook?

We expected to do $20 million for revenue this year, and we’re on track to do that. We have about 10 employees. For growth when it comes to employee count, I’m going to be as frank as possible. Automation and AI is changing the way every single company

is hiring people. So what we did was instead of hiring a bunch of people and then having to re them like so many companies are doing now because of AI being developed there, we’re hiring people when we absolutely need them. And that is the touch points with customers like account managers and things like that, versus increasing our headcount. We want to create a really lean company that’s pro table. We are pro table, which is rare for a technology company. We’ve been able to do that because we’re utilizing the latest technology. We will hire account managers when we see the need, but anywhere we can plug in AI to answer the same questions that most people have, that’s what we’re gonna focus on. Our headcount will increase on the service provider side. We have an apprenticeship piece in our app where apprentices can come in, and people who are interested in joining the contractor rank can come in and be matched with a contractor. ey can learn the skills, they can get the knowledge they need to one day be a contractor or licensed electrician or plumber themselves. ey’re not direct employees of us, but that is our part to help out the workforce.

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William McCoy has had to pivot his EV charger installations business as demand for electric vehicles has fallen short. | VEHYA

Public universities are driving major developments in Detroit. They’re securing hundreds of millions of dollars to add innovation, housing, improved health care and other developments to the region. We talk to the heads the University of Michigan, Michigan State University and Wayne State University about why and how they are driving economic development and improving quality of life in the region.

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