GM says it will donate pro ts from RenCen redevelopment
By Kirk Pinho
Southland Center sale expected by end of year
Taylor mall was listed over the summer following a loan default
By Kirk Pinho
Another metro Detroit shopping mall is expected to trade hands soon.
e sale of Southland Center in Taylor to an unknown buyer is expected to close by the end of the year, according to commercial mortgage-backed securities, or CMBS, loan commentary posted to CoStar Group Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based real estate information service.
e 905,000-square-foot mall was listed for sale over the summer for an undisclosed price following a loan default.
“Borrower selected buyer and
DD (due diligence) is in process,” the commentary from November says. “SS (special servicer) anticipates sale closing by end of 2024.”
Messages were sent to spokespeople for Atlanta-based Trimont LLC, the special servicer, as well as to the Chicago headquarters of brokerage house JLL.
Toronto-based Southland Center owner Brook eld Properties took out a $78.75 million Barclays loan in 2012 and defaulted on it in July 2022. e loan’s maturity date was extended until July 2023.
According to nancial data posted to CoStar, for the six
months ending June 30, the mall had net cash ow of $4.18 million on $8.16 million in revenue and just shy of $4 million in operating expenses and capital expenditures. Net cash ow for 2023 was $9.34 million and $8.93 million in 2022.
A Southland Center sale would be the latest in a string of mall sales in the last few years. Fairlane Town Center in Dearborn has sold (twice) and Oakland Mall in Troy also traded hands in 2022. Eastland Center in Harper Woods was bought by an industrial/warehouse developer and razed to make way for new warehouse space.
“ e trepidation in the Legislature is a good thing,” Massaron said in an interview along with Matt Cullen, a longtime former Gilbert deputy who is advising GM on the proposed $1.6 billion-plus overhaul of the iconic o ce, hotel and retail complex on the Detroit riverfront.
See GM on Page 17
Reservations from some Lansing lawmakers about state funding for a redevelopment of the Renaissance Center in downtown Detroit aren’t fazing its primary owner, General Motors Co. David Massaron, vice president of infrastructure and corporate citizenship for the Detroit-based automaker, said Dec. 6 that concerns from a bipartisan group of lawmakers in both the state House of Representatives and state Senate are things GM and its partner in the project, Dan Gilbert’s Bedrock LLC, will address in the coming weeks.
DEVELOPMENT
State board OKs $100M for AI, supercomputer facility at UM.
Detroit’s planning director heads to prominent architecture rm.
4
Eastern Market’s CEO looks back on 17 years — and toward what’s next. PAGE 18
A conceptual rendering from GM and Dan Gilbert’s Bedrock LLC shows their plan for the Renaissance Center, which includes demolishing two towers and creating an entertainment district on riverfront land to the east. BEDROCK/GENSLER/ROSSETTI The owner of Southland Center shopping mall in Taylor is struggling with
Pioneering downtown Detroit wine shop calls it quits
By Jay Davis
A Black woman-owned wine shop and bar in downtown Detroit will pour its last glass later this month.
House of Pure Vin will shut down Dec. 27, according to an email newsletter sent to customers Dec. 10. No reason was given for the closure, which will end a nine-year run for the business at 1433 Woodward Ave.
Owner Regina Gaines opened House of Pure Vin in September 2015 with Terry Mullins and Andrea Dunbar. The team invested about $450,000 into the business, which was among the first wave of businesses to open downtown in Detroit’s most recent resurgence. At the time, the wine shop filled a void for the growing office-worker community of about 40,000 in the central business district.
House of Pure Vin catered to wine lovers and the curious, offering a wine club and hosting themed tastings and other events. About two years ago, it added an outdoor patio, full bar and food menu.
House of Pure Vin operates in a 3,100-square-foot ground floor space inside a Lofts of Merchant Row building. The building is owned by Livonia-based Schostak Bros. & Co. Bedrock LLC holds the lease on the space.
“After nine incredible years, it has been determined that House of Pure Vin will begin its soft closing, with our last day open to the public on December 27, 2024,” the newsletter states. “House of Pure Vin has been more than a wine shop. It has been a home for connection, culture, and celebration. Together, we’ve created unforgettable memories, and none
also special order wine as requested.
When reached Dec. 11, Gaines declined to comment on the closure of her business.
In a May 2022 Crain’s report, Gaines said the retail part of House of Pure Vin’s business was down 30% as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Yeah, things may seem normal in the neighborhoods, but not downtown,” Gaines said in that report. “People aren’t in their offices. Even restaurants aren’t opening until 4 o’clock. There’s only a few places open for lunch. Normal to me is the person taking a casual walk at lunch and stopping in. It’s companies buying cases (of wine) for work parties. I’m next to a WeWork and in front of Bamboo Detroit where a lot of people meet and they’re just not there.”
In the newsletter, customers were asked for grace and patience during the wind-down of the business.
of it would have been possible without your love and support.”
House of Pure Vin will honor gift cards over the next few weeks and wine club members can redeem up to two months’ of pickups before the closure. Remaining months of pickups will be available Jan. 7-21. The shop will
“Regina wants to thank you for your support directly at a later date to reflect on this journey and your unwavering support,” the newsletter reads. “Thank you for being part of the House of Pure Vin story. Let’s make these final weeks together unforgettable.”
Regina Gaines and partners opened House of Pure Vin in downtown Detroit in 2015 and added a 20-seat patio in 2022. | HOUSE OF PURE VIN
Gaines
MSF board OKs $100M for AI, supercomputer facility
By Sherri Welch
The University of Michigan and Los Alamos National Laboratory plan to bring a $1.2 billion high-performance computing and AI lab to Ypsilanti Township has secured the first of three approvals needed to lock in $100 million in state funding for the project.
The Michigan Strategic Fund board on Dec. 10 approved a $100 million Strategic Site Readiness Program grant for the project. The state House and Senate budget committees must sign off on the project grant. It was not immediately clear how quickly lawmakers would consider a request to authorize the funding.
Beyond the state funding, additional proposed and potential funding for the project includes $300 million from Los Alamos National Lab and $850 million in university and Special Purpose Vehicle Debt Financing, according to the MSF project briefing. Crain’s reported this month that UM could chip in $200 million of that.
The high-performance computing and AI research campus is planned on a 20-acre site at 10221 Textile Road in Ypsilanti Township near Ford Lake on property the UM board of regents approved for a $1.5 million purchase in mid-October. An MSF project briefing lists the total cost of land at $3 million.
The facility will house two computing centers. Los Alamos scientists and engineers will conduct advanced research and development on critical national security AI challenges at one facility. The other will enable UM faculty, students and university partners from
Detroit Metro to add new budget airline
By Anna Fifelski
Detroit Metro Airport is getting a new airline.
Avelo Airlines will launch on April 4, 2025, and will be operating a twice weekly flight to Southern Connecticut’s Tweed-New Haven Airport on a Boeing Next-Generation 737 aircraft.
By Kirk Pinho
A beloved west Oakland County family entertainment destination is leaving its longtime Farmington Hills home.
Marvin’s Marvelous Mechanical Museum is relocating to the Orchard Mall shopping center in
West Bloomfield Township, capping off more than a year of questions about where the part arcade, part time capsule would end up after its Hunter’s Square shopping center location is partially demolished to clear the way for a new
The budget airline is formerly known as Casino Express Airlines, which operated through Houston Air Holdings Inc., and was bought by Allegiant Airlines co-founder and president, Andrew Levy, in 2018. Casino Express Airlines was founded in Houston in 1987 and targeted charter customers for years before undergoing several ownership changes — operating as Xtra Airways from 2006 to 2018 — before Levy’s purchase of the airline, when it was rebranded as Avelo Airlines in 2021.
Before launching Avelo (it’s pronounced like “yellow”) and becoming its CEO, Levy served as the chief financial officer of United Airlines and United Airlines Holdings.
In July, the company announced its largest-ever expan-
sion, adding 18 nonstop flights to its portfolio. According to its website, Avelo has 150 employees and currently operates at 54 destinations across 24 states and Puerto Rico, as well as Jamaica, Mexico and the Dominican Republic.
“We are proud to announce service at DTW and introduce a new era of convenient, affordable and industry-leading reliable travel to the Motor City,” Levy said in a news release. “This ser-
vice makes visiting Southern Connecticut, and everything the greater New England and New York regions have to offer, easier than ever. We also look forward to making Detroit’s rich history, cultural resurgence, Motown music and world-famous art museums a fast and seamless journey for Connecticut travelers.” DTW will see other new flights
The University of Michigan is planning a state-of-the-art facility for high-performance computing and AI research. | UNIVerSITY OF mIcHIGAN VIA FAcebOOK
Avelo Airlines will launch at DTW on April 4, 2025. | AVeLO AIrLINeS
Marvelous Mechanical Museum in Farmington Hills is packed with games
Detroit’s planning director heads to architecture firm
Detroit’s outgoing planning director is departing to colead a prominent architecture and design firm in Detroit.
Antoine Bryant’s first day as co-managing director of Gensler’s Detroit office is Dec. 16.
Kirk Pinho
In Bryant’s new role, he will share the title with John Waller and lead a team of approximately 30 architects and designers. Bryant said he anticipates that number to grow in the next 12-18 months.
He said his decision to leave city government was finalized over the fall after Gensler approached him about the position. Although he starts his new role this week, he will advise the city as the Planning and Development Department transitions to new leadership. Mayor Mike Duggan recently nominated Alexa Bush, a former planning official who is head of The Kresge Foundation’s Detroit initiatives, to become the city’s new planning director.
In his new role, Bryant will join a firm that’s been advising General Motors Co. and Bedrock LLC on their plans for a massive $1.6 billion-plus redevelopment of the Renaissance Center. The firm is also working on projects including the Kirk Gibson Center for Parkinson’s Wellness in Farmington Hills and the Merit Park project on Detroit’s west side. Bryant declined
to talk about the RenCen plan.
“You’re going to see us around,” Bryant said. “We’re going to have a lot of work on workplace interior and auto dealership space. Gensler as a whole has over 30 disciplines that we work in, so there’s going to be opportunities for us to really grow the practice and stake a strong claim here in the Detroit market.”
Bryant came to Detroit from Houston in 2021 to lead the planning department, taking over the position full time from Katy Trudeau. Trudeau had been interim director following the departure of former planning director Maurice Cox to Chicago to take on a similar role.
Bryant pointed to things like starting the city’s first new master plan update in a decade and a half, work on large-scale efforts like Henry Ford Health’s new campus around the New Center area, the redevelopment of the Fisher Body No. 21 building in Milwaukee Junction and others as being highlights of his tenure at the city.
“As I move to Gensler, it’s really quite invigorating to now play a role using my design background as well as planning to be able to look at how the city transformed urbanistically and to ensure that all of our residents are able to benefit from the phenomenal archi-
Japanese department store, claw-machine arcade added to development in Novi
By Jay Davis
A Japanese-themed department store, the state’s first claw-machine arcade and a bakery join the lineup of businesses at an Asianthemed mixed-use development in Oakland County.
Sakura Novi, which is under development at 42708 Grand River Ave. in Novi, continues to add to its list of retailers and restaurants. The project, which has been in the works for about six years, will also include a retail plaza and more than 100 apartments south of I-96 and Twelve Oaks Mall.
The new businesses added to the Sakura Novi directory: Japanese-themed department store Teso Life plans a 12,000-square-foot store — its first location in Michigan — as an anchor tenant for Sakura Novi. The store specializes in snacks, cosmetics, housewares, kitchen goods, stationery and collectibles. Teso Life has 15 stores in New York, Texas, Arizona and Georgia and 15 more locations in development in eight additional states. The store is expected to open next year.
tecture the city has,” Bryant said. He noted that as he leaves city government that there is opportunity for city planners to become more involved in development projects earlier in the process —
Klawsome! will be the first standalone claw-machine arcade in Michigan. The arcade features the opportunity to win kawaii-style stuffed animals from various claw machines. The stuffies can then be traded in for other stuffed animals and anime figurines. This form of entertainment is popular in Japan and other Asian countries, as well as U.S. cities with large Asian populations. Klawsome! is slated to open May 9, according to the company’s Facebook page.
South Korea-based Paris Baguette plans a 3,000-square-foot shop — its third in Michigan following bakeries in Birmingham and Dearborn. Paris Baguette offers French and Asian pastries, along with other baked goods, cakes, sandwiches, coffee and other drinks. Since opening in 1988, Paris Baguette has opened nearly 3,800 stores in South Korea, Malaysia, Vietnam, China and Indonesia. The company has 105 locations in the U.S. and Canada.
Other businesses at the development include restaurants Mikiya Wagyu Shabu House, Dancing Pine Korean Steakhouse and Presotea Taiwanese boba tea, slated to open
particularly on the hospitality and retail side of the equation.
“I would argue an opportunity to get involved in our larger developments even sooner,” Bryant said. “ … We can be reactive in
how our city develops, or we can be proactive, ensuring that uses match context and also match the perceived and ideal future for the city and for that neighborhood.”
Work continues on the large-scale Sakura Novi mixed-use development in Novi, which is slated to begin opening next year. | ROBERT B. AIKENS & ASSOCIATES
in May, according to a news release. The owners would like to add ramen and sushi restaurants, a breakfast restaurant, beauty services and wellness and fitness concepts.
Food and retail isn’t all that’s on the menu at Sakura Novi.
The development also features The Residences at Sakura Novi, an apartment community that will include 117 three-story town-
houses. The apartments will run 1,331-1,765 square feet with two or three bedrooms and a one- or two-car garage. The Residences, managed by Lansing-based KMG Prestige, are leasing for occupancy starting in February.
Sakura Novi LLC is an affiliate of Robert B. Aikens & Associates LLC. The group also operates shopping centers including The
Village of Rochester Hills and The Shops at Bay City Mall. Sakura Novi, announced in 2018, will also include a community pond and public spaces, according to Sakura Novi co-owner Scott Aikens. In total, the project will cost more than $50 million, Aikens said. Bloomfield Hills-based Robertson Homes is building the project’s residential component.
Antoine Bryant, Detroit’s planning director, is leaving city government to become co-managing director in the Detroit office of the Gensler architecture and design firm. | GENSLER
EDITORIAL
Here’s to a less partisan
As lawmakers in Lansing wrangle through the final days of the current term, we thought we would take a moment, in the spirit of the season, to look ahead to the New Year.
This lame-duck session, as we all know by now, is the last vestige of the one-party rule by the Democrats who have controlled state government over the past two years.
Republicans wrested control of the House in the November election, leaving Lansing with a divided Legislature as Democrats maintain a hold on the Senate.
The margins are thin: The GOP will control the House with a 58-52 majority, while Democrats hold the Senate but just two votes, 20-18.
We welcome this split in the state Legislature, and not because we are hoping for gridlock. Rather, the divided houses should force lawmakers to come together, look for common ground, and work on practical solutions that a majority of Michigan residents and businesses can support.
It is only fitting that a state as closely balanced politically as Michigan would split the Legislature between the two parties. After all, voters statewide in the November election narrowly went for both Republican Donald Trump for president and Democrat Elissa Slotkin for U.S. Senate.
It is into this environment that Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan will be campaigning
COMMENTARY
for governor — as an independent. Duggan’s announcement on Dec. 4 that he would run for governor in 2026 was not a surprise. But the fact that he has chosen to do so as an independent, and not as the Democrat he has been for years, caught almost everyone off guard. We are intrigued by his decision and will be watching closely, as many will, to see if Duggan can gain support outside the traditional two-party structure while also working to
increase his name recognition beyond metro Detroit.
In many ways, Duggan’s decision makes a lot of sense. He’s a centrist Democrat who may have difficulty in the party primary where progressives often hold more influence.
Duggan has served Detroit incredibly well since he was first elected in 2014. He has focused on making things work — starting with getting the streetlights turned
back on during the city’s bankruptcy — and has worked very well with the business community.
From cleaning up blight, to public safety, to focusing on neighborhood and downtown improvements, his tenure as mayor has been marked by a focus on measurable improvements to the lives of Detroit residents and the business environment.
A white suburbanite, Duggan took the helm of this majority black city by building bridges across traditional lines, focusing on solutions and delivering on promises.
In many ways, Duggan’s time as mayor shows what is possible for Lansing as it enters 2025 divided. There is plenty of work to be done, be it on K-12 education reform, transit, or retaining and growing the state’s young talent. Notably, if it doesn’t get addressed in the lame-duck session, fixing the tipped-wage law so it doesn’t disrupt the current system must be top of the agenda in January. And we re-up our support for the bold plan to redevelop the Renaissance Center, a project that transcends partisanship and has the potential to benefit all of Michigan by making its largest city more attractive and engaging along its rapidly improving riverfront.
’Tis the season for New Year’s resolutions. As such, we call on political leaders in Lansing to step out of their partisan bubbles and resolve to actively reach across the aisle in search of common ground.
Why Michigan should cap interest rates on payday loans
Michigan stands at a crossroads as it considers capping interest rates on payday loans at 36%. Senate bill 632 has already passed the Senate with bi-partisan support, and this bill and its companion, HB 5290 have had a committee hearing in the House. With only a few days left of session, this is the last opportunity of the year to pass reasonable consumer protection laws.
Payday loans, often marketed as quick solutions to financial emergencies, trap borrowers in a cycle of debt that is virtually impossible to escape. In 2021, Michigan households were drained of $67 million through payday loans, a figure that skyrocketed to more than $79 million in 2023.
This money could have been invested in local businesses or saved, fostering community and economic growth rather than draining resources. In Michigan, payday lenders typically charge fees that equate to an astonishing annual interest rate of 356%. As a result, taking out a payday loan not only leads to repeated borrowing but also exacerbates financial instability, making individuals more likely to have difficulty affording household expenses like groceries and bills, to lose their bank account, to de-
lay medical care, and to file for bankruptcy.
This undermines the well-being of our communities and stifles economic growth. Access to financial products with reasonable fees would allow individuals to spend money on local goods and services. Instead, borrowers — often misled by the fine print — end up struggling to pay off the exorbitant fees that accompany their loan.
While they are marketed as small-dollar, short-term loans, payday loans are designed to trap people in an expensive, long-term cycle of debt. Nationally, the average payday loan borrower is stuck in 10 loans a year, usually borrowing one right after another. In Michigan, 70% of payday
loans are taken out the same day a borrower repays a previous loan.
Interest rate caps are the simplest and most effective protection against this predatory lending. More than 100 million Americans in 20 states benefit from robust caps on short-term loans, and states like Illinois and Minnesota serve as successful models for reform.
Usury laws, which have protected consumers throughout human and U.S. history, reaffirm the principle that borrowers should not be exploited through exorbitant interest rates.
Public sentiment strongly favors these reforms. Previous ballot measures limiting payday loan rates have passed with strong, bipartisan majorities, demonstrating that voters across the political spectrum recognize the need for change. The proposed Michigan legislation is modeled after the successful Military Lending Act, a federal law which effectively limits lenders to an APR of 36% for active-duty service members. Following its enactment, the number of service members seeking financial assistance due to payday loan debt plummeted from more than 1,500 to just three in a decade.
Moreover, payday loans have a particularly devastating impact on Michigan’s Black, Latino, and low-income communities, siphoning millions in fees from consumers to companies mostly headquartered out of state. Michigan has already begun to explore alternative lending options, and many local financial institutions are rising to the occasion. It’s long past time to prioritize a lending environment where safe products can thrive, so our Michigan families and small businesses can, too.
The Black Leadership Advisory Council, alongside more than 100 organizations across Michigan — including churches, cities, consumer advocates and financial institutions — has called for the passage of this vital legislation.
The time for action is now. Michigan must take a stand against the predatory practices of payday lenders and protect its citizens from the crippling effects of exorbitant interest rates. Capping payday loan interest rates is not just a financial reform; it is a necessary step toward empowering communities, promoting economic stability and ensuring that all Michiganders have a fair shot at pursuing the American Dream.
Power will shift in Michigan’s Capitol in the coming year.
Anika Goss is CEO of Detroit Future City, Portia Roberson is CEO of Focus: HOPE, and Darienne Hudson is president and CEO of United Way for Southeast Michigan.
REY DEL RIO/GETTY m AGES
Comerica Bank accused of mistreating benefits recipients
By Anna Fifelski
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau opened a lawsuit against Comerica Bank on Dec. 6, alleging the bank systematically failed its 3.4 million Direct Express cardholders.
The filing is a countersuit to a lawsuit Comerica filed on Nov. 8 against the CFPB, challenging the bureau’s regulatory overreach and its handling of the investigation into the Direct Express program.
Comerica Bank, a subsidiary of Comerica Inc., is headquartered in Dallas but has long-standing ties to Detroit, where it was founded and headquartered until 2007. As of December 2023, it is the third-largest bank in Michigan, according to data compiled by Crain’s.
The CFPB’s lawsuit alleges that the bank deliberately disconnected 24 million customer service calls, impeding cardholders from exercising their rights under the law; charged illegal ATM fees to over 1 million cardholders and
mishandled fraud complaints while providing federal benefits through the Direct Express prepaid debit card program.
“The CFPB is suing Comerica Bank for illegally harming disabled and older Americans who count on Social Security and other federal benefits,” CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said in a news release. “By deliberately disconnecting millions of calls and harvesting illegal junk fees, Comerica boosted its bottom line at the expense of Americans living on a fixed income.”
The Direct Express program is a prepaid card that beneficiaries can use to pay for groceries, gas and other expenses and is predominantly used by senior citizens and disabled Americans to receive Social Security and other federal benefits.
Approximately 3.4 million Americans utilize the Direct Express program, which has been supported by Comerica since 2008.
In a statement Comerica provided to Crain’s, the bank said it
has been working in close coordination with the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service and has “cooperated by sharing information and data to illustrate the unique nature of this program and the fact that we operate with the oversight of the Fiscal Service.”
“Despite our good faith efforts to provide this critical context, the CFPB has consistently ignored our arguments and documentation,” Comerica said in its statement. “We will continue to vigorously defend our record as the financial agent for the Direct Express program and remain committed to serving our cardholders.”
Comerica did not share how the lawsuit has impacted Michigan customers.
Through the lawsuit, the CFPB is seeking to “stop Comerica’s unlawful conduct, to provide redress for harmed borrowers, and the imposition of a civil money penalty, which would be paid into the CFPB’s victims relief fund,” the release said.
Unemployment director leaving to run nonprofit
By David Eggert
LANSING — Julia Dale, who has led the state Unemployment Insurance Agency for more than three years, will leave to become CEO of Detroit-based nonprofit Civilla.
Dale announced the move Dec. 9, according to an email to UIA staff obtained by Crain’s. Her last day will be Jan. 3.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer appointed Dale in October 2021 — the third director in a year — following criticism of her predecessors during the pandemic over difficulties and delays in accessing unemployment payouts as well as problems with fraudulent claims.
“From the tireless hours worked through a once-in-a-lifetime global pandemic to overhauling our sys-
tems for workers and businesses, we have transformed a once-battered agency into something extraordinary — a national leader for fast, fair and fraud-free service,” Dale wrote in the email thanking employees.
Under her leadership, the agency has been modernizing its problematic computer system in favor of one designed by consulting firm Deloitte. The new software is expected to be fully operational in 2025. It will cost an estimated $78 million over a 10year contract.
The agency also has launched a new economic dashboard, a claimant roadmap and an employer help center.
Rocket marketing exec leaves for BetMGM
By E.J. Schultz, AdAge
Rocket Mortgage marketing executive Casey Hurbis is leaving after eight years to join the BetMGM gaming and sports betting brand.
Hurbis was chief marketing officer at Rocket Mortgage from 2017 until March of this year, when he became senior vice president of brand experiences and strategic partnerships. The Detroit resident previously held multiple marketing roles at Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, now known as Stellantis.
Hurbis becomes BetMGM’s first CMO since 2020, when Matt Prevost transitioned from that role to chief revenue officer. Hurbis will report to Prevost.
“Building BetMGM from the ground up into one of the most recognizable brands in the sports betting and iGaming sphere has been an incredible accomplishment made possible by the tireless efforts of our amazing team,” Prevost said in a statement. “Bringing a visionary leader like Casey Hurbis on board adds another impactful advantage for our brand.”
cording to a BetMGM news release.
Dale said it was not an easy decision to move on, but her new role “will allow me to continue in my commitment to service, and enact change throughout and beyond the state of Michigan.”
Civilla is a nonprofit design studio “dedicated to changing the way our public-serving institutions work,” according to its website. Among its work has been redesigning applications for public benefits to make them more user-friendly.
Dale has worked in state government for over 20 years, including at the departments of attorney general; technology, management and budget; licensing and regulatory affairs; and civil rights.
At BetMGM, Hurbis will be reunited with Highdive, which became the brand’s creative agency of record in 2023. Hurbis worked with the Chicago-based agency on multiple Super Bowl ads while running marketing for Rocket Mortgage, including two that topped USA Today’s Ad Meter. Hurbis, however, won’t get a Big Game marketing opportunity this season — a BetMGM spokesperson confirmed the brand won’t be running a 2025 Super Bowl ad. The brand made its Super Bowl debut earlier this year with a spot starring Tom Brady, Vince Vaughn and Wayne Gretzky. It made that investment in part because the game took place in Las Vegas, the gambling capital of America.
BetMGM’s most consistent celebrity endorser has been Jamie Foxx, who has appeared in multiple ads, including a campaign that debuted in September at the beginning of the football season.
Hurbis, who will remain in Detroit, said in a statement: “BetMGM is a brand with incredible momentum, backed by a team that is redefining how we engage and entertain audiences. I look forward to pushing the boundaries of creativity and innovation to not only attract new audiences but enhance the experience for our loyal players to even greater heights.”
In a post on LinkedIn on Dec. 6, Hurbis recounted his proudest accomplishments at Rocket, including working on four Super Bowl ads and helping to bring founder Dan Gilbert’s vision for a PGA Tour event, the Rocket Mortgage Classic, to Detroit.
Before joining Rocket Mortgage, Hurbis spent 24 years in automotive marketing, culminating in his role leading advertising and communications for Fiat and Alfa Romeo. Hurbis also supports organizations including Special Olympics, Salvation Army and Bethany Christian Adoption Services. He also serves on the boards for Adcraft Detroit, Michigan State Communication Arts and Sciences, Brand Innovators and the Detroit Sports Commission, ac-
Highdive stopped working with Rocket in the wake of new marketing leadership at the Detroit-based company. Jonathan Mildenhall became the company’s first group-level CMO in January, overseeing brands including Rocket Mortgage and Rocket Homes. He later hired Mirimar as its creative agency of record and then brought on Publicis Groupe to handle media.
New Jersey-based BetMGM is among a group of betting marketers seeking to chip away at the dominance of FanDuel and DraftKings in the sports betting market, which has drawn a host of players since the Supreme Court overturned a federal ban on sports betting in 2018. Thirty-eight states, along with Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, offer legal sports betting.
BetMGM was founded in 2018 as a joint venture between Entain and MGM Resorts International. As part of a half-year update in July, BetMGM reported it had 13% market share across the U.S. and Canada in the sports betting and iGaming market. (iGaming refers to various forms of online betting.) BetMGM reported net revenue from operations of $1 billion for the year’s first half, but a loss of $123 million.
—Crain’s Detroit Business contributed to this report.
Casey Hurbis
Julia Dale
Actor Jamie Foxx is a pitchman for BetMGM gaming
The Direct Express program has been supported by Comerica since 2008. | cOmer cA.
INNER-RING SUBURBS
WDetroit’s nearest suburbs are at a crossroads
Aging housing stock in need of expensive repairs combined with a lack of vacant land for new construction create growth, infrastructure improvement challenges for inner-ring communities
hen Danielle Wright and her boyfriend Joe Jackson began searching for their rst home together early last year, they looked in areas near her Clawson apartment.
e magnetism of Ferndale’s walkable downtown, the ease of freeway access and emerging John R corridor in Hazel Park, Clawson’s small but charming business district — those things put those communities, all inner-ring or near-inner-ring suburbs that have been growing and reinventing themselves over many years, at the top of their wish list.
But the struggle Wright and Jackson had to nd something in one of those cities is indicative of the over owing basket of challenges facing the housing markets in communities bordering Detroit.
“ e houses that were more in our price point didn’t really have everything on our checklist,” said
Wright, who is theater administrator for the Broadway in Detroit program at the Fisher eatre.
Ultimately, the couple, who were represented by Dan and Annie Klark of Canton Township-based Team Klark Realtors, opted for a ordability over ZIP code, choosing an area closer to the house Jackson was renting in Dearborn Heights, and buying a two-bedroom, two-bath Dearborn house near West Outer Drive and the South eld Freeway/M-39 in July 2023.
eir new home, purchased after about four months of looking, checked all of the boxes on their list within their pricepoint, which included more than one bathroom, a basement and a garage. ere’s also not one but two downtowns in Dearborn, giving them a central business district feel nearby.
Wright and Jackson, a union journeyman electrician with IBEW
BY KIRK PINHO
No. 58, are far from alone in their struggle.
Expensive, aging housing stock
A recent study from the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University found that nationwide, the median sale prices for homes in 2022 were 5.6 times higher than the median household income, a more than 36% bump from 2019 when it was 4.1 times higher. at’s also the highest rate since at least the early 1970s.
And locally in the Detroit-Warren-Livonia metropolitan statistical area, per the Harvard study, the ratio was 3.8, compared to 3 in 2019 and just 2.1 in 1980. e stock of existing housing in those suburbs, long seen as an entry point for rst-time buyers and others, in many cases is aging and in need of expensive repairs made even more so by increased costs of
materials and contractor labor.
Interest rates ballooned over the last few years to stem nagging inationary forces, making the cost of mortgages more expensive.
Many of the communities were built out as the region grew, as freeways created in the 1950s made living farther away from where you worked more feasible, and there isn’t very much vacant land available — or land that can be easily assembled into largeenough chunks — to create new housing to lower costs.
And the land that is available, experts said, was almost always a prior use and requires costly cleanup.
If you’re able to develop new housing in an inner-ring suburb, you too are facing increased costs through higher costs of materials and labor. Property taxes tend to be higher, and infrastructure improvements like roads and sewers are also costly.
So not only is it di cult for home-
buyers, it’s di cult for builders, said Jordan Twardy, Dearborn’s economic development director.
“Your average cost to construct, the data we are seeing, at least for the metro area does outpace the average return,” Twardy said. “ ey talk about the back of the envelope calculations. You’re underwater before you’ve even written it on the envelope.”
All those things are making it so that some are saying there is a need for a Marshall Plan for housing, a reference to the U.S.-led effort to rebuild Western Europe following World War II.
“We need to relook at the whole process,” said Darien Neubecker, president of Bloom eld Hillsbased residential developer Robertson Bros.
“What we’ve done for the last 20 years has led us to exactly where we are today, which is we are chronically under building and we’re chronically una ordable,” he said.
Sagging new construction
Case in point: According to data from the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments, better known by acronym SEMCOG, new housing permits issued in 2023 were 9% lower than in 2022 — and that’s across all housing types.
Single-family home permits fell 13% from 4,433 in 2022 to 3,876 last year. The decline was even more pronounced in condos, down 20% to 670 from 833 in 2022. And apartments, seemingly sprouting up on every major artery the last several years, fell by 3% last year, dropping to 4,787 from 4,939.
The market traditionally has followed boom and bust cycles leading up to the crash of 2008, said Jeff Nutting, SEMCOG’s socioeconomic forecast coordinator. But it hasn’t truly recovered.
“We were seeing building permit numbers of more than 20,000 per year, and we’re not remotely close to that now and haven’t been for some time,” Nutting said.
Between 1974 and the recession of 1980, the region saw single-family home construction alone averaging almost 15,000 new homes per year. While building petered out around then, starting in 1984, there were approximately 20,000 new permits for single-family homes and apartment construction through 1993, per SEMCOG data. And the building boom continued, with the years between 1994-2003 seeing almost 17,000 single-family home permits on average and 22,000 total permits per year.
But of course the housing bubble took its toll nationally and around metro Detroit, and between 2007-13, the region averaged only 4,600 permits per year.
Fast forward to today, and in some inner-ring suburbs not one new residence received a building permit last year. Those include Grosse Pointe Shores, River Rouge, Ecorse and Royal Oak Township.
And Harper Woods, where Irma Hayes is the deputy economic and community develop-
Nationwide, the median sale prices for homes in 2022 were
5.6 times higher than the median household income.
This is a more than 36% bump from 2019 and the highest rate since at least the early 1970s.
ment director. She pointed to issues like a lack of available land and high property tax burdens as key challenges to bringing new housing to the city.
But they’re trying.
A proposal by Ypsilanti-based Renovare Development and Robertson Bros. is slated to transform the site of the former Poupard Elementary School — which the Grosse Pointe Public Schools shuttered in 2020 — into 71 new for-sale duplex and townhomes in Harper Woods.
Those units will have things like down payment assistance, and be geared toward people and families making 120% or below Area Median Income. Sales prices are expected at $190,000 to $220,000.
It’s part of a needed effort to address a broader housing crisis that has made home ownership out of the question for many.
“Owning a home is starting to become an out of reach dream for a lot of people,” Hayes said. Complicated solutions
A national discussion has emerged about relaxing zoning rules to make it easier to intersperse different types of housing within communities with older
How the struggle to keep themselves healthy strains suburbs
By Kirk Pinho
Communities across Southeast Michigan, and particularly Detroit’s inner-ring suburbs, are facing a challenge that may go unnoticed to the broader public.
City, township and village halls in many cases are aging and in need of costly repairs and overhauls, if not complete replacements altogether, and those municipalities don’t have dedicated revenue streams to address that.
housing stock, such as inner-ring suburbs, said Margaret Dewar, professor emerita of urban and regional planning in the Taubman School of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan as well as a special adviser with UM’s Poverty Solutions. For example, how could regulations be modified that would allow the assembly of a couple small parcels within a single-family neighborhood to create a four-plex or a handful of townhouses, Dewar said.
“But it’s complicated,” Dewar said. “That’s something some cities are trying and having some results.”
But issues like suburban sprawl to areas like Macomb Township, Lyon Township, Washtenaw County, Livingston County and elsewhere remain, Dewar said, in what she described as “a free-forall at the fringe.”
Outside the city of Detroit, the greatest concentrations of new residential permits last year were in Ann Arbor suburbs of Pittsfield (652) and Scio (416) areas, where building new housing can be easier in some ways due to the broader availability of large, developable sites with little cleanup or remediation needed. Ann Arbor itself also had 477 permits.
“The cost to come in, demolish and build new or rehab, and follow all of the environmental requirements is a lot higher than if you were to go out to Novi and pick a cornfield and build a new subdivision,” said Erik Tungate, the city manager of Oak Park.
One way to combat that could be something Dewar described as tax base sharing, a concept that was floated during Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s administration. In essence, the tax revenue generated by new development would be shared.
“Then all areas benefit from that,” she said. “It means that then slow growth, decline, disinvestment doesn’t lead to as much tax base loss, which then enables those inner-ring suburbs to make investments that could improve their fortunes.”
“Municipal buildings (repair) has consistently come up as a challenge,” said Michael Spence, administrator of government affairs at the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments, or SEMCOG. “There’s no dedicated funding source from the state or federal level for that.”
That means in a lot of cases, there is deferred maintenance and improvements — and there is only so long those can be put to the back burner before they become front-and-center issues when Band-Aid solutions are no longer cutting it, said Spence.
This fact proves particularly challenging in many cases for suburbs bordering Detroit, with city and town halls — not to mention other public buildings like police and fire stations, DPW buildings and others — built in the middle of last century.
Dated facilities are translating into more property insurance claims for the Michigan Municipal League, which provides property and liability insurance to some 400 units of government around the state.
Dan Gilmartin, executive director and CEO of the Michigan Municipal League, said his organization is seeing more claims related to property repairs.
“There’s a big rain and the town library’s roof is leaking and it’s a $200,000 claim,” Gilmartin said. “A lot of it is just what you can expect. … It’s older communities and lack of real maintenance money over
the last several years.”
Some communities have gotten inventive. In Westland, the city saved nearly $3 million by converting an old Circuit City into its new city hall in 2015 for $12.1 million, less than the $15 million it would have cost to build a new one from the ground up or renovate its previous space.
In Livonia, which neighbors the inner-ring suburb of Redford Township, construction began earlier this year on a new $26.9 million senior wellness center to replace the aging Civic Park Senior Center. According to the Detroit News, it’s being funded by local, state and federal grants totaling $20.75 million, and the gap is made up by ARPA dollars and city building improvement funds, meaning no tax increase or dedicated millage is required.
Oak Park opened a new city hall in 2013 and should be set for decades. But the city manager there, Erik Tungate, said many inner-ring suburbs are still recovering from the economic meltdown nearly 20 years ago and “don’t have a huge pot of money” to do the repairs without having to bond for them, oftentimes requiring voter approval.
Unlike Oak Park, Harper Woods “desperately needs a new municipal building for city hall,” said that community’s economic development director, Irma Hayes.
“The building we have is over 100 years old and people are always sick in that building because there is no air filtration and you can’t open windows,” Hayes said “In the summertime, it was so hot that they had to put fans in every room.”
And there, like in every other community, it comes down to dollars and cents.
Harper Woods was told it would cost something like $400 per square foot to build the new facility they were looking for.
The problem was that their budget was $250 per square foot.
Danielle Wright and her boyfriend Joe Jackson in their two-bedroom, two-bath Dearborn house. The couple struggled to find something that met their needs in their desired neighborhoods. | QUINN bANKS
Oak Park opened a new city hall in 2013. cITY OF OAK PArK
Forces are aligned against suburbs trying to rebound
Detroit’s resurgence is often in the news: once-abandoned by its dominant industry and via massive, racially motivated population flight, Detroit has spent decades managing population and infrastructure decline. Now emerging on the other side, Detroit has an increasingly diversified economy, new housing developments and expanding commercial districts where vacant lots once lay.
A long road is still ahead, but it appears the worst has passed.
Richard Sadler is an associate professor in the departments of Public Health & Family Medicine in the College of Human Medicine at Michigan State University.
The spread of vacancy was at first relegated to Detroit and similar places (Pontiac, Flint, Saginaw). But as population shifts continued over the late 20th century, many inner suburban areas experienced their own struggles with neighborhood aging and population decline. Because of their shorter and less severe decline, many areas around Detroit may be more easily poised for resurgence.
While Detroit and other bigger cities manage complex processes of decades-long decline, smaller cities can more quickly fill gaps in
housing or business markets.
The fundamental issue in this resurgence, however, is the broader economic setting where we Americans find ourselves. The U.S. thrived in the post-war period because of an expanded social safety net and excellent funding for infrastructure and public schools.
This flourishing happened because we had high tax rates for the ultra-wealthy and major corporations, which enabled federal and state governments to provide these expanded services for residents (think of the "glory days" of public swimming pools, after-school and youth programming, and other civic displays). But in the past 50 years, too much emphasis has been put on the household unit as the primary provider for what used to be public goods.
This individualistic focus contrasts with community development that would create places for people to congregate and spend time.
This can be seen both in our
transportation and educational systems. Our transportation system is hyperfocused on moving individual automobiles, which engenders massively higher costs than promoting a mix of options. Creating a regional vision for connecting smaller urban centers would strengthen these cities and ultimately surrounding locales, because creating places integrated by rail or rapid transit will equate with spending less money on infrastructure.
Metro Detroit simply spends far too much on its freeways. We have created impoverished public spaces to support our collective Motor City ethos, and the urban spaces people love will continue to be exclusive the longer we promote auto-centric development.
The erosion of our public school system also remains a major limiting factor in a full and complete resurgence of our central cities. Detroit itself is rejuvenating in part because its low was so bad — worse than it would have been without racism and white flight — but a lack of strong schools will prevent families from returning.
Decades of attacks on funding for schools — including via the expansion of charter schools and schools of choice — have created a competitive environment where
good schools get better and bad schools fall apart, bringing communities with them. With typically "good" schools, many suburbs will retain a semblance of strength.
Cities best poised for a resurgence are therefore those with "good bones": walkable, older, smaller cities where libraries, schools, businesses and places of worship are integrated tightly into the community fabric — places like Royal Oak, Dearborn and Hamtramck. Where parents don’t need to be chauffeurs, adults can walk home after a night out, families can walk to the park, and a sense of community is fostered within neighborhoods.
More equitable societies build more of these places, and they consequently spend less money on infrastructure. The places currently in this "small town" form have a leg up on resurgence because they are in high demand.
Resurgence also necessarily occurs in the context of a continually socially unjust and inequitable society where racial dividing lines remain in wealth and in the types of neighborhoods where people live. Community and local economic development programs that work in other countries simply don’t work here because we lack a similar social safety net or
tax system. Disinvested cities and inner suburbs with higher rates of population decline and business abandonment don’t have the same financial capacity to create public spaces that support individual housing and business development.
Communities undergoing change or rejuvenation typically attract outside investment and residents. But this is a zero-sum game, meaning other communities must "lose."
Communities with longer periods of economic stagnation or decline are less likely to be able to rebound, especially because of the high cost of demolishing or fixing up abandoned properties or building new developments.
So while it may sound self-fulfilling, the places in Metro Detroit poised to see a resurgence are those already at the forefront. They have the necessary mix of walkable centers and strong schools. These places will continue to generate increased property tax revenue, which will afford them the opportunity to grow further. And those places that have promoted dense, walkable, urban developments will see this most significantly.
The era of the mall has passed. Urbanism is in, and the places spared from decline are most poised to remain on top.
Trouble is brewing on two fronts for Michigan’s suburbs
Michigan suburbs are confronting two issues in the coming years: stagnant population growth and the squeeze of Michigan’s property tax limitations. Both issues create challenges for suburban governments to provide services.
Population stagnation
Michigan has been idling since the 1970s. Economic malaise and an aging population contributed to slow rates of growth that placed Michigan’s population growth 49th among the 50 states. Michigan’s population is projected to grow at an annual rate of only 0.15% for the next 30 years. From 1970-90 the loss of people was felt most sharply in Michigan’s core cities — Detroit, Flint, Saginaw, etc. — and in rural areas. Since then, this has been experienced in inner ring suburbs. Communities closest to cities exploded with growth as Baby Boom families moved in. But they are now being left behind as new developments on the extreme reaches of metropolitan areas — the exurbs — enjoy population growth. To be clear, this is a shuffling of existing populations, not accommodating new migrants from other states or nations. The populations remaining in inner ring suburbs are getting older. Households that once were homes to multiple children are now often empty nests with the parents aging
in place. This shifts the services demanded of the suburban governments toward programs such as public and mental health services, transit and senior centers.
Tax limitations
All of this is related to and a result of Michigan’s reliance on property taxes and the limitations placed upon them.
Many suburban communities lost large shares of their property value in the 2007-09 recession. Michigan’s tax limitations have kept many of them from recouping that lost value.
Michigan has among the strictest property tax limitations among the states. In addition to the rate limits contained in state law, the 1978 Headlee Amendment and the assessment cap created by Proposal A of 1994 collude to constrain revenue growth and create incentives that are averse to the well-being of the state.
Headlee constrains the growth of a local government’s tax revenue. If the tax base grows faster than the rate of inflation, tax rates are rolled back to yield an inflationary rate of revenue growth. New property is added to the tax rolls without regard to this limitation. Proposal A limits the annual growth of your home or business’s taxable value to the rate of inflation. It is reset to one-half of the market value of the property in the year after ownership changes hands.
Individually these limitations are working toward the purpose of limiting the growth of tax burden to the rate of inflation. Collectively, however, they go beyond that, effectively creating a vicious cycle in which the “pop-up” in taxable value for an individual parcel caused by changes of ownership under Proposal A ends up triggering the tax rate rollback provisions of the Headlee Amendment.
Eric Lupher is president of the Citizens Research Council of Michigan, a nonpartisan, not-for-profit, research group dedicated to improving state and local government.
The last couple of years have seen healthy real estate markets in many areas. The bidding up of purchase prices has contributed to an appreciation of the market value for most properties. You would think this would benefit government tax revenues, but the tax limitations have muted the benefits.
Aging and urban sprawl
Two years ago, the Citizens Research Council analyzed local governments’ ability to raise revenues within the confines of Michigan’s constitutional property tax limitations. We found that local governments of all kinds are not able to yield year-to-year property tax revenue growth sufficient to maintain services. Only governments that can add to their tax bases — those
able to accommodate and encourage development — prosper.
Those without developable land — e.g., our builtout inner ring suburbs — or where no parties are interested in developing have often sought new property tax revenue through tax rate increases to maintain service levels.
We followed the tax limitation analysis by documenting the prevalence of tax rate increases from 2004-20. We found that 90% of counties have increased tax rates, as have 68% of cities and 62% of townships. These effects were seen across urban and rural, dense city and suburb, and populous and small communities.
The exurb communities and the counties that host them fare best. But even these communities may need to seek new tax revenues because increased populations create demands for increased service levels.
We also found that our tax limitations have swung the problem with tax burdens to the far extreme. Tax limitations were adopted in part to avoid taxing people out of their homes. Prior to these limits, large year-to-year jumps in value created unaffordable tax bill increases. Now we find that the tax
limitations are taxing people into their homes. Empty nesters who otherwise might downsize to more manageable homes and tax burdens are often confronted with higher taxes if they move to properties valued less than the home they would sell.
Change needed
Collectively, these issues leave suburban communities in a tough spot. Michigan’s population is not growing. The tax limitations are contributing to elderly homeowners aging in place because downsizing can create additional costs. When there is turnover in property ownership and appreciation of the existing tax bases, local governments do not benefit because of the interaction of the two tax limitations.
The micro effects are that suburban communities are looking for every opportunity to add to their tax bases and increasing their tax rates to maintain service levels. The macro effect is that people and businesses are moving farther into the exurbs, contributing to urban sprawl. This is not sustainable. Suburban communities have been the engine that has fueled Michigan for decades while our inner cities and rural areas have struggled on many fronts. The challenges suggest suburbs will struggle next. Change is needed, specifically with local government finance reform.
Collaboration is key to help build success for every community
As a longtime municipal leader of an inner-ring suburb in metropolitan Detroit (Oak Park), I often get asked for my perspective and I can’t help but liken it to the plight of a middle sibling in a large family unit. Although not often the focal point of the family, we often benefit from the large-scale wins, but nonetheless require unique solutions to our individual needs.
As I began my career in public service in the early 2000s, it was clear that the needs of Detroit’s suburban cities were uniquely different than those of Detroit proper. However, in the last 20 years, an interesting and dynamic shift has occurred. Now, cities like Oak Park, Ferndale, Royal Oak or Warren share many of the same needs, wants and desires not only with each other, but with the core city of Detroit itself. Chief among them are the resources needed to fully position our communities for success and the unity to advocate for those resources effectively regardless of territorial lines. Those of us working along the Eight Mile corridor know all too well how devastating it can be to miss opportunities for
alignment and go without the resources needed to spur revitalization. Our need as supporting players in the Detroit metropolitan area to create shared priorities, collaborate across municipal boundaries, plan regionally and make compelling bids for competitive statewide resources cohesively is as important now as ever before.
Other notable challenges currently facing inner-ring suburbs include lack of available land as well as the difficulty and expense in preparing redevelopment projects. This is not to take away from the many resources provided by both state and regional partners, but to draw additional attention to the need for even greater understanding and creative problem-solving.
Additionally, local municipalities are indirectly forced to incur costs with no effective relief or oversight. Take the district court funding model, for example. This model is mandated on local units of government to fund district court operations with no direct oversight. A recent informal survey of communities like Oak Park proved that, almost without exception, these courts are op-
erating at a dramatic shortfall. This broken funding model sets us all up to fail (not to mention it can lead to an unfair application of the justice system).
Conversely, there can be no doubt that the increase (from its low in the early 2000s) in stateshared revenue has been an incremental improvement for communities like Oak Park; however, the mass application of policy is largely missing the mark. Michigan is a "one big city" state, not unlike many other states in our country. The difference being, most of those other states (with whom we compete), offer myriad responsive local policy solutions like a regional sales tax rather than a one-sizefits-all approach.
When asked to pinpoint the larg-
est missed opportunity collectively facing Detroit and its suburbs, it is without question mass transit. Much like those in Detroit proper, our residents and businesses have a dire need for reliable mass transit options. Transportation and housing costs account for two-thirds of the average household income and our residents are disproportionately cost-burdened. This topic, however, is often plagued with a mixture of misunderstandings and political posturing.
While some may view mass transit as a political football, from an economic development perspective, it is a vital tool for basic market competitiveness. When comparing our core region to other major metropolitan regions across the country, mass transit is
a baseline indicator for vitality. When it comes to the metro Detroit region, we are gritty, determined, hardworking people who know how to get behind a good thing. Need an example? Look no further than the Detroit Lions fan base. So, my call to action? Let’s refuse to get lost in the politicking surrounding mass transit and approach the conversation cohesively for the regional economic catalyst it truly is. If nothing else, we should review comparable case studies from across the country, assess best practices and apply them. As we've witnessed in the successful tenure of Mayor Mike Duggan and the city of Detroit, the true measure of success is in the ability to cut through it all and create real and lasting change. WE can do this.
With state and federal help, cities can prioritize affordable housing
Back in November, the city of Dearborn held a town hall for residents of our east end, in a neighborhood near Lonyo and Warren Avenue. The city is investing over $400,000 in work to prepare about 40 vacant lots for expedited, private redevelopment into duplexes, single family homes and, potentially, a townhome or two that will be prioritized as affordable options for home ownership.
We expected a few dozen residents to show up. In the end, we had more attendees than we have lots to sell. This is just one example of what our recent housing market study and the last Census are telling us: Dearborn is growing significantly, and demand for not just housing but home ownership is massive.
Dearborn grew 12% in the last Census, and almost half of our population is younger than 30. As communities across America talk about a housing crisis, our Lonyo town hall was the embodiment of what that means for us. Our population is young and growing, and if we do not have the housing opportunities they want, where they can start building their futures, we will be facing the same drain our
peer cities deal with as our talent finds that housing elsewhere.
We need 150 housing units per year for the next 10 years to meet current demand, and we’ve averaged only 26 a year since 2012. To address this, we’re overhauling decades of old regulations to make it easier to rehab and expand old housing (73% of our housing stock was built before 1959) and build new housing elsewhere.
We’re also investing more than $3 million in predevelopment, eliminating costly time and uncertainty by running sites through our own approvals proactively, so that private developers and builders can come in, finalize approvals and pull permits as quickly as possible. We have more than 500 units of housing possible on the sites we’re working on, including those lots in Lonyo.
Here’s what Dearborn is doing a little differently (and what we think is needed to address housing in our city and probably yours, too): While a project being profitable is important, we think creating pathways to ownership and increasing green space and supporting placemaking that creates desirable neighborhoods are critical. We’re anchoring all of our predevelopment invest-
ment to bake these outcomes into the sites we support, trading certainty and speed for a defined community return on investment.
Other cities are doing this important work, too. But there’s a math problem that surpasses everything cities can do within their regulatory space.
Jordan Twardy is the director of economic development for the city of Dearborn.
Here’s the Dearborn example: the average return on a home sale here is $176 per square foot. The average cost of construction is well over $200 per square foot. This means development incentives are necessary, but the tools we have, and their processes, are broken.
Current incentive tools and processes generally focus on bare minimum affordability and development profitability. This forces developers and communities into cookie-cutter projects that heavily favor rental housing.
Renting is a fine option, but ownership is the proven pathway to wealth generation and multi-generational prosperity. Instead of incentive tools that defer tax revenue for 10, 20 or 30 years
and guarantee only a handful of “affordable” units in predominantly rental products, we need tools that respond to the demand for middle housing and ownership opportunities. Duplexes, townhomes and condos can be built at scale, and can blend quality design and affordability. They can also be structured for ownership.
As a city, the only way a decades-long deferral of needed tax revenue is worth it is if we can also bake opportunities for ownership and requirements for green space and quality design into the deal. These are the attributes that will build wealth and prosperity for our citizens and their families, and lead to strong, desirable and resilient cities.
We have a housing need that we, and the private market, can’t meet on our own. To do this, we’re also going to need federal help. Even with tax deferral, that revenue-to-return gap is too large for cities to handle on their own.
The good news is government
has proven it can boost the housing market, looking back to federal zoning and planning acts of the 1920s. These gave an easily replicable framework for housing development that was adopted by states and cities for decades to come, directly influencing today’s housing stock and neighborhoods. Federal housing and highway investment in the 1930s, ‘40s and ‘50s also transformed our built environment with billions of dollars devoted to housing and infrastructure across America. We can do this without a repeat of well-documented ills of redlining segregation, urban renewal extremism and over-prescribing one-size-fits-all requirements. If we wanted to, instead of watching cities and states piecemeal their way to mediocrity while our housing stock further erodes, the federal government could rally us for another Operation Warp Speed to address housing nationally with best practices and practical guidance, fueling opportunities for ownership at a time when the American Dream is increasingly out of reach, and perhaps even give a sorely polarized nation a common cause.
Erik Tungate is the city manager of Oak Park.
Former Delmar owners open restaurant on Nautical Mile
By Jay Davis
Two Macomb County natives are planting their flag in the area with a new restaurant on a busy strip.
Dox Grillhouse opened Dec. 9 at 25225 Jefferson Ave. in St. Clair Shores along the area’s Nautical Mile. Dox comes from Anthony Mancini and Patti Kukula, who previously owned Delmar in Detroit’s Greektown area. Delmar closed a year ago after four years in business. Mancini also owns Celina’s Sports Bar in Madison Heights.
“We wanted to do a neighborhood bar with a rooftop,” Mancini said. “I grew up in St. Clair Shores. I’ve been looking for a spot in town for years. This one came along the weekend of Memorial Day in 2022 and we bought it that Tuesday.” Mancini and Kukula bought the land and developed the concept. Mancini did not provide specific investment figures, but said the team has put millions of dollars into the project.
“We built everything from the ground up,” Mancini said. “It’s different. We essentially did a new ver-
sion of Delmar upstairs, but we’re obviously more of a restaurant.”
Royal Oak architectural firm Krieger Klatt handled the design of the more than 10,000-squarefoot restaurant, which had been empty for about 15 years. It was previously home to Gourmet House banquet ball. Decor includes two bright, colorful paintings brought in from Florida. Detroit-based artist Joey Salamon also contributed some pieces.
Dox has seating for about 400 guests, including 120 seats on the main floor and 150 on the second deck. The main floor includes a large bar with space for 18 people. A large outdoor patio will open in the spring.
Dox will have a separate carryout area, according to Kukula, that will help with kitchen flow.
Plans call for live music and DJs on the main floor. Dox also features a large floor-to-ceiling TV screen. Dox will have a staff of 3040 employees.
Chef Dave Schrepferman, who has more than 25 years of experience, put together the Dox menu. It features appetizers such as steak and cheese eggrolls, mega nachos
and a charcuterie board. Soups, salads, sandwiches, burgers and pizzas are also on the menu. Entrees include lemon pepper chicken cutlets, pan-fried chicken parmigiana and grilled salmon.
Downtown Ferndale restaurant to close after 17 years in business
By Jay Davis
A downtown Ferndale restaurant is calling it quits after 17 years in business.
The Emory will close at the end of the year, according to a Dec. 6 social media post. The restaurant opened in 2007 and is located at the corner of Woodward Avenue and East Troy Street.
The Emory is owned by Chris Johnston, Krista Johnston and Brian Reedy, who also own Woodward Avenue Brewers and live music venue The Loving Touch, both of which are also located in downtown Ferndale.
The Emory is named after Chris Johnston's great-great-grandfather, Emory.
In the social media post, the owners didn’t give a reason for the closure.
“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end,” the post reads. “Since 2007, The Emory has been a place for our community to find comfort food, split a bottle of wine with a friend, spend time with family, or find other locals who want to spend some time alone together. We’ve loved seeing the city grow, and seeing our staff evolve and move on to do amazing things.”
The Emory offers a variety of sliders, sandwiches, small plates and salads. It features a large brunch menu and craft cocktails.
Ownership did not immediately respond to Crain’s request for more information.
The Emory will be open Fridays through Sundays through the end of the year.
Ownership in the post shared some of the fond memories they’ve made over the last 17 years.
“We’ve seen our guests’ first dates, new years’ kisses, farewells, and many other moments that we’re honored to have shared,” the post reads. “We’ve been the
Pastas, steaks and chops, taco and quesadillas are also offered.
Mancini said the Dox menu is similar to what is offered at Celina’s. He expects the chicken wings to be a hit.
“At Celina’s we sell insane amounts of bar food,” Mancini said. “We basically enhanced Celina’s menu a bit. We didn’t want to go too expensive. Everything is homemade.”
The Dox drink menu includes cocktails such as the Dox grand margarita, along with mocktails and wine. Draft beer includes two taps from neighboring Baffin Brewing Co. Baffin does not have a food menu and will offer food from Dox, Kukula said.
“We’re over the moon about this,” Kukula said. “My husband just retired. Our kids are thrilled about it. We’ve covered a lot of bases with a menu that includes a lot of reasonable options.”
Mancini is confident in the concept. He hopes to open one or two more Dox locations in Michigan before expanding in the South.
“I wanted to open the first one in St. Clair Shores because that’s my hometown,” Mancini said. “This bar is different. Once you see it, you’ll understand. When we had Delmar, we were in a landlord’s space so there was only so much we could do. This is our building. It’s a place people have to see.”
we’ll be writing the last chapter of The Emory. “We want to say (thank you) for all the years of support. Let’s make it a December to (remember).”
Dox Grillhouse is open at 25225
Jefferson Ave. in St. Clair Shores in the area’s Nautical Mile.
Dox Grillhouse has space for about 400 between two floors. | DOX GRILLHOUSE
The Emory in downtown Ferndale will close at the end of the year after 17 years in business. CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS
After a breakneck
2024, Bob Riney looks to keep momentum at Henry Ford Health
By Dustin Walsh
Henry Ford Health has had a banner 2024.
The Detroit-based health system celebrated the groundbreaking for a new $2.2 billion hospital tower and a nearly $400 million research center with Michigan State University, the acquisition of eight Ascension hospitals in the region and reveled in its strong partnership with the NFL-best Detroit Lions.
But a new year is approaching and whether the system can maintain its momentum is a question haunting its top executive Bob Riney and its boardroom.
“There’s no way we’re going to have a replicated year of big ribbon cuttings of that magnitude,” Riney told Crain’s. “That’s a once in a fill-in-the-blank opportunity. But I’m a big believer in momentum, and I’ve tasked my executives with their top three ideas of how we continue the internal momentum while we do the blocking and tackling of getting the new developments going.”
Riney said the projects, which won’t be completed in full until 2029, will have a residual effect on momentum, though. It’s critical for the system as it continues to raise funds for its new development. Riney said it has raised $503 million of the $750 million goal.
“We want to keep people feeling they are part of these big new developments,” he said. “They will see cranes in the sky. That helps. But it has to be more than that.”
The health system is preparing to transform its patient-facing operations to make sure the Henry Ford Health name remains in the thoughts of the region.
“Our objective is to have new tactics that will make the front of our operations even easier for our patients in a very noticeable way,” Riney said.
The first step in the plan is to expand the capabilities of MyChart, he said. The EPIC-owned mobile application allows patients to schedule appointments and com-
municate with their physicians.
HFH wants the app to become more central in its communications with patients between visits and remove burdens from providers.
It’s all part of a strategy for HFH to exist on two sides of the health care model — to be both a value-based health care system that provides continuous care to patients while also using its major investments — a 1-millionsquare-foot new tower on West Grand Boulevard — to become a national destination. Its overall $3 billion development in New Center is even called “Destination Grand.”
“Some health centers focus on what is value-based care; organizing care so people are getting care at the right time at the right place to eliminate unnecessary ER visits,” Riney said. “Then some focus on being a destination for really complex clinical conditions. I don’t think it should be an ‘either or,’ it should be a ‘both and.’ ”
Riney’s predecessor, Wright Lassiter III, focused on expanding the Henry Ford Health name nationally and internationally to force it to be a destination health care provider.
But the system is dancing on a razor’s edge by investing an estimated $5 billion in the next decade while also taking on the challenges of integrating the eight Ascension hospitals.
The combined entity, which includes all HFH sites, employs 50,000 workers at more than 550 locations across the state, and effectively doubles the size of HFH into an organization with a projected $12 billion in total revenue.
Not only is the system trying to integrate Ascension’s operations and expand EPIC’s electronic medical records system into Ascension, but it is also playing both sides by maintaining Ascension’s Catholic mission.
Riney previously called the combined health system a “place where secular and faith-based care can co-exist.”
Riney said the Ascension integration is running smoothly, due to the company’s focus on culture and the Ascension providers’ desire for EPIC’s technology.
“It’s working out better than I thought and I thought it would work out well,” Riney said. “I knew they wanted to convert to EPIC and to use our EPIC, but I didn’t know to what extent they are eager to get on the same platform. They want integration to go quicker. The mood is really good. I’ve been to a lot of the former Ascension sites and they feel welcomed and respected. The cultural approach we’ve been taking is creating the right optimism.”
The move to take over Ascen-
sion’s Southeast Michigan hospitals was a play for market share as the health care industry has transitioned to a volume-based industry — getting as many patients, and their payors, through the doors as possible — since the passing of the Affordable Care Act in 2010.
The Michigan health care industry has been under rapid consolidation in recent years, including the 2022 merger of Spectrum Health into Beaumont to form Corewell Health and the acquisition of Lansing-based Sparrow Health last year by University of Michigan Health.
Riney believes the consolidation is over for HFH. Instead of ac-
quisitions or mergers, the system will focus on providing service lines to small- and medium-sized hospitals, further opening the funnel to access patients with HFH providers.
“We have always had good relationships with other health systems,” he said. “Our goal is to help them solve problems. To allow them to tap into the technology and tools we have as a larger system. There are some markets that are a stronger alignment than others, but if we do value-based care correctly and we leverage the front-door experience to be the most user-friendly, we have the opportunity to grow in our marketplace and elsewhere.”
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Henry Ford Health President and CEO Bob Riney HeNrY FOrD HeALTH
Henry Ford Health President and CEO Bob Riney (center) is joined by other officials and executives at a groundbreaking earlier this year on its campus expansion in Detroit’s New Center neighborhood. QUINN bANKS
Lawmakers vote to increase, lengthen unemployment benefits
By David Eggert
LANSING — Michigan’s $362 maximum weekly unemployment benefit would gradually rise to $614 and people who lose their jobs could get the benefit for up to 26 weeks a year instead of 20 weeks under a bill headed to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer for her signature.
The Democratic-controlled House passed the legislation 58-51 on a mostly party-line vote Dec. 10, five days after it cleared the Democratic-led Senate.
The $362 max, which has remained steady for 22 years, is the ninth-lowest benefit among U.S. states and the lowest in the Great Lakes region. It would increase to
$446 in 2025, to $530 in 2026, to $614 in 2027 and, each year after, to an inflation-adjusted amount.
“Unemployment benefits are not a permanent solution, but they are a lifeline for people who find themselves out of a job through no fault of their own, to get back on their feet,” said Rep. Jim Haadsma, D-Battle Creek, who called Senate
PEOPLE ON THE MOVE
To place your listing, visit crainsdetroit.com/people-on-the-move or, for more information, contact Debora Stein at 917.226.5470 / dstein@crain.com
CONSTRUCTION
Asphalt Specialists, LLC
FINANCE
Mercantile Bank
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LAW
Foster Swift Collins and Smith, PC
Bill 40 “common sense” legislation. “From the gas pump to the grocery store, families across Michigan are coping with higher costs. But families without a stable income are struggling the most.”
All but two Republicans opposed the measure, which was criticized by business groups. Employers pay taxes on wages to fund the benefits.
“For all businesses in the state, this is going to be a major cost increase that they have to incur,” said Rep. William Bruck, R-Erie.
final approval to Senate Bills 962, 975-976 and 981. They would, among other things, raise the cap on the allowable number of hardship waivers that claimants can request to avoid having to pay back overpayments, provide pathways for claimants to consolidate their cases and allow them to disprove the presumption that they voluntarily left their jobs without good cause after missing work for three or more straight days due to extenuating circumstances.
House Democrats, who have faced criticism for not having enough urgency before Republicans take charge of the chamber in January and break Democrats’ two-year governing trifecta, held a celebratory news conference after voting.
Yemane GebreMichael has been named CEO of ASI (Asphalt Specialists, LLC). Yemane has served in executive roles for organizations in the public and private sectors with over 25 years of experience in executive leadership, P&L management, operations, sales, corporate strategy and partner management. He holds an MBA from the University of Colorado in Denver and a B.A. in Business Administration from Langston University and lives in Rochester with his wife Phyllis and twin girls Alem and Asmeret.
Jamal (Jay) Baydoun, First VP, Senior Commercial Banker is a proven leader in the industry, with nearly three decades of experience in business and finance. Focusing on the unique needs of middle-market businesses, he delivers tailored financial solutions to his clients.
Foster Swift Collins & Smith, PC welcomes litigator Lino A. Taormina to the firm’s Southfield office.
CONSTRUCTION
Clark Construction Company
Having practiced in Southeast Michigan for over five years, Lino primarily represents insurance carriers in: first-party/ no-fault suits, third-party auto negligence suits and insurance coverage disputes. His litigation experience also includes construction defect suits, premises liability suits and large loss pre-suit investigations, along with a variety of tort and contract litigation.
Clark Construction Company is proud to announce the promotion of two highly respected senior leaders, Robert (Bobby) LaLonde and Allen Blower, who have each demonstrated exemplary leadership and dedication to Clark’s mission. Bobby LaLonde has been named President of Clark Construction, and Allen Blower has been promoted to Chief Operating Officer (COO). Both Bobby and Allen are recognized as visionary team builders committed to mentoring and advancing the careers of their team members. Their leadership has been crucial to fostering a culture of innovation, diversity, and inclusion within Clark, aligning with the company’s values and strategic direction.
A dedicated community advocate, he serves on several area non-profit boards and enjoys coaching and mentoring his son’s football team. Greg Schaedel, VP, Commercial Banker, brings over a decade of banking experience to Mercantile’s team and focuses on developing existing and attracting new relationships. As a service industry veteran and former restauranteur, Schaedel is passionate about providing exceptional customer service, while building long-lasting relationships.
HEALTHCARE
Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute
Six major business organizations sent a letter to House Speaker Joe Tate, D-Detroit, saying the average weekly max in “competitor” states — not just those in the Great Lakes region but also southern states — is $502. They had said legislators should ask the state Unemployment Insurance Agency to project how much pressure any benefit increase would put on the $2.8 billion Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund, which had almost $4.7 billion before the COVID-19 pandemic began in early 2020, so Michigan avoids having to borrow federal money if the fund is insolvent during a recession.
The Michigan Chamber of Commerce “is strongly opposed to this proposal because it is nearly impossible to enact a benefit payout of this size without increasing UI taxes on employers,” Wendy Block, senior vice president of business advocacy, said in a statement after the House vote.
“We are extremely disappointed that the House chose to pass significant policy without any changes. Doubling the weekly benefit over three years goes too far too fast and will increase the unemployment insurance taxes and put the UI Trust Fund at risk,” said Amanda Fisher, Michigan director of the National Federation of Independent Business.
Also Dec. 10, the House gave
“This act hasn’t been updated in more than 20 years, and it’s long past time to make some changes — changes that will help the current residents of our state and help us compete in this region,” Tate said.
“This is a huge victory for Michigan’s working people,” Michigan AFL-CIO President Ron Bieber said in a news release. “Strong unemployment benefits that allow workers to continue to put food on the table and support their families while they look for work is simply the right thing to do by working people.”
In 2011, then-Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican, signed legislation to cut the maximum duration of benefits in a calendar year to 20 weeks from 26 weeks. Forty-five states offer 26 weeks or more, according to the nonpartisan Senate Fiscal Agency.
Roughly one-third of Michigan claimants reach the 20-week limit currently.
The fiscal agency projects the bill could add between $607 million and $636 million in payouts annually in 2027, based on current trends and payments. The total would be larger in an economic downturn.
Karmanos Cancer Institute welcomes Hassan Nasser, M.D., otolaryngologist (ENT) and surgical oncologist. He is part of the Head and Neck Oncology
Multidisciplinary Team, providing surgical removal for benign and cancerous tumors of the head and neck (face, jaw, neck, nose and sinuses, parathyroid, parotid gland, throat, thyroid, tongue, and voice box). Dr. Nasser performs robotic surgery and the full spectrum of plastic and reconstruction surgery, including microvascular free tissue transfer.
TRANSPORTATION
American Roads
American Roads, owner and operator of critical transportation infrastructure like the Detroit Windsor Tunnel, has named Regine Beauboeuf, PE, CEO. With 39 years of experience managing major projects such as the Gordie Howe International Bridge and Detroit’s I-375 Reconnecting Communities project, Regine is committed to enhancing the tunnel’s vital role in connecting communities and driving economic growth in the region.
Blower
LaLonde
Schaedel
Baydoun
Michelin guide now grades Detroit’s cultural attractions
By Jay Davis
A new guide from a world-renowned group could help spark interest in Detroit from abroad.
Visit Detroit on Dec. 10 launched the rst Michelin Green Guide for Detroit. e guide focuses on culture and travel and pushes visitors to the city to areas focusing on art, culture, architecture, music and neighborhoods.
e guide will be released in Detroit later this month. e guide will be released in French and marketed at French-speaking visitors. A French edition of the Detroit Michelin Green Guide was released in Paris this past fall and will be distributed throughout Europe.
e Green Guide is separate from the more well-known Red Guide, which focuses on restaurants and bestows the coveted Michelin stars (up to three). In the Green Guide, Michelin uses a set of nine criteria to rate attractions.
ree stars: Worth a special journey; two stars: Worth a detour; and one star: Worth a visit.
Michelin has 28 editions in the Red Guide series covering cities around the globe. In the U.S., they include New York City, Chicago, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. It’s unknown if Detroit is on track to earn a Red Guide.
Detroit is the 10th U.S. city to get a Green Guide. New York was the rst in 2005. Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Miami, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and Chicago also have Green Guides.
e Michelin Guides are a series of books published by French tire company of the same, rst published in 1900. e Green Guide awards up to three stars for sites such as monuments and museums in its chosen locales.
A handful of Detroit and metro area sites earned three-star ratings:
◗ Cranbrook Educational Community in Bloom eld Hills
◗ Detroit Institute of Arts
◗ Downtown Detroit
◗ e Guardian Building in Detroit
◗ e Henry Ford in Dearborn
e 160-page guide also labels Eastern Market, Michigan Central Station and the Motown Historical Museum as “unmissable” sites for visitors. Other “top picks” include the Detroit International Riverfront, the Whitney, murals across the city and the Fox and Fisher theaters.
e guide also gives visitors recommendations on hotels in down-
town Detroit, along with restaurant, shopping and nightlife suggestions.
Visit Detroit President and CEO Claude Molinari said the new guide is an invitation for visitors of the area to explore one of America’s most iconic cities.
“... to discover the innovation of our industries, the beauty in our art, avors of our kitchens, and the
Historic Lexington hotel joins international brand
By Elizabeth Schanz
A 164-year-old hotel near the Lake Huron coast has teamed up with an international hospitality brand.
Cadillac House in Lexington announced Dec. 9 it is now part of the Tapestry Collection by Hilton.
e partnership will help to further position the hotel and town as a tourism destination.
“More and more guests are now seeking independent hotels with authentic experiences and unique stories,” Jenna Hackett, senior vice president and global leader of Hilton Lifestyle Brands, said in a news release. “ e Cadillac House pairs historic charm with elevated o erings like locally inspired design
and inviting food and beverage and is a welcomed addition to the Collection.”
e Cadillac House rst opened at 5502 Main St. on July 4, 1860.
e hotel has stood as a hospitality location as the town evolved from a shing village to a boating, entertainment and vacation destination, according to the release.
e building was purchased in 2016 by Stacy Fox, a Lexington resident and principal of Roxbury Group, a Detroit-based real estate developer. Under new ownership, the Cadillac House was restored to its “original stature and beauty,” reopening on its anniversary in 2018. e renovation earned the Cadillac House a Governor’s Award for Historic Preservation.
e Cadillac House expanded in 2021 with the renovation of its former carriage house to o er a total of 23 overnight rooms and created the Hidden Cavern event venue, according to the release.
Now, the Cadillac House joins 139 hotels across 16 countries and territories under the Tapestry Collection by Hilton ag, which boasts a collection of independent hotels, each with their own personalities in o -the-beaten-path destinations. As with Roxbury’s other hotels, including the David Whitney and the Element Detroit at the Metropolitan Building in Detroit, the Cadillac House will be managed by San Diego-based Azul Hospitality going forward, according to the release.
stories of our people,” Molinari said in a news release. “Given the trajectory Detroit is on, we are honored and proud to be one of just 10 U.S. cities to achieve this recognition and thank Michelin for inspiring the world to visit Detroit.”
DIA COO Elliott Broom said the recognition is a testament to the museum’s commitment to o er-
ing an unparalleled cultural experience. “We are honored to be celebrated as a must-visit destination that inspires and enriches visitors from around the world,” Broom said in the release.
e guide notes the number of cranes in the skyline and mentions projects including the revitalization of Michigan Central Station. e guide also mentions the attendance record set during the 2024 NFL Draft in Detroit.
Paris-based Michelin Travel Guides Editorial and Contents Global Director Philippe Orain called Detroit a good introduction to what America is all about.
“It’s very human. Detroit is a place that makes people believe anything is possible,” Orain said in the release.
“ e history of Detroit is quite fascinating, and it’s now booming with culture, art and atmosphere. It encapsulates the meaning of a hidden gem. Detroit is a combination of art, architecture, music, sports, nature, and kind people, o ering a really interesting mix that attracts people.”
The Detroit Institute of Arts is one of a handful of Detroit attractions that earned a three-star rating from Michelin. | DETROIT INSTITUTE OF ARTS
Detroit is the 10th U.S. city to get
The 160-page Detroit Michelin Green Guide will be released in the area later this month. | MICHELIN
around the state to collaborate with Los Alamos researchers on multidisciplinary projects and conduct joint workforce development and education programs.
The labs are expected to be operational by 2030, according to the MSF memo, creating 200 or more permanent jobs — including “highly skilled” federal research lab positions — over 10 years, with an average salary of about $200,000.
The labs are expected to attract out-of-state companies that are interested in partnering with Los Alamos National Laboratory or UM to Michigan, per the MSF memo.
UM President Santa Ono said at a recent board of regents meeting that the new center “will strengthen (UM) research capabilities dramatically, open incredible new opportunities for our students, staff and faculty, create high-paying jobs in Michigan, and, we believe, invigorate the state’s place in the growing artificial intelligence ecosystem and a flourishing information economy.”
The effort builds on yearslong UM faculty engagement with Los Alamos researchers and more recently a research collaboration forged between the two institutions earlier this year to develop advanced computing technologies with $15 million in funding from the national lab. Under the expanded agreement, the laboratory and the university will partner in areas including artificial intelligence, materials science and advanced manufacturing, according to the MSF brief.
“Los Alamos drives a wide range of vital national security programs that utilize high-performance computing, AI and other capabilities including advanced materials and manufacturing to provide leading-edge solutions to some of the world’s most challenging problems,” Thom Mason, director of Los Alamos National Laboratory, said in a news release issued by UM this month. “This partnership with the University of Michigan will provide critical new resources to support our data-intensive work.”
AIRPORT
From Page 3
over the next few months. Beginning Dec. 21, Delta will offer nonstop flights to the Turks and Caicos Islands and as of Jan. 11, nonstop flights to Tulum, Mexico.
Delta will also resume flights to Nassau, Bahamas. on Dec. 21, a route that has been inactive since March 2020, according to a news release.
“We’re pleased to welcome Avelo Airlines, an additional low-cost option, to Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport,” Wayne County Airport Authority CEO Chad Newton said in a release. “This partnership is a great way to offer our customers the opportunity to travel to New Haven. We hope this seasonal route will attract new customers to our region as well.”
DTW is Michigan’s largest airport and offers approximately 800 flights per day from 17 scheduled passenger airlines.
MUSEUM
From Page 3
Meijer Inc. grocery store and other users.
Jeremy Yagoda, the owner of the eponymous alliterative destination crammed with full of antique and contemporary games along Orchard Lake Road, told Crain’s on Dec. 9 that Marvin’s Marvelous Mechanical Museum, started by his late father Marvin in 1980, will have its last day of business in Farmington Hills on Jan. 5.
What follows will be several months of construction in the new approximately 14,000-square-foot space at Maple and Orchard Lake roads, close to triple its current 5,300-square-foot footprint. Yagoda hopes to reopen in late May or early June following a buildout that’s expected to cost at least $500,000.
“My dad was one of those people who just wanted to cram in as much stuff as he could and it’s pretty tight quarters in there” in Farmington Hills, Yagoda said. “It’s going to give us space to have a couple private party rooms for birthdays.”
Hazel Park-based Designstruct Inc. is serving as the general contractor and architect on the project. West Bloomfield Township-based Goodwin Real Estate Advisors brokered the 10-year lease with two five-year renewal options, Yagoda said.
In November 2023, Farmington Hills signed off on letting the shopping plaza’s owner tear down the northern half of the shopping center, where tenants include Marvin’s, Five Below and Buffalo Wild Wings. The southern portion of the complex includes tenants Ulta, DSW and T.J. Maxx.
Members of the public protested the demolition, but ultimately
their outcry didn’t sway the Planning Commission, which recommended that City Council sign off on razing the property. The City Council green-lit that in February.
Staff in the Farmington Hills Planning Department said no demolition has started yet.
The Meijer grocery store would clock in at about 70,400 square feet, while the overall redevelopment addition would total about 160,000 square feet of new space on the roughly 28-acre site, the site plan from February shows.
There would be four Orchard Lake Road-fronting buildings, all less than 10,000 square feet, plus a pair of 25,300-square-foot spac-
es and a 38,700-square-foot space next to the Meijer space.
Hunter’s Square had previously been owned by New York Citybased RPT Realty, formerly Farmington Hills-based Ramco-Gershenson Property Trust.
RPT was sold to Jericho, N.Y.based real estate investment trust Kimco Realty in a $2 billion allstock deal that closed earlier this year.
Kimco then sold Hunter’s Square to Royal Oak-based Symmetry Management Inc., which plans to continue the project originally proposed in November 2023 much as it was originally envisioned. The purchase price was
$31 million for four separate Hunter’s Square properties, according to CoStar Group Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based real estate information service.
Yagoda said there was no ill will toward the Hunter’s Square landlord, which Yagoda said offered him a space in the redeveloped shopping center of only about 4,000 square feet.
“I’m kind of glad this happened. It’s giving us a chance to make this bigger and better,” Yagoda said. “It’s progress. Progress is good. It’s not always good for everyone. We just happen to be the victims here … We’ll be bigger and more marvelous than ever.”
Marvin’s Marvelous Mechanical Museum was started in 1980 by Marvin Yagoda. mARVIN’S mARVELOUS mECHANICAL mUSEUm
Jeremy Yagoda, owner of Marvin’s Marvelous Mechanical Museum, in front of the business’s new location at 6421 Orchard Lake Road in West Bloomfield Township. | ASK PHOTOGRAPHY LLC
“We appreciate the fact that there’s hard questions being put to the project,” Massaron said. “We think the more that we kind of walk through all of the work that’s been done to get to this point and underscore our commitment to the city, the more people will look at this project as something great for the city. is is not about being great for GM. It’s really not about being great for Bedrock. It’s a project that we landed on because we thought it was the best outcome for the city and state.”
Lawmakers ranging from Matt Hall, the Republican incoming speaker of the state House, to Mallory McMorrow, a prominent Royal Oak Democrat in the state Senate, have voiced concerns about what could be $250 million in state funding for the e ort. Perhaps another $100 million could be requested locally from the city and/or the Downtown Development Authority, Massaron and Cullen said in the interview.
e precise public funding structure isn’t known, but could include things like transformational brown eld program incentives and city abatements that would trigger the Community Bene ts Ordinance process, which is required of projects totaling $75 million or more that receive $1 million or more in city land or $1 million or more in city abatements.
e two dealmakers said the RenCen proposal, rst reported in detail in Crain’s on Nov. 25, is the result of years of mulling what to do with the complex.
GM, Cullen said, has explored selling it (including to Bedrock), trying to nd new users and other options, but to no avail.
e appetite in the o ce market to ll some 2.5 million square feet of space is far from robust. Converting all four of the 39-story o ce towers to residential is too expensive and would take far too long to lease the units.
Cullen said the proposal “didn’t just pop out of a fortune cookie with the answer.”
e answer, at least in the minds of GM and Bedrock, is a complicated reimagining of the riverfront o ce fortress built in the 1970s and 1980s in two phases as Detroit continued to decline following the 1967 rebellion that claimed dozens of lives.
Any pro t General Motors realizes from the proposed redevelopment of the Renaissance Center would be donated to nonpro t groups with a focus on education in the city, Massaron said, con rming Detroit News reporting from Dec. 5. But the details of that commitment are still being ironed out.
“At the end of the day, the pursuit of this option isn’t about GM making money,” Massaron said. “It’s about GM nding a way to responsibly and e ectively situate the RenCen complex and the land for the future.”
ROI on RenCen redevelopment
Under the RenCen proposal laid out just before anksgiving,
the complex would be radically repurposed, with the two o ce towers closest to the Detroit River — the 300 and 400 buildings — demolished and the land on which they sit folded into public park space complementing the Detroit RiverWalk.
In addition, the 100 tower on the northwest portion of the site would be converted into 300-400 residential units, while the 200 tower on the northeast portion would remain o ce but be renovated in an e ort to attract new uses. e hotel tower, the state’s tallest building at 727 feet, would be reduced from approximately 1,300 hotel rooms to about 850, with the vacated hotel space being converted into luxury residential units.
In addition, the project would reimagine the ground-level retail and atrium space and provide better access from Je erson Avenue to the waterfront. e 20plus acres of largely surface parking lots east of the complex — where a third RenCen phase would have gone — would be turned into a sports and entertainment complex that project supporters have likened to a Detroit version of Chicago’s Navy Pier, New York City’s Chelsea Piers and London’s O2.
But it’s by no means a nished product.
“Over the next four months, we’re going to keep working with the state, the city and everybody else to gure out how to get a project done,” Massaron said, giving a nod to a self-imposed April deadline to formally determine what’s next for the complex. “But we will not allow the project to be situated in a place where it will decay and rot. at’s kind of what the message is. It’s not that it’s an either/or. It’s that, right now, we think this is the best path forward, and we’re going to keep working, but we can’t work forever and we need to resolve this issue.”
“I don’t think it should be seen as do this (approve public subsidies) or the building comes down,” Massaron continued. “It’s more, let’s work together and gure out the best resolution for that property. What the public, state and city kind of tell us through this process they want us to do is what we’re going to execute.”
However, full demolition of the ve GM-owned towers is on the table, both Massaron and Cullen said, but only as a last resort to ensure they don’t end up going down the same road of blight and decay as Michigan Central Station, the Packard Plant and the former American Motors Corp. headquarters site on the city’s west side.
e two smaller, 21-story 500 and 600 towers of the RenCen have separate ownership.
In general, Bedrock would contribute $1 billion or so to the e ort, while GM would contribute another $250 million. e remainder of the $1.6 billion cost would be made up in the form of public subsidies.
Cullen, Gilbert’s longtime lieutenant and a former GM executive who helped execute the au-
tomaker’s purchase of the complex in the 1990s, said Gilbert’s return on that $1 billion or so investment would be substantially less than a typical commercial real estate or other investment. He said he viewed Gilbert’s e ort on the RenCen as an “altruistic” one.
“If you look at Hudson’s (Detroit development), I don’t think it’s ever going to make a commercial rate of return (15% or so) on that asset, and this is similar,” Cullen said. “Will there be some money coming out of it? I mean, maybe. I hope so. But it won’t be anything commensurate with the scale of the investment, the risk of the investment and the time that’s going to take them to get any return at all.”
ere had been more than six months of speculation about the Renaissance Center’s future following an April announcement that GM would be leaving its longtime headquarters there to move into the new Hudson’s Detroit project. Many of its employees who had been based in the complex have been relocated to GM’s Global Technical Center in Warren at 12 Mile and Mound roads.
GM is expected to move into Hudson’s Detroit starting toward the end of next year, taking the top four oors totaling approximately 200,000 square feet of the $1.4 billion development.
An outlier in the market
GM purchased the RenCen complex in the mid-1990s, relocating there from the New Center area, and poured at least $500 million into renovations and other improvements into the John Portman-designed “city within a city.”
Still, the RenCen has long been seen as an outlier in the commercial real estate market. It exists almost as a fortress, with its own ZIP code, bifurcated from the rest of downtown by the multi-lane Je erson Avenue, with tunnels connecting it to other buildings on the other side of the road.
When Gilbert, the founder and chairman of what is now Rocket Companies Inc. (NYSE: RKT) relocated what then was about 1,500 of his employees from Livonia to downtown, the central business district’s center of gravity began shifting toward Campus Martius Park in the early 2010s.
Since then, downtown’s energy has increasingly been seen along the Woodward corridor and tenants that had prized RenCen operations like Ally Financial Inc. and, most recently, Deloitte LLP have relocated to di erent space north of Je erson.
e goal is to reverse the RenCen’s “city within a city” concept, opening it up to become a vibrant public space at the ground level and continue e orts to boost and expand the riverfront. e riverfront itself has been dramatically reinvented over the last two-plus decades from an uninviting industrial hub to a walkable, pedestrian-friendly amenity that, along with spokes like the Dequindre Cut, attracts millions of visitors a year.
Gilbert foundation gives $3M to expand Motor City Contractor Fund
By Sherri Welch
e Motor City Contractor Fund will expand its assistance to Detroit-based contractors with a new $3 million grant from the Gilbert Family Foundation.
e new funding follows a successful pilot that provided funding, technical assistance and other help to 25 small and minority-owned contractors to help them grow their businesses.
With the new grant, the program will provide another 50 contractors with $5,000 grants to address individual business needs and other support.
“More than $5 billion in annual commercial construction in Detroit is done by contractors from outside the city. MCCF is one way we’re working to keep that wealth in Detroit, serving Detroiters,”
Laura Grannemann, executive director of the Gilbert Family Foundation, said in a news release. “We are thrilled to welcome this next cohort of talented contractors and are eager to see how the program will help their businesses grow.”
e Gilbert Family Foundation, Invest Detroit and Detroit Development Fund launched the pilot of the Motor City Contractor Fund
in 2022 to help smaller contractors in Detroit, especially those led by entrepreneurs of color, overcome systemic barriers to growth so they can secure public- and private-sector contracts as demand for construction, home repairs and rehabilitation projects continues to rise.
e fund, administered by Invest Detroit, provides Detroit-based contractors with technical assistance, business development services, exible and a ordable lending and opportunities to build meaningful partnerships with large construction companies working in the city.
South eld-based general contracting company Barton Malow Builders, small business consulting business LifeLine Global Consulting and e Ownership Initiative, a Black-owned impact advisory rm, are among collaborators on the e ort.
Contractors taking part in the pilot, which ran April 2022-May 2023, shared in $3.5 million in disbursements. Nine contractors secured loans totaling $1.9 million and the contractors met with 20 job providers to get insight into development projects happening in Detroit, leaders said.
Eastern Market’s outgoing CEO looks back at 17 years — and toward what’s next
As Eastern Market Corp. CEO Dan Carmody prepares to step down at year’s end, he’s thinking about all of the changes he’s helped bring to Detroit’s historic Eastern Market, one of the oldest, continuously operating farmers markets in the country. The list is long. It includes those in plain sight, including updates to the market’s historic sheds, streetscaping, the Dequindre Cut passing through the market area, murals, extended market days and prepared food and craftsman vendors among the farmers’ stands. Beyond that, during his 17-year tenure, the market has taken a role in helping incubate food and other small businesses and attracting larger companies, enabled a farm to freezer program and assembled land to increase the market district. Carmody will hand over oversight for the market, including its first new shed in more than 40 years and a $15.5 million campaign to his planned successor Katy Trudeau. He talked with Crain’s about the things he and his team have accomplished during his tenure and how he’s taking some of those strategies to markets in other parts of the country and globe.
What do you think has changed most at Eastern Market during your tenure?
I’m pretty proud of the work of the organization over the last 17 years. When I look back about what’s really changed since not just my arrival, but since the handoff of the management of the market from the city to a dedicated nonprofit, which happened shortly before I got here, certainly the improvements to the sheds are noteworthy. I think we do good work in restoring the historic grandeur of some of those older buildings while adapting them with functionality to meet current-day needs.
I’m also proud that we finally are proceeding with our first new shed in 30 years, even though I won’t be around for its completion. Shed 7 will provide a modern food distribution center for Michigan growers, and that’s something we’ve been working on for a long time.
For most of our growers, this would represent a huge improvement in efficiency and flexibility and ability to grow their markets, because they can bring more than they might sell that particular day, and they don’t have to put it back on a truck and take it home and degrade the product by bringing it out of a cold environment for 12 hours.
You’ve also put in place supports for growing food enterprises and other small businesses, right?
We built two sets of programming that didn’t exist prior to Eastern Market partnership. One was around food access, providing incentives for distribution from Eastern Market to parts of Detroit that may not be able to get to Eastern Market and education aimed at providing nutrient-dense food to vulnerable families. We also have built a very detailed ecosystem to support the incubation and acceleration of particularly food businesses.
Through the Metro Accelerator, a complex that we renovated over the last few years to be an accelerator, we (also) ended up partnering with TechTown Detroit to also make space available for general retailers coming from the Sunday market.
By | Sherri Welch
We also developed what I would call mid-sized crop processing, freezing and fresh-cut operations to help our farmers grow new markets.
And you’ve grown the market district and enhanced public spaces in it?
In terms of the neighborhood, we established a strategy with strong support from the city about how to expand the market district and provide space for larger food companies over time.
With regard to the historic part of the district, I think we’ve had nice, balanced, go ahead, balanced development. We had to wrestle with authenticity issues as real estate property values increase. But we’ve added tens of new businesses, (and) we still have our focus on food.
In terms of public space enhancements, we played a pivotal role in the city expanding the second phase of the Dequindre Cut through the market district, which also included streetscape work, and instituted, along with our friends at 1x Run a very successful “Murals in the Market” program.
Is the organization well-positioned to continue shepherding all of that?
The organization is positioned to keep doing those things into the future. We started with a fairly small organization. Today, we have a professional staff in the 20s and overall employment of about 30-40, with seasonal parttime and field crew. Our budget is right around $5 million.
With that capacity, we’re able to manage the market. We’re able to conduct those important programs around food access and food entrepreneurship. We’ve been able to improve the
market, the market district and regional food systems. And with the Eastern Market Development Corp., we’ve built the capacity to serve as a community-based developer.
The culture of the organization is healthy. Eastern Market Partnerships is a healthy broker between the many, sometimes conflicting 13 different stakeholder groups (growers, retailers, food companies, customers) that call Eastern Market their home. I think the market, the partnership, has done a good job of rallying people and building consensus and making sure that we grow in ways that respect the traditions of the market.
Any thoughts on the hand-off to Katy Trudeau as the market’s new CEO?
One of the last things we’ve done well is actually managed this leadership transition in a way that positions the organization to keep doing the great things it’s been doing. It’s not just Katy Trudeau joining us (last year) as my successor but also keeping some long-time staff and moving them into slightly more responsible roles. Fortunately, Katy was in the saddle for five or six months before the accident (last year that killed his wife Vivian Carmody) caused me not to be here for five months. Katy was ready to step up, and she did and gave us great confidence in her abilities going forward.
I rest comfortably at night knowing that a lot of hard work that’s been done over the last 17 years is going to continue to be built on, and the market will continue to develop in ways that support regional food, keep it true to the authentic nature of Eastern Market and benefit as
Dan Carmody stands in Eastern Market Shed 5 during setup for a weekend event — one of the new revenue-producing uses he brought to the market during his tenure. EASTERN
many of the residents of Detroit as we possibly can.
Other markets are interested in what Eastern Market has accomplished during your tenure, right?
I came out of the downtown world before I got here, and I still am consulting with smaller cities around downtown development issues.
Over the last few years, as Eastern Market has been recognized as a place that has developed a model that’s to be considered when public markets are looking for ways to either become established or to grow, that’s led to some work in some cities around the United States. This year, I’ve had the pleasure of working in Newark on a potential new market project, and I’m currently working in Syracuse, N.Y., with the Central New York Regional Market as they develop a strategy for how they might evolve into the future. Eastern Market is recognized by those communities as something that they would like to know more about and see in what ways they could maybe follow in our footsteps.
Newark is interested in the work we’ve done around providing this ecosystem for small food business development. In Syracuse’s case, they’re interested in a number of things (like) how to build a stronger culture for their market organization, which was built by a state-mandated authority in the 1930s and still operates as a state authority, work we’re doing with things like farm to freezer in our food box programs where we’re actually strengthening small farms, and some of the mundane stuff, like how do you renovate a shed while you’re using it?
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2025 ECONOMIC OUTLOOK: NAVIGATING THE YEAR AHEAD
Experts suggest a bullish outlook focuses on opportunities in infrastructure, electrical vehicles and energy innovation
Bank of America national market experts and Detroit-based thought leaders convene at an executive breakfast discussion, moderated by Crain City Brand Group President Jim Kirk, for a discussion about strategic economic growth and investment opportunities in 2025.
PANELISTS
Antony E. Ghee
Managing Director, Chief Investment Of ce (CIO), Head of CIO Equity Investments & Portfolio Management Bank of America Corp.
Antony is the head of CIO Equity Investments & Portfolio Management. The Chief Investment Of ce (“CIO”) is the combined Chief Investment Of ce of Merrill and Bank of America Private Bank, and provides thought leadership on wealth management, investment strategy, asset allocation guidance, due diligence and portfolio management solutions. Antony is a member of board of directors of Managed Account Advisors (MAA), a wholly owned subsidiary of Bank of America, and serves on the board of trustees for the VNA Health Group (VNAHG), one of the nation’s largest nonpro t providers of home health, hospice and community-based care. Antony is an author and has published two books, “People Over Politics” (2022) and “Fraud, Lies & Greed” (2017). He earned a Master of Laws (LL.M.) in Securities & Financial Regulation from Georgetown University Law Center, a juris doctor (JD) degree from Howard University School of Law, and a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with honors from Virginia Union University.
Kerry C. Duggan
Founder and CEO
SustainabiliD
Kerry a sustainability expert, CEO, corporate board director and former climate advisor to President Joe Biden. She founded SustainabiliD to guide CEOs, C-Suites and climate tech entrepreneurs on equitable solutions. Duggan serves on global corporate boards (Perma-Fix, Envergia, BlueGreen Water Technologies) and advisory boards, and is a faculty member at the University of Michigan. A key Obama Administration leader, she was deputy of the Detroit task force and continues to advise the Secretary of Energy and Governor Whitmer.
Tom Kondrat
Advanced Analytics Global Lead
Urban Science
Tom is the advanced analytics global lead for Urban Science, with over 25 years of automotive forecasting and predictive analytics expertise. As a global leader and inventor of many Urban Science analytics solutions, he is continuously in-step with industry trends and innovations to ensure Urban Science remains best-in-class at solving clients’ automotive retail challenges. Thomas has been a speaker at automotive industry and data analytics conferences, and is frequently featured in automotive news publications, podcasts and videos on various topics ranging from arti cial intelligence to electric vehicles.
KEYNOTE
Dwain Carryl
Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst, Chief Investment Of ce (CIO) Bank of America Corp.
In this role, Dwain supports Bank of America Private Bank with analysis of equities in the nancial sector including banks, insurance companies, asset managers, digital payments and various specialty nance names. Dwain is co-manager of the CIO managed Dividend Equity Portfolio investment solution, as well as the Bank of America Private Bank CIO managed Dividend Income common trust fund.
Previously, Dwain was an analyst at GoldenTreeAsset Management, a multibillion credit hedge fund, where he covered xed income securities for the nancials industry.
Dwain was also a vice president in the equity research department at Merrill covering large-cap banks, and an associate analyst at Banc of America Securities covering the specialty nance space. Dwain began his career at Sidoti& Company covering smallcap homebuilders and building materials stocks. Dwain earned his bachelor’s degree from Harvard College, and his master’s degree in Business Administration from Yale University.
By Brooke Bilyj | Crain’s Content Studio
As the sun rose over Ford Cove on Lake St. Clair in Grosse Pointe Shores, local business leaders gathered inside the historic Edsel and Eleanor Ford House for Bank of America’s 2025 Economic Outlook: Navigating the Year Ahead, presented in partnership with Crain’s Content Studio.
Featuring analysis from Bank of America’s national economic experts and insights from local thought leaders, the executive breakfast discussion tackled key trends, challenges and opportunities that could shape the economy in the coming year.
The speakers — with a nod toward the Ford family’s impact on the transportation
industry — painted an optimistic, forward-looking economic outlook. The value of Michigan’s bountiful natural resources, such as the scenic waterways surrounding the venue, emerged as a central theme, underscoring the state’s vital role in shaping a cleaner, more sustainable future.
Navigating market dynamics
With the event taking place less than a week before the presidential election, political uncertainty informed the conversation. In his keynote presentation, “Harnessing the Power of Economics,” Dwain Carryl, managing director and senior equity analyst, Chief Investment Of ce (CIO), Bank of America Corp., illustrated that market performance
historically depends more on the economy’s health than election results. Market volatility is typical during election cycles, although these trends tend to ease toward the end of the year as uncertainty fades, Carryl noted.
“You are best expressing your political views at the ballot box and not in your investment portfolios because the market is fairly agnostic,” Carryl said.
Instead of basing his market projections on elections, Carryl pointed to the Federal Reserve’s decision to cut rates in September when the stock market was near an all-time high. “When the Fed has cut rates in the past at or near market all-time highs, the S&P has performed quite well,” he said.
Dwain Carryl, managing director and senior equity analyst, Chief Investment Of ce (CIO), Bank of America Corp., presents “Harnessing the Power of Economics” as his keynote speech.
Likewise, “low single-digit year-overyear CPI (Consumer Price Index) has historically been a sweet spot for the performance of the S&P 500,” he said. Speci cally, “2-3% has been the best CPI environment for equity markets to thrive.”
Bank of America’s forecasted 2025 CPI in ation of 2% leans into that sweet spot, representing positive market potential in the year ahead.
In recent quarters, the “Magni cent 7” top-performing stocks led earnings growth while the rest of the S&P 500 failed to contribute — at least, until Q4, when the other 493 showed positive aggregate growth for the rst time in two years.
Antony E. Ghee, head of CIO Equity Investments & Portfolio Management at Bank of America, notes the importance of exploring new technologies and infrastructure.
“Key to our bullish outlook for U.S. equities is a broadening of what has been a fairly narrow market, both in terms of earnings growth and market leadership,” Carryl said.
Highlighting the rewards of a long-term “total return mindset” when investing across a diversi ed portfolio, compared to the pitfalls of playing the short game, Carryl stressed the cyclical nature of bull and bear markets.
“Recoveries follow the downturns,” he said, “so in the downturns you shouldn’t be panicking. That’s when you should be sharpening your pencil.” Carryl recommended focusing your investment strategy rather than pulling out of the market.
Within that bullish outlook, where do the best investment opportunities lie?
“Infrastructure remains a long-term theme,” said Carryl, citing investment
The “2025 Economic Outlook: Navigating the Year Ahead” panelists explore the role of market dynamics and investment opportunities in key markets such as energy transition and infrastructure.
Tom Kondrat, advanced analytics global lead for Urban Science, eyes signi cant investment opportunities in automotive electri cation.
opportunities to upgrade aging U.S. infrastructure, especially to support energy transition. Projections suggest that $181 trillion will need to be invested in energy-related infrastructure, technology and products between now and 2050 — presenting massive opportunities for long-term investors.
“The U.S. power demand is forecasted to grow nearly 38% through 2040. This is more than four times the total increase in power demand from 2000 to 2020,” Carryl noted. “The energy grid will have to be increased signi cantly to fully harness the power of AI.”
Exploring sustainable investment opportunities
Building on the investment opportunities Carryl introduced in his keynote presentation, Crain City Brand Group President Jim Kirk moderated a panel discussion exploring other trends at play as leaders navigate the economy ahead. With expertise spanning multiple industries across diverse markets, the panelists agreed that investment opportunities abound in energy transition and decarbonization, with Michigan’s natural resources and engineering capabilities spurring innovations in renewables, electric vehicles (EV) and critical supply chains.
From the presentation
Infrastructure remains a key theme. The U.S. has a widely acknowledged aging infrastructure base that will require signi cant public and private investment. Below at left, despite challenging macroeconomic conditions and weakness in the listed markets, unlisted infrastructure continues to exhibit steady return performance. Below at right, projections suggest a total of $181 trillion will need to be invested between now and 2050 on energyrelated infrastructure, technology and products across supply and demand side solutions.
After peaking in mid-2022, corporate margins came under pressure. In many regions, operating costs were impacted partly by elements such as wage pressures from tight labor markets. Meanwhile, heightened geopolitical tensions played a role in volatile commodity prices, also affecting global supply-chains. More recently, pro t margins have started to recover, led by the U.S.
“Michigan is home to about 20% of the world’s surface-level fresh water supply, and about 45% of the people in Michigan rely on those freshwater sources,” said Antony E. Ghee, managing director, Chief Investment Of ce (CIO), head of CIO Equity Investments & Portfolio Management, Bank of America Corp., acknowledging the nearest example right outside the window. But infrastructure failures like the issues that plagued Flint continue to threaten these natural resources, he said, forcing Michigan to explore new technologies and infrastructure improvements to fully capitalize on these assets.
The “landscape” of investment opportunities in the energy sector has expanded, creating a range of new innovations, noted Kerry C. Duggan, founder and CEO of SustainabiliD, a strategic advisory rm focused on environmental issues, programs and policies. “It’s not just oil and gas anymore,” she said. “Now, it’s a lot more complicated because there’s such a variety of technologies,” spanning wind, hydro, solar, hydrogen, nuclear and more.
Other opportunities lie in EV adoption, leveraging Detroit’s legacy of automotive innovation. When it comes to electri cation, “the momentum is strong,” said Tom Kondrat, advanced analytics global lead at Urban Science. After a slow start this year, “EVs are back up again and growing,” with national market share around 9%, said Kondrat, who has more than 25 years of automotive forecasting and predictive analytical experience.
“Let’s
Although “Michigan is lagging behind the curve,” with market share around 4.5%, “EV sales in Michigan are up about 55% this year.”
Kondrat sees tremendous opportunity ahead as renewables hit their stride while the automotive sector turns toward electri cation. “I see a bright future with all of that coming together,” he said.
Playing to Michigan’s strengths
As environmentally-conscious businesses continue looking for ways to lower their
The Edsel and Eleanor Ford House.
make this stuff here because we’re good at making stuff here,” says Kerry C. Duggan, founder and CEO of SustainabiliD.
carbon emissions, “decarbonization presents a tremendous opportunity for investment, in that there’s not going to be a one-size- ts-all approach,” said Bank of America’s Ghee. Because of that, as more diverse energy sources come online, storing and transporting power will be critical for sustainability.
“One of the biggest issues today is that we don’t have the greatest storage capacity, and we lose a lot in transmission, so we lose a lot of capability,” Ghee said.
According to research conducted by
Resolutions for resilience
What should organizations do to stay resilient in 2025? The keynote speaker and panelists at Bank of America’s 2025 Economic Outlook: Navigating the Year Ahead shared their advice for other business leaders.
“Key to our bullish outlook for U.S. equities is a broadening of what has been a fairly narrow market, both in terms of earnings growth and market leadership.”
Dwain Carryl, managing director and senior equity analyst, Chief Investment Of ce (CIO), Bank of America Corp.
“Remain exible and open-minded to what’s coming. Every time there was a change [in history], it required a structural shift in terms of the skills that were required. We’re going to require people with a different skillset, so one of the best things that the people of Michigan can do is position its workforce for that new environment.”
— Antony E. Ghee, managing director, Chief Investment Of ce (CIO), head of CIO Equity Investments & Portfolio Management, Bank of America Corp.
“Having a culture of innovation [is critical.] A lot of innovation doesn’t happen at the top of a company; it happens in the middle or closer to the entry level. Having a culture that can promote that and reward that is exciting for the whole spectrum of employees.”
— Tom Kondrat, advanced analytics global lead, Urban Science
“Ensure that your chief sustainability of cer is talking to your chief nancial of cer. I started noticing they didn’t know each other, and quickly discovered they don’t know their government relations team, either, so get your houses in order and line up your CSO, who’s going to have an eye on moving technologies and what’s appropriate for you.”
— Kerry C. Duggan, founder and CEO, SustainabiliD
Duggan’s rm, Michigan leads the Midwest in energy storage capabilities, giving the state an advantage.
“We’ve got to play to our strengths, and energy storage is certainly an opportunity,” she said. “American competitiveness is highly dependent on our critical materials. If you’re not paying attention to that, you’re not paying attention.”
As power demands multiply — driven by EV adoption, AI expansion and the super-capacity processors we all carry in our pockets — Michigan’s contributions
to grid improvements could be extraordinary.
“We have a planet that’s going to continue to need more energy, so my thesis is: Let’s make this stuff here because we’re good at making stuff here, and let’s deploy it to those who want the same quality of life and standards and views like this,” Duggan said to a round of applause.
“That energy and power is going to have to come from somewhere,” Ghee agreed. “Therein lies the investment opportunity.”
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