THE CONVERSATION
FOCUS | REAL ESTATE: Developers find creative new uses for tired, underutilized sites. PAGE 10
Detroit entrepreneur Moses Shepherd goes bust to boom with fuel supply, real estate. PAGE 22
CRAINSDETROIT.COM I MARCH 15, 2021
RAKING IN THE CASH GOVERNMENT
Cities weigh how to spend $4.4 billion windfall from federal stimulus law BY CHAD LIVENGOOD | In Port Huron, local officials are kicking around the idea of refunding all 2020 property taxes for every commercial, industrial and residential property in the city’s eight square miles. Such a move would normally bankrupt the international border city of 29,000 residents at the mouth of Lake Huron. But not after President Joe Biden signed a massive $1.9 trillion economic stimulus bill Thursday, a landmark government spending spree that promises a $19 million sliver for Port Huron. “We could literally refund the 12 mills of the general property tax from last year and still have $10 million left over,” said James Freed, city manager of Port Huron. “We’ll take the money, fill some potholes. But it’s almost a sickening amount of money.”
Municipal leaders across Michigan are slack-jawed at the enormous influx of federal tax dollars coming their way from the American Rescue Plan, an unprecedented response from a Democratic-controlled Congress and White House to the economic calamities of the coronavirus pandemic that upended American life a year ago this week. “I’ve been a (municipal) manager for 29 years and I’ve never seen
MARK DANE VIS ISTOCK
High expectations
Detroit’s priciest condo hits the market at a lofty $3.29 million At $3.29 million, Unit 300 at 1529 Broadway St. in downtown Detroit is the most expensive condominium on the market in the city, raising a debate on whether its 24-foot ceilings and luxury amenities justify its eyebrow-raising price tag, especially
when urban condos are slumping in an otherwise hot residential real estate market. Real estate observers are watching this listing with interest as it potentially serves as a harbinger of times to come. Whether that luxury buyer is willing to pay the price for style and proximity to Detroit’s nightlife and amenities may signal a return to city centers as vaccines become readily
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RESIDENTIAL REAL ESTATE
BY KAREN DYBIS SPECIAL TO CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS
anything like this,” said Matthew Coppler, city manager of St. Clair Shores, a city of 59,000 residents that is getting $22 million in stimulus funds. The vast sums of aid to Michigan’s largest municipalities are staggering and unprecedented: $879.6 million for Detroit, a city that is less than seven years removed from a bankruptcy that Washington didn’t send one extra dime to help settle.
available and offices start to reopen. This standout condo merits its list price, said listing agent Jay Taylor, founder of Jay Taylor & Associates in Detroit. The property feels like a New York City loft at 5,400 square feet, Taylor said, with 3,000 on the main level for entertaining and a 2,400-square-foot second story that can be built out to create a private owner’s suite. Located in the historic Hartz Building, this particular unit can be completed to its buyer’s specifications, Taylor said. Unit 300 features 24-foot ceilings, exposed brick walls and a private elevator. Another notable attribute of this project is its views of Detroit’s downtown icons, including Ford Field, the Detroit Athletic Club and Grand Circus Park, Taylor said. See CONDO on Page 17
Download our new Crain’s Detroit app BY KELLEY ROOT
If you live on your phone, Crain’s Detroit Business has a new place to call home. We’ve launched a mobile app that makes it easier than ever to access Michigan’s most comprehensive business coverage – and for the first time, you can choose to get text alerts when important news breaks. The easy-to-navigate app can be
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THE WEEK IN REVIEW, WITH AN EYE ON WHAT’S NEXT UM TO RESUME HOSPITAL CONSTRUCTION THE NEWS: Michigan Medicine will resume construction of a new 12-story, $920 million inpatient hospital connected to its campus in Ann Arbor in the next several months, officials said Thursday. WHY IT MATTERS: Construction originally began in October 2019, but the project was paused in March 2020 during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, officials said. The hospital will include state-of-the-art equipment and design, increasing access for patients in need of complex care, Michigan Medicine said. The facility will include 264 private rooms along with two floors of operating and procedure rooms.
LINEAGE LOGISTICS RAISES $1.9B MORE FOR DEAL BINGE THE NEWS: Novi-based cold-storage warehousing and logistics firm Lineage Logistics LLC announced Thursday it raised another $1.9 billion in an investing round to expedite its breakneck expansion across the globe. The equity comes from new and existing investors, including BentallGreenOak, D1 Capital Partners, Oxford Properties, CenterSquare Investment Management, MS Tactical Value and Conversant Capital, OP Trust and Cohen & Steers. The firm, a real estate investment trust or REIT, closed on a $1.6 billion investment round in September last year.
WHY IT MATTERS: Lineage has been on an acquisition growth streak that’s largely been unrivaled by any Michigan company. The company closed on 38 deals in 2020 at a price tag of more than $3 billion, adding 128 facilities and roughly 5,000 employees in 11 countries to its portfolio.
are wielding in political and business negotiations. Labor campaigns have received support not only from top leaders including President Joe Biden and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, but also from a public increasingly sympathetic amid the hardships of the pandemic.
GOLDMAN TARGETS $10B TOWARD BLACK WOMEN
ART VAN WORKERS TO RECEIVE MORE IN PAYOUT THE NEWS: Thomas H. Lee Partners is nearly doubling a fund to assist former workers at its bankrupt Art Van Furniture chain, after months of pressure from employees who said a payment of around $400 each was “grossly inadequate.” The private equity firm is adding $950,000 to a $1.1 million fund it established last year, according to United for Respect, the group that worked with former employees to demand health coverage or cash assistance after Art Van filed for bankruptcy last year. WHY IT MATTERS: The boost to the relief fund — as well as its very creation, just weeks after Art Van’s demise — point to the growing power retail workers
THE NEWS: A new initiative by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. aims to narrow the socioeconomic gaps faced by Black women in large urban cities like Detroit. The New York City-based investment bank, which has been active in philanthropic and small business-focused initiatives in Detroit for years, on Wednesday announced its “One Million Black Women” campaign. The financial services giant (NYSE: GS) said it plans to put forward $10 billion in investment capital and $100 million in philanthropic dollars in the areas of housing, health care, access to capital, education and other areas. WHY IT MATTERS: Much of the initiative is based on a new report, Black Womenomics, by Goldman which estimates that reducing the earnings gap for Black women would create between 1.2 million and 1.7 million jobs in the U.S., according to the firm’s research. Further investment could also increase the U.S. gross domestic product by between $300 billion and $450 billion.
Rocket deal with MSU gets an outcry, and a clarification Settle down, Spartan Nation. Michigan State University says its men’s basketball team is not getting a new corporate name. After an uproar on social media and in sports news outlets, MSU’s athletic department on Friday attempted to clarify details from a sponsorship announcement with Rocket Mortgage revealed the day before. The “massive expansion” of a partnership between the Detroit-based mortgage giant and the university called for its men’s basketball team to be referred to as the “MSU Spartans Presented by Rocket Mortgage” inside the Breslin Center starting in the 2021-22 season. The outcry was loud enough that MSU athletics sent a statement Friday seeking to clarify that the deal with Rocket is “nothing new for the school or the industry.” The deal came a month after the announcement of a $32 million donation to the university by Mat Ishbia, president and CEO of UWM Holdings Corp., Rocket’s Pontiac-based rival. The mortgage giants run by Ishbia and Gilbert, both MSU graduates, are seemingly competitors in more than just mortgages.
Michigan State University alum and Rocket Mortgage owner Dan Gilbert continues to support his alma mater, this time with a five-year athletics sponsorship deal. | ROSSETTI
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HEALTH CARE
FINANCE
New data firm could be game-changer for patients Trinity, Henry Ford, DMC part of Truveta BY JAY GREENE
Regional mortgage rivals Mat Ishbia of United Wholesale Mortgage Corp. (left) and Dan Gilbert of Rocket Mortgage.
BATTLE RATTLES BROKERS But competitors see an opportunity in Rocket-UWM skirmish BY NICK MANES
The line in the sand for the booming mortgage sector has been drawn by Mat Ishbia, but for some in the industry, the decision of which side to take is fraught. Ishbia, the president and CEO of United Wholesale Mortgage Corp. in Pontiac, the nation’s largest wholesale lender and fourth-largest lender overall based on data from Inside Mortgage Finance, said March 4 that independent brokers around the country must choose: They can send prospective mortgage deals to his company and dozens of other small-
er lenders around the country, but should they choose to do so, they must sign a legal document that they will cease any business relationship with UWM’s chief rival and regional neighbor, Detroit-based Rocket Mortgage. Ishbia also included Fairway Independent Mortgage Corp. in Wisconsin as another company with which brokers would need to halt business activities to comply with his legal addendum. While brokers make their choices, which they must do by Monday, some upstart companies see the division as a way to grow and gain
market share in the wholesale channel, which is dominated by UWM. Ishbia alleges that Rocket and Fairway are trying to undercut the wholesale side of the mortgage industry in an effort to bolster the retail side, which Rocket dominates. Rocket denies any such allegations, and Fairway has declined to comment. Ishbia’s ultimatum has only put a spotlight on the divide in the mortgage sector, which somewhat mirrors the country’s partisan political spectrum, with some brokers partial to UWM and others preferring Rocket, the two largest
lenders in the sector. Others, like Roger Mansourian, the CEO and mortgage broker with Vantage Realty and Home Loans in Los Angeles, feel caught in the middle. In a series of videos posted in the last week to his personal YouTube page, the mortgage broker has said he’s worked and developed relationships with both companies over the years. The ultimatum handed down by Ishbia is antithetical to why many become independent brokers in the first place, he said. See BATTLE on Page 20
SPORTS BUSINESS
Some Michigan banks, credit unions cut off access to accounts for online gambling BY KURT NAGL
Michigan Legacy Credit Union CEO Carma Peters was alarmed by the volume of online bets placed by her institution’s members within the first weeks of legal online betting in Michigan. In less than two months since the Jan. 22 launch in the state, Peters said 187 members made more than 1,200 transactions with online betting sites totaling $82,715. That’s just about 1 percent of the credit union’s 20,000 members, many of whom are in the low-income bracket. Peters quickly sensed
the risks it posed for members and her business. “They’re not calling their gaming apps; they’re calling us,” Peters said, adding that Peters gaming merchants are not implementing spending floor limits. “From a reputation standpoint, this is not good for us. While we didn’t do it, they’re calling us, and they’re angry.” So, effective March 2, the credit
union cut off services for online betting, including legal sites. Of course, that’s several weeks after the betting bonanza of Super Bowl LV, but shortly before another massive gambling event, the NCAA March Madness — or, as the credit union put it in a news release, “March Sadness?”. “This could truly create a financial disaster for members,” Peters said. “We just thought the potential risk was way too much, and it wasn’t worth it. How many people are going to want to pay on a gambling debt?” See GAMBLING on Page 21
Online betting in Michigan launched Jan. 22.| FANDUEL
Hospitals in Michigan systems like Henry Ford Health, Trinity Health and Detroit Medical Center have some of the largest medical data sets on patients’ histories, conditions, treatments, outcomes and care of any in the health care industry. But when doctors are faced with one of the nearly 7,000 rare diseases outside their scope of knowledge, they sometimes seek advice from colleagues, query system electronic medical records or search clinical data sites on the Internet to seek answers for their patients. Last month, 14 health systems representing 546 Slubowski hospitals in 40 states formally announced they had formed Truveta, a Seattle-based health care IT company that will use artificial intelligence to mine millions of medical records stored Edwards by the systems for clues on how best to care for patients. In Michigan, Livonia-based Trinity with its eight hospitals, Henry Ford with its six hospitals and Tenet Healthcare Corp.-owned Detroit Medical Center with its six hospitals are awaiting the arrival later this year of Truveta-crunched data. Using a computer, an Internet connection and typing in questions, Truveta’s AI-assisted database could give lifesaving ideas to doctors to improve clinical care for patients or expand opportunities for research physicians and scientists to answer longstanding questions. “Over the past 10 years or so, people have moved from building these structured data warehouses to what we call ‘data lakes,’ where you use a (search) query to mine the data in very creative ways,” said Mike Slubowski, president and CEO of Trinity, in a recent interview with Crain’s. “(Health systems have) created our own data lake for our own patients and we (at Trinity) have got some data lakes that we’ve developed internally here,” Slubowski said. “The idea is to take the identified data from 14 partners, and maybe more, because more people are interested in joining as the days go on, and create this (massive) data lake.” Carladenise Edwards, chief strategy officer with Henry Ford, said Truveta scientists and engineers are working furiously to create a comprehensive data platform that has patient names removed to protect privacy. Health care is behind other industries in using so-called Big Data, she said. See TRUVETA on Page 20 MARCH 15, 2021 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | 3
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Buildings kill a billion birds a year. Detroit is among the worst for it. Back when offices were a thing, I would walk around the Crain Communications Inc. headquarters in Detroit as the weather started getting warmer, Kirk smoking a cigaPINHO rette. Or — if I was nico-fiending particularly hard — two. During those laps, it wasn’t uncommon to come across a bird lying on the concrete, the victim of what I can only imagine was a pretty nasty collision with our five-story glass-window building set back off Gratiot Avenue. Or two birds, for that matter. Things have changed. I haven’t spent a full day in the office in close to a year and haven’t had a cigarette in nearly three. But bird behavior and buildings haven’t and, soon enough, as the weather begins to turn warmer, every single building in Detroit will become a potential mass murderer of literally unspeakable proportions.
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Andrew Farnsworth, senior research associate in the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, says that studies have shown that “upwards of a billion birds” are killed in building collisions each year. That’s something like 2.7 million a day, on average. Buildings (and other structures like cell phone towers) are, if you will, mass birderers. It’s virtually impossible to tell precisely how many of those deaths are in Detroit, or any other major metropolitan area, but Farnsworth says the city ranks 13th in the spring and 15th in the fall out of 125 cities “for exposing nocturnally migrating birds to light pollution, one of the primary factors involved in collisions at night and also in attracting birds to urban areas where they collide the following morning.” Birdmapper.org, where people can report suspected bird-building collisions by location, notes just about 200 of them in Detroit, including injured and dead birds. Melissa McLeod, a former Detroit Audubon Society Safe Passage pro-
gram volunteer and a photographer who runs the Feral Detroit Instagram account, said she documented some of the dead birds herself and began uploading data into the Birdmapper. org website. “There’s not a lot of people doing it on their own,” she said. “I started doing it when I found them. Once you see this is a thing, you can’t really unsee it.” Efforts to track more bird collisions with buildings outside of the Wayne State University campus area where the Detroit Audubon Society is based, so far, have not been successful, she said. In a sense, Detroit and its suburbs aren’t unique. “There’s no question Detroit kills birds because any place you put buildings that have light, that happens,” Farnsworth said. “It’s a question of what the magnitude is. There are nights in New York and Chicago where people find hundreds or thousands of birds at the base of buildings sometimes where there are significant mortality events.” According to the Detroit Audubon Society, birds use the stars and moon for navigation during their migrations and building lights disorient them.
“THERE’S NO QUESTION DETROIT KILLS BIRDS BECAUSE ANY PLACE YOU PUT BUILDINGS THAT HAVE LIGHT, THAT HAPPENS.” — Andrew Farnsworth, senior research associate in the Cornell Lab of Ornithology
“They circle the buildings repeatedly and either die of exhaustion or colliding with the illuminated building,” the society says on its website. And the region is particularly highly traveled, said Ben Winger, associate professor and assistant curator in the Museum of Zoology at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. “Southeast Michigan is a major thoroughfare for migratory birds in the Great Lakes and we are right at the western edge of Lake Erie, which funnels a lot of bird migration along its shores of migratory songbirds, shore birds and water birds,” he said. Songbirds are in particular at risk because they are smaller and tend to
congregate, Winger said. The combination of high bird migration volume and its light volumes at night make the Detroit region high-risk for the collisions, he said.
Time to turn off the lights There are ways for landlords to help reduce the deaths, the Audubon Society says. From mid-March — NOW — through May and then from mid-August through October, all lights should be turned off on unoccupied/ unused floors and in unused spaces; turn off ceiling lights and close curtains and window shades; and turn off all exterior lighting from midnight to dawn. That’s per recommendations of the Safe Passage Great Lakes Program. Similarly, there is also an effort called Lights Out Texas, in which cities like Dallas have all their downtown buildings turn out their nonessential nighttime lights, Farnsworth said. Janet Langlois, executive director of the Building Owners and Managers Association of Metro Detroit, said “most of the buildings do a dark-out at certain periods, specifically for the birds.” She also said the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center has been participating for years in the Safe Passage program and has received awards for its participation. The Renaissance Center, owned by General Motors Co. and home to the state’s tallest building and five other towers, said in a statement that it asks its tenants to turn out lights and draw blinds during peak bird migration periods between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. A spokesperson for Southfield-based Redico LLC said the landlord and developer does not have specific programs related to mitigating bird collisions with its buildings. In addition, Winger said, there are new forms of glass that are more bird-friendly for new buildings. “Patterns built in that are visible to birds that breaks up the reflection so the window doesn’t look just like the cloudy sky or the vegetation around it,” Winger said. “It gives them a moment of pause and they will slow down or change direction.” Contact: kpinho@crain.com; (313) 446-0412; @kirkpinhoCDB
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FINANCE
Credit Acceptance threatened with potent securities law New York attorney general’s office investigates company for violations of Martin Act BY AARON ELSTEIN
Credit Acceptance Corp., the Southfield-based lender to car buyers with poor credit histories, is being investigated by the New York attorney general’s office for violations of the Martin Act, a state statute considered the broadest and most potent securities law in the country. While Credit Acceptance faces numerous investigations from state and federal authorities, Martin Act charges could be especially costly for the company to resolve. Unlike most anti-fraud laws, it doesn’t require authorities to prove bad intent or that there were victims of a company’s alleged illegal activity. A Wall Street Journal editorial once called the Martin Act “the worst law in America.” Credit Acceptance, which didn’t reply to a request for comment, is cooperating with the inquiry. “We are unable to estimate the reasonably possible loss or range of reasonably possible loss arising from this investigation,” the company said in its latest annual report. A spokesman for New York Attorney General Letitia James declined to comment. Credit Acceptance, a tempting target for regulators, said attorneys general in New Jersey, Maryland and Mississippi have served subpoenas. Last year the Massachusetts attorney general sued it, alleging fraud. The federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau also is investigating the company after receiving more than 1,400 complaints about it in the past three years. The scrutiny comes as regulators feel more emboldened in a Biden administration. “There’s a new sheriff in town,” said Ira Rheingold, executive director at the National Association of Consumer Advocates. Credit Acceptance isn’t a household name, but more than 12,000 car dealers nationwide use it to write mostly used-car loans for shoppers who struggle to repay debts. Credit Acceptance charges high interest rates and often won’t hesitate to seize
Credit Acceptance Corp. is headquartered in Southfield. | COSTAR GROUP INC.
“THEIR CONTRACTS ARE NOT TRANSPARENT AND THEY PLAY THIS BAIT-AND-SWITCH GAME PROMISING BORROWERS THEY CAN REFINANCE, BUT THAT’S OFTEN NOT TRUE.” — Shanna Tallarico, a consumer debt attorney with the New York Legal Assistance Group
vehicles when borrowers fall behind on payments. Subprime auto lenders frequently go bust, but Credit Acceptance has been around since 1972. Founder Donald Foss owned a 5 percent stake in GameStop before it became a Reddit favorite. He sold all of his 3.5 million shares in the frenzy, according to a regulatory filing.
Last year, Credit Acceptance’s adjusted net income rose slightly to $683 million while revenue reached $1.7 billion — twice 2015’s amount. Over the years, investigators typically have examined whether Credit Acceptance’s lending or repossession practices violate local consumer-protection laws. “Their contracts are not transparent
and they play this bait-and-switch game promising borrowers they can refinance, but that’s often not true,” said Shanna Tallarico, a consumer debt attorney with the New York Legal Assistance Group. More recently, authorities have begun looking into whether Credit Acceptance made misrepresentations to institutional investors who purchased securities backed by the company’s car loans. The company has securitized nearly $5 billion worth of loans in the past three years, according to its annual report. That’s where the Martin Act would likely apply. In the past, the company might have seen penalties levied by regulators as a cost of doing business,
Rheingold said. “Their cost-benefit analysis will have to change because so many parties are going after them,” he said. “They are the bull’s-eye for a lot of enforcement agencies.” Apart from forcing Credit Acceptance to pay hefty fines, Tallarico hopes regulators will require the company to write loans with understandable terms that don’t shoulder borrowers with so much debt. “Most people are sensitive about their credit,” she said. “If they were given a clear contract and charged a reasonable rate, they could repay their loans.” This story originally appeared in Crain’s New York Business.
FINANCE
Fintech company Autobooks hauls in $25M in Series B round Startup to use latest fundraising to further innovation, grow domestically, internationally BY NICK MANES
Detroit-based Autobooks Inc. has closed on a $25 million Series B fundraising effort to help it grow domestically and internationally. The latest round of venture capital for the financial technology startup, which is housed within the portfolio of companies tied to billionaire Dan Gilbert, will also be used to further its product innovation efforts, expand relationships with banking institutions and grow its head count with a focus on product development and customer success, the company said Thursday in a news release. Autobooks works directly with banks and credit unions to enable more online payment solutions for small businesses. This latest fundraising round was 6 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | MARCH 15, 2021
“(WE) START TO SEPARATE (OURSELVES) FROM SOME OF THE EARLIER-STAGE, RISKIER BUSINESSES. WE BECOME A LOT SAFER TO WORK WITH.” — Steve Robert, CEO, Autobooks
led by Philadelphia-based venture capital fund MissionOG Ventures, and included participation from Renaissance Venture Capital in Ann Arbor, Detroit Venture Partners, Draper Triangle and TD Bank Group. “The ability to receive payments online is vital for today’s small business,” Rob Metzger, general partner at MissionOG, said in the release. “As we analyzed the market, we were impressed with Autobooks’ unique abil-
ity to successfully partner with financial institutions. These partnerships help redefine integrated receivables, bringing immediate and significant value to treasury and cash-management services and the small businesses who most need the help.” In 2018 Autobooks raised $10 million. The new $25 million round comes after the finish of what the company has described as a record year in
2020. The company said it counts a total of 86 financial institutions within its customer portfolio, up from 36 at the end of 2019. Autobooks CEO Steve Robert said the company has nearly 75 employees at this time, and looks to grow to about 115 by year’s end. He declined to share a revenue figure or valuation at which the Series B was raised. Robert told Crain’s in an interview Thursday that the new funding helps the company begin to stand out more, especially in the red-hot fintech sector, as it has continued to accumulate follow-on funding. “(We) start to separate (ourselves) from some of the earlier-stage, riskier businesses,” said Robert. “We become a lot safer to work with.” Financial technology startups like Autobooks have been on a tear in re-
cent years when it comes to hauling in venture capital dollars. Data from Pitchbook found that fintech companies raised $41.7 billion last year, the second-largest annual total of the past decade, according to the report. While the company finds itself in an enviable position of growing in a hot sector, several exit options could present themselves, but nothing is on the table at the moment, according to Robert. “There is zero interest in a transaction or an exit or a liquidity event,” said Robert. “Many of the folks joining this business have had prior successes. We’re very interested in building a large growth-oriented business.” Contact: nmanes@crain.com; (313) 446-1626; @nickrmanes
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Treasury and Finance Trends for 2021
W
hile much about what 2021 will hold is uncertain, there are a few trends that are easier to forecast. Trends in the payments space are among them. The digitization of payables and receivables functions has been underway for some time now, and the pandemic has only accelerated this trend. Adoption had been slow, but COVID-19 has served as a seismic wake-up call for the treasury space, spurring the business community to action. A good example of this is the rapid adoption of electronic businessto-business (B2B) payments. A recent EY report found approximately 60% of survey respondents indicated that the adoption of electronic payments is the most meaningful change in the B2B space.1 Over the past few years, digital transformation has allowed treasury professionals to take on an increasingly important role providing invaluable insights into their organization and support for strategic growth objectives. As new innovations continue to reengineer the treasury function, the coming year holds tremendous opportunities for treasury departments to demonstrate further value to the overall organization.
The Evolution of Managed Services for Payment Processes One area that shows real promise for treasury in the near-term is managed services related to payment processes. The overall global managed services market is growing rapidly. Valuate Reports’ recent study suggests managed services will grow from more than $178 billion in 2019 to greater than $309 billion by 2025.2 That’s a CAGR of 9.6%. “We believe the continued evolution of managed services around the movement of money will be a game-changer for corporate treasury,” explained Bridgit Chayt, Senior Vice President and Director of Commercial Payments and Treasury Management for Fifth Third Bank. “This trend is moving corporates from a transaction processing-centric relationship with banking partners to one that focuses more on back-office integration that delivers invaluable treasury insights, along with greater automation and efficiency.” As 2021 unfolds, managed services in the cash management space will continue to be seen as a transformational option that enables
treasury organizations to take advantage of the latest cloud-based, digital technologies without having to invest in complex and costly infrastructure. The managed services model means adopters always have the latest version of the technology, thereby reducing reliance on legacy platforms. It also means not having to focus on maintaining the security of on-premises systems. Innovative managed services are offering on-demand convenience, which is crucial as many job functions have shifted to a remote, work-from-home posture. And these next-generation solutions also provide a seamless user experience that is seen as increasingly vital for keeping today’s digitally-native employees happy. Perhaps most importantly, managed services enable treasury to focus more of their energy on core business matters and strategic imperatives for the organization.
Leveraging New Layers of Analytics to Improve the Treasury Function Many treasury organizations have begun to recognize the potential value of data related to the cash management function. Emerging technologies are making it possible to leverage this data to power analytics-driven decisions that will dramatically improve treasury efficiency, automation and the customer experience. “New digital tools are increasingly relying on next-generation technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), to analyze patterns, and then factor in policies and risk tolerances to make highly-effective liquidity recommendations,” stated Chayt. “Over the next few years, I think we can expect a much greater reliance on AI, data analytics and robotic process automation (RPA) to help realize tremendous opportunities to achieve straightthrough processing and reconciliation. These technologies will become indispensable to clients as businesses begin to find ways to monetize them as well.” As more and more of the treasury function becomes interconnected, data and analytics will enable treasurers to add value and make faster, better decisions.
Treasury Will Be Counted on to Deliver Greater Value Ever since the “Great Recession,” the role
of treasury professionals has continued to evolve. Treasury has elevated its stature as a thought-leader within the organization, increasingly participating as a decision-maker at the highest levels. In the years to come, treasury will be relied on for the vital task of managing liquidity, forecasting cash flows, and supporting the bottom line. And the current pandemic has only served to raise treasury’s profile as a vital organizational resource. To meet the constantly changing demands of the business, treasury will need to continue to build relationships across the organization in order to expand their understanding of company needs and priorities. By partnering with cross-functional stakeholders, treasury can broaden its impact, while increasing its credibility. At the same time, treasury can tap into the deep bench of experience found within banking partners to ensure the organization’s strategic objectives are being fully supported.
Innovation: Driving Tomorrow’s Treasury Today Greater efficiency with less manual intervention will continue to drive advancements in treasury. “Many of these technologies are available today, enabling treasury to manage liquidity more effectively, forecast more accurately, and leverage data and analytics to improve the customer and supplier experience,” concluded Chayt. “In the near-term, we envision new innovations coming as banks, Fintechs, and other thirdparty providers continue to partner, bringing niche solutions to the marketplace to meet the evolving needs of treasury organizations.” Chayt cites the example of real-time payments, which, in addition to speeding up payment processes, is also delivering critical remittance information that opens the door to advancements in back-office reconciliation. There is also the opportunity to introduce new ways of handling the negotiation of terms and discounting at the time of payment. The efficiencies made possible by these types of initiatives will bring tremendous value to the organization.
As 2021 unfolds, corporate treasury professionals can expect innovation to continue to be the watchword, as they strive to deliver greater efficiency and value to the organization.
End-to-end payment services that are changing the way you do business 53.com/TreasuryManagement
Three ways COVID-19 is changing the payments industry, EY, America’s Payments Consulting Leader. October 1, 2020 Valuates Reports, Global Managed Services Market Size, Status and Forecast 2021-2027 This content is for informational purposes only and may have been derived, with permission, from a third party. While we believe it to be accurate as of the date of publication, it does not constitute the rendering of legal, accounting, tax, or investment advice or other professional services by Fifth Third Bank, National Association or any of its subsidiaries or affiliates, and it is being provided without any warranty whatsoever. Please consult with appropriate professionals related to your individual circumstances. Fifth Third Bank, National Association. Member FDIC. 1
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COMMENTARY
Rosier employment picture still leaves women behind
T
he future is female, but expectations may vary. The COVID-19 pandemic has all but wiped out ground made up by women in the labor force — women accounted for 50 percent of the workforce for the first Dustin time only months before WALSH the pandemic struck. But Michigan’s economy is improving. Unemployment sharply fell to 5.7 percent in January from 8.2 percent a month earlier. The American economy is projected to grow 6.5 percent this year thanks to $1.9 trillion in federal stimulus and COVID-19 vaccine expansion. That’s a sharp rise in expectations from the 3.2 percent projection in December by the 37-member nations Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. Simply put: More jabs, more jobs. More money poured into the system, more spending. Economic growth. Unfortunately, the country’s slog toward an eventual end to the pandemic is not the quick fix for the perils of women. Their recovery will take longer, be more trying than for men — so predictable, right? Economists are now EXTRA forecasting the broader American jobs marPRESSURE HAS will return to LED WOMEN TO ket pre-pandemic levels in 2022. For women, ABANDON A they won’t return for JOBS SEARCH. another two years, in 2024, according to research by global advisory firm McKinsey & Co. For women of color, jobs won’t return to pre-pandemic levels until 2025 or 2026. “Women around the world have the majority of part-time jobs and the jobs where the losses have been concentrated in,” said Kweilin Ellingrud, senior partner at McKinsey &
Co. in Minneapolis. “These jobs have been slashed by legal mandates or by the fact that people are not comfortable gathering in a pandemic. We also know digitization and automation are going to impact these jobs going forward, making it even harder for women in these sectors to find work. Their jobs may be gone forever, forcing them to either change careers or industries. That slows down their recovery.” Jennifer Berkemeier, whom I introduced you to in a September article about how the pandemic recession overwhelmingly was impacting women, lost her job as a sales manager at TCF Center in Detroit back in early July, months after the expo center stopped hosting events. The 55-year-old single mother to a 12-year-old is still looking for work seven months later and is falling behind on her mortgage payments while grinding out about 20 hours a week as a cashier at Kroger for $11.40 an hour. She’s survived on expanded unemployment benefits — the $300 per week she gets from the federal government will continue through August thanks to President Joe Biden’s signature on the American Rescue Plan last week — and leniency from her bank, allowing her to pay only half of her monthly mortgage payment. She’s also borrowed twice against her 401(k). “I’ve gotten to the final three candidates for several positions, but I haven’t landed the job, unfortunately,” Berkemeier said. “I know I’m qualified and I have great referrals and I’m told I interview well but it’s a tough market. It’s qualified woman against qualified woman. Now I have a new focus date in my head. August is when unemployment will run out again and my mortgage leniency runs out. I have to find something by then.” She spends about three hours every morning searching for jobs — she’s grown efficient over the last seven months — and then spends time helping her daughter, who has a learning disability, with schooling. Despite her school returning to a hybrid model with in-person
Jennifer Berkemeier lost her job as a sales manager at TCF Center in Detroit back in early July | LARRY PEPLIN FOR CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS
learning, Berkemeier decided to keep her daughter home in case she gets a new job. “Right now, she’s doing a really good job participating,” Berkemeier said. “I felt it would be easier to manage right now than having to find rides or ask a brand new employer to leave a little early when I get a new job.” According to McKinsey, about 40 percent of working mothers have added three hours a day, or 15 hours a week, of domestic duties during the pandemic. That’s twice as much as men and three times as much as men if young children are involved, Ellingrud said. This extra pressure has led women to abandon a jobs search. While the national and state jobless rate reflects a huge drop in unemployment, it’s really reflecting a huge drop in participation. The unemployment rate only captures those actively looking for work, not those unemployed that dropped out of the
jobs search. In September, at the height of the pandemic and start of the school year, 1.1 million people dropped out of the labor force — 80 percent, or 880,000, were women. In January of this year, Michigan’s labor force shrank by 2.5 percent. About 100,000 workers in metro Detroit alone left the workforce in January, reflecting a rosier than accurate 4.2 percent unemployment rate in the region, according to data from the Michigan Department of Technology, Management and Budget. “Women leaving the workforce to take care of children is technically a temporary shock,” Ellingrud said. “But unemployment for women is stickier and that propagates longer unemployment. You can expect every woman to be unemployed, on average, at least two months longer than an equivalent (in education and experience) man.” The sun will set on this damned pandemic but for women, especially mothers, the long tooth of suffering will continue well after the COVID wards are closed. The solutions are the same as they’ve always been: Increase federal funding for universal preschool, increase affordable child care options, expand apprenticeships, implement more flexible schedules, create pay parity between men and women, etc. The government, economy and employers have been moving in this direction — at a glacial pace — for a decade. The question is whether it’ll be enough for the economy not to lose an entire generation of working women. Contact: dwalsh@crain.com; (313) 446-6042; @dustinpwalsh
MORE ON WJR ` Crain’s Executive Editor Kelley Root and Managing Editor Michael Lee talk about the week’s stories every Monday morning at 6:15 a.m. Mondays on WJR 760 AM’s Paul W. Smith Show.
COMMENTARY
A new world for corporate prosecutions under Biden BY MATTHEW SCHNEIDER
W
Matthew Schneider is a partner at the Honigman law firm and is the former U.S. Attorney in Eastern Michigan.
hile on the campaign trail, then-candidate Joe Biden telegraphed how he would approach businesses and corporate leaders who get into hot water, and he pledged to “hold corporate executives personally accountable — including jail time.” Will President Biden’s campaign trail pledges turn into reality? Or will Biden and his team realize that their Department of Justice promises might not be possible?
Either way, businesses need to be prepared. Here’s what business leaders should keep an eye on: More corporate guilty pleas. Over the last four years, the Justice Department allowed many companies charged with felonies to settle their cases one of two ways: agreeing to a Deferred Prosecution Agreement, where the company is put on probation and the charges are later dismissed; or joining a Non-Prosecution Agreement, where the charges go away completely. Boeing, Deutsche Bank, and JP Morgan have all enjoyed this treatment. President Biden has telegraphed that he intends to seek stiffer punishments for companies, which likely means an increase in felony pleas rather than settlements. Companies will be expected to cooperate with regulators. In the Obama Administration, then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates issued an “all or nothing” policy on how
companies could receive credit for cooperating with the government during an investigation. The Yates approach required companies to self-report every aspect of their misdeeds in order to receive any lenient treatment from the DOJ. In the Trump Administration, then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein felt the “all or nothing” approach bogged down important investigations, so he allowed companies to negotiate settlements without fully cooperating. If history repeats itself, companies seeking a break should expect to fully cooperate with the Biden Justice Department’s investigations. Corporate fines will increase. The Obamaera approach to corporate fines was an acrossthe-board approach. In order to settle a civil or criminal dispute, a company was expected to pay a fine to every government agency affected by its conduct. For example, in an environmental pollution case, a polluter would face
Write us: Crain’s welcomes responses from readers. Letters should be as brief as possible and may be edited for length or clarity. Send letters to Crain’s Detroit Business, 1155 Gratiot Ave, Detroit, MI 48207, or email crainsdetroit@crain.com. Please include your complete name, city from which you are writing and a phone number for fact-checking purposes. 8 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | MARCH 15, 2021
fines from the DOJ as well the EPA, and any other agency affected — even if it was an agency of a foreign government. But in the last four years, the Justice Department waived fines as a way of recognizing the harm that stiff fines could create for a company’s shareholders or employees. Given what we’ve heard from President Biden so far, we should expect a return to the Obama view on fines. Environmental enforcement will increase. President Biden has pledged to create the Justice Department’s first-ever “Environmental and Climate Justice Division.” While we don’t know exactly what this will mean, it’s a safe bet that many businesses in Michigan who have air or water emissions — including auto makers, manufacturers, and agricultural operators — will fall under increased scrutiny. Change is coming. How business leaders respond will have a dramatic effect on the outcomes.
Sound off: Crain’s considers longer opinion pieces from guest writers on issues of interest to business readers. Email ideas to Managing Editor Michael Lee at malee@crain.com.
OTHER VOICES
Why seeing is so important to believing BY EDIE REAVES
I saw the Challenger explode from an airplane on the way home from Cape Canaveral, waiting for the launch. I was in middle school at the time, and a Edie Reaves lives space camp devoin Howell and is tee who wanted to vice president of be an aeronautical engineer Operational someday. I’ve alExcellence and ways loved math Quality for and science, and Quala. She is a because I saw board member Christa McAuliffe of Cleary as a woman preUniversity. paring to go into space, I learned there was room for women in aeronautical careers. Seeing is believing. I veered a little from that childhood goal, still studying math and science but choosing a career in engineering. On one of my first days working for Ford Motor Co., a colleague old enough to be my father said, “You’re not supposed to be here. I was never supposed to work with a woman, let alone an African American woman.” It was the first time I’d heard so directly and unfiltered that there were limitations to what I could do. I was fortunate to grow up in a family where women built careers and became leaders. My mother had a career as an educator rising to leadership levels while my father owned and operated a funeral home in Muncie, Ind. I was raised around value for education and a lot of business activity. I had a family who believed in me and told me I could do whatever I set out to accomplish. For as long as I can remember, I wanted to lead. If I joined a club, I wanted to be its president. Student council, cheerleading, I raced to the top. But I had encouragement and
support. I believed I could ascend the ranks, get to the top. Belief comes from support, which is essential for women and minorities seeking to climb any ladder. So many women fall out of their educational process or career advancement because of historic perceptions and stereotypes dictating that women belong at home raising kids or leading families. We get in our own way sometimes, too. But once you decide what is important to you, no one should stand in your way. Not even you. Women get in their own way all the time. Sometimes it’s because we don’t see examples of ourselves where we
aspire to be, so we don’t believe it’s possible. If you want to be a plant manager and you never see a woman in that role, it makes it hard to envision you can get there. The absence of naturally occurring mentors and role models can hinder any person’s ability to achieve. Engaging with mentors and having advocates are important components of shedding that lack of belief in what you can do. For so long, we’ve heard messages promoting traditional roles — the woman at home and the man as breadwinner. My husband hasn’t worked for nearly a decade now, and so many people — especially men —
assume he’s soft. Then they meet him and they’re like, “Oh, this is a real guy.” I most assuredly would not be where I am today without his commitment and support to me and our family. We chose to change the narrative. We decided together that I would pursue my career and he would fall out of the workforce to facilitate that. Stereotypes require conditioning to survive. It’s everywhere we turn. On cable business news or the stock market indicators, you don’t see many women leading the conversation. Seeing is believing. Women must figure out the purpose behind their work and then find examples to build self-belief. We must
empower young women with mentors, advocates and clear paths to whatever goal they seek to achieve. We must build relationships that build people. I’m a huge advocate of business education for women because that’s where the power lies. Learning to be comfortable with numbers, to understand the ethics of transactions, to seek service in the commercial sector, these are qualities that are not open only to men. For our society to truly advance, we must change the narrative that certain genders or races belong in certain roles. Once we open the possibilities to everyone, we create a culture where everyone belongs.
ideal corporate headquarters SOUTHFIELD, MICHIGAN
CRAIN’S AWARDS
Nominations are open for Excellence in HR Awards Human resources teams have been the pivot point for so many businesses in the last year as a global pandemic has upended working life as we know it. We want to tell their stories. Help us by nominating an outstanding human resources leader or team for Crain's Excellence in HR Awards. The deadline to nominate is March 17. Awards will be given in five categories: Overall Excellence/HR Team of the Year; Managing Change; Employee Experience; Diversity and Inclusion; and Finding and Growing Talent. Winners will be recognized in a special section in the June 21 issue of Crain's. You can nominate a candidate here. Questions? Contact Special Projects Editor Amy Bragg: abragg@ crain.com
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SUBURBAN DEVELOPMENT
TRADING SPACES Developers find creative new uses for tired, underutilized sites BY KIRK PINHO A mall parking lot transformed into
hundreds of apartments and offices. A former newspaper building converted to a luxury car dealership. An indoor soccer arena housing mortgage employees. The development business is fickle and subject to a raft of external factors: materials costs on any given day, market demand, availability of labor, zoning, community reaction, financing and, in some cases, public votes or the moods of planning commissioners or zoning boards. But when all the pieces come together, that’s when projects, some more unique than others, get done. These are just a few of the more interesting redevelopments of tired or underutilized space taking place or envisioned around Metro Detroit.
10 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | MARCH 15, 2021
Briarwood Mall development, Ann Arbor It’s no secret that, in general, malls are troubled assets for a variety of reasons. Global pandemics. E-commerce. Other retail shifts. Couple that with a unique Ann Arbor market and you have the opportunity to turn Briarwood Mall surface parking space into ... not that. Jim Chaconas, senior vice president in the Ann Arbor office of Colliers International Inc., is marketing a new development by Indianapolis-based mall owner Simon Property Group, the new owner of Taubman Cos. LLC, formerly Taubman Centers Inc. As it’s currently envisioned, it
“THIS HAS SHOPPING AND RESTAURANTS, AND YOU CAN WALK TO WORK, YOU HAVE A PLACE TO PARK AND A RESTAURANT TO GO IN.” — Jim Chaconas, senior vice president, Colliers International Inc.
would bring a 135,000-square-foot office building, 585 apartments and a grocery store to the eastern portion of Briarwood’s massive parking lot at South State Road and I-94. Call the proposed future parking lot uses a sign of the times. “The mall needs traffic,” Chaconas said. “The tech firms want to be downtown because of restaurants and shopping. But downtown has no parking. This has shopping and
restaurants, and you can walk to work, you have a place to park and a restaurant to go in.” The apartments would be built by a third-party developer on the SPG site, with site plan review this year and construction next year, and the REIT would build the office space within about 18 to 24 months once a tenant is lined up. See SPACES on Page 12
The
AMAZON FACILITY Canton Township site is latest building target for online retailer PAGE 12
How busy Troy got an Opportunity Zone to kick-start development
The Urbane Apartments at 21201 Woodward Ave. in Ferndale.
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The Briarwood Mall parking lot in Ann Arbor. | NIC ANTAYA FOR CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS
NIC ANTAYA FOR CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS
BY KIRK PINHO
The Top of Troy high-rise along its namesake city’s vaunted retail and office corridor is somewhat deceiving. Sometimes called the PNC Center with the bank’s name emblazoned on the top, it is an homage to capitalism and wealth: 363 feet towering high above the upper middle-class Oakland County city, no building for miles close to rivaling its height. It is two miles from perhaps the most luxurious shopping mall in the state, Somerset Collection, one of the most storied offices in Oakland County, the Bank of America Building, and surrounded by other Class A office space like Columbia Center and Liberty Center in some of the most desirable ZIP codes for law, tech, accounting, real estate and other companies. But the tower, developed in the 1970s by Bloomfield Hills-based Kojaian Management Co. and still owned by C. Michael Kojaian’s company, also sits in a federally designated Opportunity Zone, which gives investors in Qualified Opportunity Funds appealing breaks on their capital gains taxes. Designed as a way to prop up areas that have been starved of investment, the zones have taken criticism for ultimately not helping those who need it most, lack of transparency and political and economic influence manipulating which areas were designated as Qualified Opportunity Zones. Locally, the program received pointed criticism because some areas of Detroit that had been real estate investment hot spots were designated as Opportunity Zones even though investors had been targeting those areas for years before the tax breaks became law. But sure enough, one square mile of Troy — bounded by Maple and Big Beaver to the south and north and Crooks and Livernois to the west and east — meets the federal qualifications to be deemed one. “There are less than 1,000 people living there, but the household income levels meet the criteria,” said Glenn Lapin, Troy’s economic development specialist. “There was an effort across the country to have a variety of geographic areas, different conditions, different surroundings, some urban, some rural, some suburban,” Lapin said. “That’s how it got in, right or wrong.” But was the Opportunity Zone designation actually needed to kickstart developments in an area that is generally viewed as a safe bet for new buildings? That’s anyone’s guess. Bob Waun, the owner/broker of
The Top of Troy in Troy.
“THERE WAS AN EFFORT ACROSS THE COUNTRY TO HAVE A VARIETY OF GEOGRAPHIC AREAS, DIFFERENT CONDITIONS, DIFFERENT SURROUNDINGS, SOME URBAN, SOME RURAL, SOME SUBURBAN.” — Glenn Lapin, Troy’s economic development specialist
Pontiac-based Dirt Realty LLC who is active in downtown real estate in the county seat, said Troy’s singular Opportunity Zone is emblematic of the “gerrymandering” that took place when designating the zones. “There were 8,300 zones across the country, and if they had narrowed it to, say, 1,000, it would have been a more impactful tax act because it would have intensified them instead of diluted them,” Waun said. “We have identified a number of others that otherwise look like wealthy communities that got Opportunity Zones. They were gerrymandered through political manipulation of the rulebook or boundaries. Nobody thought Troy needed Opportunity Zones to attract opportunity or investment,” Waun said.
How they work Opportunity Zones are designated according to U.S. Census tracts where the poverty rate is at least 20 percent and/or the median household income is less than 80 percent of that in the surrounding areas. The Michigan State Housing Development Authority says they are for “low-income communities nationwide that have been cut off from capital and experienced a lack of business growth.”
MSHDA says there are 1,152 tracts that are eligible for the designation, but only 25 percent (288) were allowed to be declared Opportunity Zones. They work as follows: Investors place their capital gains in so-called Opportunity Funds, which then invest in Opportunity Zones. They can invest in things like real estate and business development. The upside for investors is that they can defer and lower capital gains taxes. Under the law, in general terms, capital gains must be invested in Opportunity Funds within 180 days after the gain is realized. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic this year, the Internal Revenue Service extended the investment window for gains that would have expired between April and December such that investors can contribute to the fund as late as Dec. 31. Generally, patience is rewarded with lower taxes. If the gains are contributed to a fund by Dec. 31, 2021, and stay within the fund for five years, the investor only has to pay federal capital gains taxes on 90 percent of the tax due on the capital gains from the initial investment. In addition, capital gains tax on the initial investment is deferred until Dec. 31, 2026. There’s an extra carrot for investors if they leave the money in the fund 10 years or longer: They don’t have to pay any capital gains tax on the appreciation of the Opportunity Fund or depreciation recapture, in addition to getting the 10.9 percent discount rate on the tax due on the original investment and the deferral of the tax on the initial investment until Dec. 31, 2026. If they pull that money out before then, they pay normal capital gains tax on the fund’s appreciation. See OPPORTUNITY on Page 12
MARCH 15, 2021 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | 11
FOCUS | SUBURBAN DEVELOPMENT
Amazon’s newest building target is Canton Township, sources say BY KIRK PINHO
Hometown Life, which last week cited Amazon signage included in Canton Planning Commission documents. Sources later confirmed to Crain’s that Amazon is the tenant. The site is approximately 73 acres across eight parcels, and construction would begin in June and finish in April, the planning documents say. They also say that the developer, which is Pure Development Inc. based in Indianapolis, needs 265
Amazon.com Inc. is the expected occupant of a new warehouse and distribution building envisioned for Michigan Avenue in Canton Township. Two sources familiar with the matter said the Seattle-based e-commerce giant is planning to take 183,130 square feet of space planned between Denton and Beck roads. The plan was first reported by
parking spaces for employees and 90 van spaces, greater than the amount the township’s zoning rules require. In addition, there are 966 fleet van spaces needed. The documents refer to the ultimate user as “an online retailer.” News of the new Canton Township facility comes following details of a new 415,000-square-foot facility for Amazon at 9075 Haggerty Road in Plymouth, about 10 miles away.
A rendering of a proposed new facility for Amazon.com Inc. in Canton Township. | SCREENSHOT/CANTON TOWNSHIP PLANNING COMMISSION AGENDA PACKET
SPACES
OPPORTUNITY
From Page 10
From Page 11
Job attraction
It’s impossible to talk about creative mall space repurposing without mentioning that Ford Motor Co. several years ago leased 220,000 square feet of the Fairlane Town Center in Dearborn. Or that the former Northland Center property in Southfield is now being mulled as eventually becoming the state’s largest apartment development with close to 3,000 units and retail space.
Former Oakland Press building, Pontiac A luxury and rare car dealership. In downtown Pontiac. In a former newspaper building. It took a keen eye to concoct that recipe in late 2017. Keith Koscak, partner for LBI Limited, said it took $400,000 to strip an old The Oakland Press building down to its four walls and create a showroom that presently houses 20 to 25 specialty cars. “It hadn’t been remodeled since the late 1980s or early 1990s,” Koscak said. “We pretty much immediately started interior demolition on the property, basically restructured the entire space that is essentially now an art gallery for special-interest automobiles.” Among the improvements are all new electrical and HVAC systems, he said. “It was a pretty sizable investment to bring it up to our standards,” Koscak said. It’s the second location for the Philadelphia-based dealership that Koscak and Andrew Mastin founded. Mastin, in a 2018 interview, said the firm specializes in “investment grade, pre-war and post-war sports cars, stuff from the 1950s and 1960s all the way up through modern exotics.” LBI, which started in 2009, averages about $11 million annually in revenue, Mastin said in 2018.
Ultimate Soccer Arenas, Pontiac A mild twist in one of the more unique redevelopments in Detroit’s suburbs: Instead of becoming fulltime office space for United Wholesale Mortgage (NYSE: UWM), the Ultimate Soccer Arenas property is going to become an 800-person training center with multiple rooms and a 2,500-person auditorium. The fact remains that turning that 378,400-square-foot building
A construction crew works next to the UWM Sports Complex in Pontiac. | NIC ANTAYA FOR CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS
at 867 South Blvd. is one of the more creative space repurposings around. One of the indoor fields will be used for the company run by Mat Ishbia, while the other three are generally going to be saved for the community to use, said Laura Lawson, executive vice president and chief people officer for UWM. Pontiac-based United Wholesale Mortgage is buying the Ultimate Soccer Arenas property near its headquarters for yet another expansion of its corporate campus in the Oakland County seat. That’s because adding the training centers to the company’s other buildings would take away space for employees to be together in the office setting, Lawson said, so they shifted gears. “We like to all be connected,” she said, noting that the change in plans was made in December, a month after the company announced it was buying the property for $23.3 million. The space is expected to open April 25, Lawson said. George Derderian, managing partner and owner of Ultimate Soccer Arenas, sold the building but will continue as the facility’s operator through a lease agreement with the purchasing entity, Ishbia said in an interview in November. UWM said it has added nearly 3,000 employees in 2020 alone, bringing its current workforce in Pontiac to more than 7,000. The company has a campus footprint on the South Boulevard corridor totaling nearly 1.9 million square feet and 200 acres.
12 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | MARCH 15, 2021
Holiday Inn, Farmington Hills
Former Motorama Motel, Ferndale
What do you do with a suburban hotel aimed at business travelers when business travel has been decimated by a global pandemic? Look for other uses. In this case, the Holiday Inn & Suites Farmington Hills — Detroit NW, located at 33103 Hamilton Court near Farmington Road and I-696, is being mulled as independent senior living after being battered by the COVID-19 pandemic. Kenny Koza, president of owner Southfield-based Group 10 Management, said the 133-room hotel could become a 76-unit independent living facility although the final decision hasn’t been made. “We just wanted to have some backup plans, really,” he said. The possible use change was first reported by Hometown Life. The hotel, which has been closed since April, is expected to reopen by April 1 for a trial run to see how business is and the company is expected to make a determination by the middle or end of summer on whether to convert it into a new use or continue as is. “We hope the hotel works, but if it doesn’t, we need to explore what else to do,” Koza said. The 133 rooms would be reduced, creating units as small as 500 square feet and units as large as 1,100 square feet. “We are just trying to brainstorm,” Koza said, noting that his company has two other hotels nearby.
A dicey motel at one of the most culturally and historically significant intersections in the region is now market-rate apartments following a $3.7 million redevelopment. After years of problems including drugs and fighting and police complaints, the former Motorama Motel at the northwest corner of Eight Mile Road and Woodward Avenue has created the new 35-unit Urbane Ferndale apartments. It is now up for sale at 50-percent occupancy, with one-bedroom units renting for $925 per month. Like the Group 10 Management redevelopment of the Holiday Inn, walls were removed, shrinking the motel from 60 rooms to 35 apartments. The project also included updating finishes, rewiring mechanical systems, exterior renovations with new siding, paint, accents and front doors, Mike Ferlito, head of Detroit-based developer Ferlito Group, said in an interview earlier this year. His company worked on the project with Royal Oak-based Urbane Apartments, which is the property manager. The redevelopment took about a year, wrapping up in 2020. Converting hotel space to multifamily space has increased in prominence during the pandemic as hotels continue to feel the sting of the COVID-19 pandemic. “I know a lot of hotel guys are looking for buyers,” Ferlito said. Contact: kpinho@crain.com; (313) 446-0412; @kirkpinhoCDB
The median household income for this Census tract is $64,844 and 11.92 percent of the people live in poverty, according to a report from Enterprise Community Partners, which Lapin said spelled out why the 1976 Census tract was an Opportunity Zone. The most recent Area Median Income figures, dated April 1, 2020, say that the AMI in Oakland County is $55,000 for one person, $62,800 for a two-person household, $70,700 for a three-person household and $78,500 for a four-person household. “Based upon the location and nature of the majority of the buildings in that Census tract, I assume it was selected in an attempt to attract new jobs, which is certainly one of the desired outcomes of the Opportunity Zone incentive,” said Gordon Goldie, partner in the Housing and Community Development Solutions in Auburn Hills for Plante Moran PLLC.
Making way for development Property owners in the area say Opportunity Zones help. Dennis Bostick, who bought the Huntington Bank building in July 2018 for $9 million after the Opportunity Zones were enacted into law through the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, said some of his new development would not have taken place if not for the Opportunity Zone tax breaks. That includes a six-story Hyatt Regency hotel, restaurant, and six-floor, approximately 500-space parking deck, not to mention the renovations for the Huntington Bank property at 801-803 W. Big Beaver Road. “All new elevators, completely renovated the lobby. There has been quite a few million spent already on things that probably would not have happened without the Opportunity Zones,” he said. He also said, however, he understands concerns about the Troy designation. “There is a fair argument,” he said. “We are fortunate that we are on the very north end of that. They had to draw a line somewhere.” David Steuer, president of Steuer & Associates Corp., an affiliate of the ownership group of the entity that owns property in the area, also said Opportunity Zones have helped grease the skids for new investment. “They are a great opportunity to improve employment in the area and will create more employment and investment,” he said.
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Preparing to Take Advantage of a Post-Pandemic Rebound As changes related to COVID-19 continue to ripple through the business community, resilient organizations are setting themselves up for future success
To call the COVID-19 pandemic an unprecedented challenge for businesses contacted by Ipsos and Crain’s Content Studio almost undersells its impact. A recent survey conducted by Crain’s Content Studio, Ipsos and Bank of America finds that 86% of companies have re-evaluated, redirected or retooled their strategy in the past year due to the pandemic. Businesses have had to respond to shifting client needs, workforce changes and supply chain disruptions. The rapidly evolving situation has often required quick decisions, as well as periods of extended uncertainty. Despite these hardships, businesses have remained generally positive about the future. With the arrival of vaccines, most businesses are optimistic for a return to usual operations in the coming months. How much the new normal will resemble the pre-pandemic normal remains an open question, however. In many cases, taking advantage of a post-pandemic rebound will require businesses to stay flexible as they roll with a whole new set of changes.
HOW BUSINESSES ADJUSTED TO A NEW NORMAL More than two of every three companies surveyed indicated their business was negatively affected by the pandemic. Sue Duckett, executive vice president at Franklin Capital, a financial services firm in Highland Park, Ill., notes that the immediate impact of the pandemic depended on her clients’ industries. “Anybody that was dealing with big-box companies—apparel, the food industry—all of those were being hurt,” she says. “But the [personal protective equipment] businesses and anybody that pivoted to that field suddenly were doing very well.” Businesses say the top challenges they’ve faced during the pandemic include maintaining workforce productivity in a remote environment, dealing with reduced customer demand, executing an accelerated digital transformation and supply chain disruptions. In many cases, they moved quickly to address these challenges. Six in 10 businesses report they have already completed workforce adjustments designed to keep their employees safe and 63% have completed the transition to remote work. Further adjustments to supply chains and business strategies are more likely to be in the works, however. Another 39% of companies plan to redesign their supply chains, compared to 41% that have already managed to complete that work. GrandPad, a California-based manufacturer of tablet computers designed for senior citizens, shifted its supply chain early on. “The Asian supply chain was definitely disrupted last spring,” says GrandPad’s CEO and co-founder, Scott Lien. “We have worked really closely on more long-term visibility and forecasting, getting more buffer stock in terms of raw materials and parts, and keeping more buffer stock of finished goods in the US.” BUSINESSES ARE GENERALLY OPTIMISTIC ABOUT THE FUTURE A large majority of decision makers (72%) expect their business to return to usual operations in the next six to 24 months. Business leaders in the technology and financial services industries are generally most optimistic about these timelines, possibly because their firms have seen less negative impact from the pandemic than those in other sectors. Executives in the professional services industry tend to see a slower return. In many cases, leaders’ overall optimism reflects an expectation that the changes they have made during the pandemic will bear fruit in the months and years to come. “I’m not sure there were any new trends that happened during COVID—I think it just made certain trends happen faster,” says Amy Binder, CEO of RF/Binder, a communications and consulting company based in New York City. Binder sees a more purpose-driven work ethic as a long-term benefit of this period. “There’s been a lot of talk in the past couple years about the role of purpose,” she says. “I think companies understand in a very different way that your purpose needs to link to what you do, both internally with
your employees and externally with your customers and within the community in which you operate.” EXPECT MORE CHANGES AS A NEW NORMAL BEGINS TO EMERGE Nearly three of four business leaders (73%) expect permanent changes to their industry as a result of the pandemic. In the long run, they most expect to see benefits from the investments their companies have made and will continue to make in technology, greater workforce flexibility, and a more nimble, resilient workforce. Gary’s Wine and Marketplace had to rapidly add digital ordering capability that could be fulfilled by curbside deliveries, as patrons fearful of a shutdown crowded the company’s New York-area stores. “It forced an immediate acceleration for us,” says Gary Fisch, the firm’s founder and CEO. “We need to continue to upgrade the technology because it was not designed to do as many deliveries as we’re doing—we’ve upgraded our phone system, we’ve got queuing now and we’re going to continue to invest in all that back-end technology,” he says. The introduction of digital channels has potential to expand organizations’ reach as things return to normal. Even as some customers resume in-person transactions, others will stick with digital. Still others will take advantage of new opportunities as well. Phil Michaelson, CEO of New York-based Live Auctioneers, a digital platform for online auctions, sees strong potential to expand his company’s user base. “We see buyers who are really excited to participate in multiple auctions on a Saturday morning, as opposed to just one,” he says. “I envision a future where the folks who like attending events in person go in person, but also attend other auctions around the world virtually at the same time.” STAYING FLEXIBLE WHILE MOVING FORWARD During the pandemic, business leaders have been forced to deal with a massive amount of uncertainty in a short period of time. Over the long run, companies may build on the flexibility and resilience they’ve developed during this period. Katherine Zabloudil, CEO of consumer products manufacturer the Vertical Collective, headquartered in Redondo Beach, California, recalls the moment her team dug into the task of manufacturing personal protective equipment. “At first we were just paralyzed, and then after a couple hours, we basically just rolled up our sleeves and started going—calling factories, calling suppliers and securing airspace on cargo flights, just moving quickly. That’s what makes me the most proud of our company and how we define ourselves—the ability to move so fast that we don’t even have time to think about fear at all,” she says. “We have a nimble and smart team of people who can work really quickly and pivot really quickly.”
METHODOLOGY Ipsos and Crain Communications conducted the Bank of America Better Business Banking Report survey online between October 13th – November 20th, 2020 and January 4th – January 15th, 2021. Responses were collected using an online sample of business decision makers in the United States with annual revenue between $5 million and $99,999,999. From October 13th – November 20th, 2020 Crain’s contacted 73 business decision makers using a propriety list in Chicago, New York, Detroit, Boston, Minneapolis and Houston. From October 13th – November 20th, 2020 Ipsos contacted 751 business decision makers using a pre-recruited online sample of small business owners from across the country outside of the following markets: Seattle, Minneapolis/St Paul, Washington DC, San Francisco/Silicon Valley, Chicago, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Detroit, Charlotte, San Diego, Boston, Orlando, Phoenix, New York, Miami, Houston, Philadelphia. From January 4th – January 15th, 2021 Ipsos contacted 400 business decision makers using a pre-recruited online sample of small business owners from within the following markets: Seattle, Minneapolis/St Paul, Washington DC, San Francisco/Silicon Valley, Chicago, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Detroit, Charlotte, San Diego, Boston, Orlando, Phoenix, New York, Miami, Houston, Philadelphia. The final results for the study are not weighted.
CRAIN'S LIST | MICHIGAN WOMAN-OWNED BUSINESSES Ranked by 2020 revenue COMPANY ADDRESS PHONE; WEWBSITE
MAJORITY OWNER(S)
REVENUE ($000,000) 2020/2019
PERCENT CHANGE
MICHIGAN EMPLOYEES JAN. 2021/ 2020
PERCENT WOMANOWNED
TYPE OF BUSINESS
1
ILITCH COMPANIES 1 2211 Woodward Ave., Detroit 48201 313-471-6600; www.ilitchcompanies.com
Marian Ilitch founder and chairperson
$3,624.0 2
0.0%
NA NA
NA
Food, sports and entertainment industries. Companies include Little Caesars Pizza, Olympia Entertainment, Detroit Red Wings, Blue Line Foodservice Distribution, MotorCity Casino Hotel, Ilitch Holdings Inc., Champion Foods, Olympia Development and Little Caesars Pizza Kit Fundraising Program
2
DAKKOTA INTEGRATED SYSTEMS LLC
Andra Rush chairman and CEO
$465.0
-17.7%
1400 1250
55
Complete assemblies for original equipment manufacturers
3
DETROIT LIONS INC.
Sheila Ford Hamp 3 owner, chairwoman
$411.0 4
6.8%
NA NA
NA
National Football League franchise
4
ARISTEO CONSTRUCTION
Michelle Aristeo Barton, president Anne Aristeo Martinelli chief strategy officer
$392.5
-16.1%
363 568
NA
General contractor and construction manager with self-perform Excavation, concrete, steel fabrication and erection and equipment installation services. Serves the manufacturing, industrial, energy and higher education markets
5
VESCO OIL CORP.
Marjory Winkelman Epstein chairman Lillian Epstein Stotland president and CEO Lena Epstein, co-owner
$164.0
-15.9%
162 191
100
Distributor of automotive and industrial lubricants, petroleum and aftermarket products and chemicals
6
BOWMAN AUTO GROUP (BOWMAN CHEVROLET)
Katie Bowman Coleman president and owner
$162.6
-5.7%
118 126
100
Automotive dealership
7
EHIM INC.
Mindi Fynke president and CEO
$142.7
-3.0%
134 NA
100
Pharmacy benefits management services, third-party administration and consulting services
8
MAHAR TOOL SUPPLY CO.
Barb Mahar Lincoln CEO
$87.5
-26.2%
53 92
100
Tool management partner and industrial distribution, commodity management, gauging, staffing
9
WOLVERINE TRUCK SALES INC.
Lynn Terry president
$76.7
-22.9%
162 171
100
Truck sales, parts and service
MOTOR CITY STAMPING INC.
Judy Kucway CEO and CFO
$64.3 2
0.0%
NA NA
52
Stamping plant; automotive welding, assembly, dies and prototypes
ARC SUPPLY CHAIN SOLUTIONS INC.
Greta Elliott president
$64.0
4.9%
43 42
75
Third-party logistics service, freight bill audit and payment, freight optimization
12
SYSTRAND MANUFACTURING CORP.
Sharon Cannarsa president and CEO
$54.1
-26.7%
187 203
100
Precision machining and assembly of automotive products
13
DFM SOLUTIONS 5
Lauren Rakolta president
$36.9
14.2%
305 290
54
Integrated facility services, maintenance services and project and engineering services for industrial and commercial needs
14
AUTOMOTIVE QUALITY & LOGISTICS INC.
Sangeeta Ahluwalia CEO
$35.5
4.1%
165 149
51
Staffing and service to the automotive manufacturing facilities and their suppliers. OEMs like Ford, GM, Mercedes, VW and tierone and tier-two suppliers
SEKO WORLDWIDE DETROIT
Tanya Bartelo owner
$34.2
-30.0%
30 32
51
Global logistics provider, including air, ocean and domestic transportation, as well as customs brokerage services and export crating, foreign to foreign moves, PO management, project shipping
CONTRACT DIRECT LLC
Elizabeth Hammond president
$33.8
-3.2%
69 67
51
Facility maintenance services company
17
DOWDING INDUSTRIES INC.
G. Christine Dowding-Metts CEO
$29.7 2
0.0%
NA 188
100
Precision machining, metal fabrication, progressive die stampings, welded assemblies, custom laser cutting, double disc grinding, rapid response prototyping
18
MCNAUGHTON & GUNN INC.
Julie McFarland president
$27.9
0.7%
155 155
75
Book manufacturing for short to medium print runs for web, sheet-fed and digital printing.
19
BLUE CHIP TALENT
Nicole Pawczuk CEO
$23.9
-9.0%
178 222
51
IT, engineering and professional services staffing
20
PERFORMANCE DRIVEN WORKFORCE
Lizabeth Ardisana CEO
$21.8
-8.8%
183 167
51
Human capital management
21
LR MANAGEMENT SERVICES CORP.
Leslie Etterbeek founder, president and CEO
$21.0 6
16.5%
134 75
100
Real estate management company
22
GONGOS INC.
Camille Nicita president and CEO
$20.1
-21.0%
108 123
100
Consultancy and market research
23
UNIVERSITY MOVING & STORAGE CO.
Elise Benedict-Howard chairman
$19.6
-17.0%
75 85
51
Moving storage and transportation services
24
CLIPS & CLAMPS INDUSTRIES
Kathleen Dul Aznavorian chairman
$15.0
-6.3%
51 49
66.7
Automotive metal stamping
25
DRIVERSOURCE INC.
Jinan Dalloo CEO
$12.5
-31.0%
225 NA
51
Temporary staffing services
10 11
15 16
123 Brighton Lake Road Suite 202, Brighton 48116 517-993-7700; www.dakkota.com 222 Republic Drive, Allen Park 48101 313-216-4000; www.detroitlions.com 12811 Farmington Road, Livonia 48150 734-427-9111; www.aristeo.com
16055 W. 12 Mile Road, Southfield 48076 248-557-1600; www.vescooil.com
6750 Dixie Highway, Clarkston 48346 248-795-1841; https://www.bowmanchevy.com/
26711 Northwestern Highway, Suite 400, Southfield 48033-2154 248-948-9900; www.ehimrx.com 112 Williams St., Saginaw 48602 989-799-5530; gomahar.com
3550 Wyoming Ave., Dearborn 48120 313-849-0800; www.wolverinetruckgroup.com 47783 N. Gratiot Ave., Chesterfield Township 48051 586-949-8420; www.mcstamp.com 13221 Inkster Road, Taylor 48180 877-272-3523; www.arc-scs.com
19050 Allen Road, Brownstown Township 48183 734-479-8100; www.systrand.com 535 Griswold St., Suite 2050, Detroit 48226 313-221-1500; www.dfmc3.com
14744 Jib St., Plymouth 48170 734-459-1670; www.aql-inc.com
6800 S. Cypress, Romulus 48174 734-641-2100; www.sekologistics.com/detroit
24300 Southfield Road, Suite 321, Southfield 48075 248-361-0427; www.contractdirect.net 449 Marilin St., Eaton Rapids 48827 517-663-5455; www.dowdingindustries.com 960 Woodland Drive, PO Box 10, Saline 48176-0010 734-429-5411; www.bookprinters.com 43252 Woodward Ave., Suite 240, Bloomfield Hills 48302 248-858-7701; www.bctalent.com 22226 Garrison, Dearborn 48124 313-203-3435; www.pdworkforce.com
1625 W. Big Beaver Road, Suite B, Troy 48084 248-548-4800; www.lrmanagement.com 150 W. Second St., Ste. 300, Royal Oak 48067 248-239-2300; www.gongos.com 23305 Commerce Drive, Farmington Hills 48335 248-615-7000; www.universitymoving.com 15050 Keel St., Plymouth 48170-6032 734-455-0880; www.clipsclamps.com 15340 Michigan Ave., Dearborn 48126 800-887-9095; www.driversource.net
$3,624.0 2
$565.0
$385.0 4
$467.8
$195.0
$172.4
$147.1
$118.5
$99.4
$64.3
$61.0
$73.8
$32.3
$34.1
$48.8
$34.9
$29.7
$27.7
$26.3
$23.9
$18.0 6
$25.4
$23.6
$16.0
$18.0
Researched by Sonya D. Hill: shill@crain.com | This list of woman-owned businesses is an approximate compilation of the largest such businesses headquartered in Michigan. Percentage of the company that is woman owned may not be solely held by the leading shareholder. Number of full-time employees may include full-time equivalents. It is not a complete listing but the most comprehensive available. Crain's estimates are based on industry analyses and benchmarks, news reports and a wide range of other sources. Unless otherwise noted, information was provided by the companies. Strategic Staffing Solutions which was No. 5, Production Plus - The Talent Shop which was No. 15 and G-TECH Services Inc. which was No. 20 on last year's list declined to participate. Buff Whelan Chevrolet no longer qualifies after being bought by Serra Automotive in February. NA = not available. NOTES: 1. Marian Ilitch is the chairperson of the company after the death of husband, Michael Ilitch, on Feb. 10, 2017. Excludes revenue from Detroit Tigers. 2. Crain's estimate. 3. Succeeded Martha Ford as owner and chair in June. 4. From Forbes. Net of stadium revenue used for debt payments. 5. Formerly Devon Facility Management LLC. Reorganized and renamed DFM Solutions. 6. LR Management fee of revenue collected.
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hroughout Dandridge Floyd’s careers — whether as a social worker, attorney or assistant superintendent of Oakland Schools — making change has always been a center point. When United Way pitched a framework to Oakland Schools for a countywide breakfast program to address poor nutrition as a way to improve academic achievement, Floyd — who experienced food insecurity growing up — knew firsthand the powerful impact it could have. To secure the needed funds, Floyd led a team that earned support from all 28 local districts to finance the program — despite the fact that a majority of them would see no benefit. “The local districts were phenomenal,” Floyd said. “The biggest surprise was how quickly it happened. Education is a democratic system and democracy can be very slow, but this happened in six to seven months. That showed how committed people were to making sure the students of Oakland County have everything they need to be successful.” In a county where over 7,000 children suffer from hunger, and only two in five eligible students access a school breakfast, Floyd said a common misperception is that “Oakland County is rich.” “That makes this program all the more important, because if that is the bias or the thought process people have about Oakland County, then these kids would have never gotten help.” In a groundbreaking public/nonprofit partnership between the Oakland County Board of Commissioners, Oakland Schools and United Way, Oakland County is Better with Breakfast was born. “I’m impacting lives now,” Floyd said. “I know the effect food insecurity had on me and my peers growing up, and this was an opportunity to make a change that I wish an adult could have made for me.” — Laura Cassar
October 30, 2017 | crainsdetroit.com
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October 30, 2017 | crainsdetroit.com
• UBS plans to open wealth management office in Detroit in mid-2018 • Office to include 6,000-squareBy Annalise Frank foot space30,nonprofits and civic October 2017 | crainsdetroit.com groups • UBS plans to open wealthcan use free of charge • Bedrock-owned buildings office in Detroit “I’m impacting lives now. management I know undergoing renovations in mid-2018
UBS to open downtown Detroit office
UBS to open downtown Detroit office
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• Bedrock-owned buildings
management office in Detroit
sey-based Wealth Management change I wish an adult UBScould plans to open an office UBS in downin that mid-2018 Americas, to lease 13,000 square town Detroit in mid-2018, theplans company • Office to include 6,000-squarefeet on the connected sixth floors of have made for me.” announced Monday. foot space nonprofits and civic
UBS will lease 13,000 feet from Bedrock LLC starting around mid-2018 in two buildings: the Grinnell Building (center left) at 1515 Woodward Ave. and the Sanders Building (center right) at 1529 Woodward Ave.
ical presence downtown reinforce has tometro De- others, he said. New York-based outdesign process early year,280 depending architecploys in Michigan, 225 of whom Woodward Gallery. Its and art next John Bush erate and Dearborn. and provide services in the city 7 percent increase over last year. our vision for this particular area and troit offices in ture firm Verderame Cale when renovations the buildings the onDetroit’s in metro Detroit. will will aimdesign to showcase history areonbased to reinforce our B i r m i n g h a m , space; Southfield-based complete. Malow arelayout The wealth management business andBarton a hub-and-spoke will reReprinted with permission from Crain’s Detroit Business. © 2019 Crain Communications Inc. All Rights reserved. commitment to Troy, Farmington Co. has signed on as general UBS, basedis prohibited. in Switzerland, employs income recorded operating contractor. flectFurther the city’s road without system. duplication permission Visit www.crainsdetroit.com. #CD936of $2.13 Hills, Plymouth the city.” billion in About the third “Somehalf of the organizations that op60,000 across 54 countries. 34quarter of 2017 — a UBS plans to rent out about of the John Bush and Dearborn. UBS Wealth 7 percent and provide city work percentinofthe them in theincrease Ameri-over last year. office — 6,000 squareerate feet — at no cost services Management to nonprofits and other organizations, cas, according to a news release. UBS Reprinted with permission from Crain’s Crain Communications Inc. All Rights reserved. Americas also Wealth Management Americas emBush said. The space will be Detroit calledBusiness. UBS © 2019 Further duplication without permission is prohibited. Visit www.crainsdetroit.com. #CD936 has metro DeWoodward Gallery. Its design and art ploys 280 in Michigan, 225 of whom troit offices in will aim to showcase Detroit’s history are based in metro Detroit. Birmingham, The wealth management business and a hub-and-spoke layout will reCRAINSDETROIT.COM I MARCH 9, 2020 I Troy, Farmington recorded operating income of $2.13 flect the city’s road system. THE CONVERSATION Hills, Plymouth “Some of the organizations that op- billion in the third quarter of 2017 — a John Bush erate and provide services in the city 7 percent increase over last year. and Dearborn.
Albert Berriz talks workforce housing, Ann Arbor and Cuba
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MCKINLEY INC.: Ann Arbor-based real estate company McKinley Inc. saw the writing on the wall for its retail portfolio a few years ago and cut bait, turning its focus primarily to its large crop of tens of thousands of workforce housing units across the country. One of the people at the helm of that decision was Albert Berriz, CEO and managing member, who came to America as a young boy fleeing Cuba and now steers a large company with a portfolio valued at more than $4 billion. Crain’s Detroit Business: Can you talk a little bit about how the McKinley portfolio began and where it’s at today? Berriz: McKinley started in 1968 in Ann Arbor, and it was founded by (former U.S.) Ambassador Ron Weiser. It started in the student housing business and eventually transitioned into more traditional multifamily housing, and in addition to that, office and retail, as well. Today, we’re primarily a workforce housing multifamily operator. We have essentially disposed of our retail and office assets in an effort to really focus on multifamily and also focus on an asset class that I think is more in line with our current goal, which is to have a generational multifamily real estate enterprise and a pool of assets that really are long term in nature. workf housing versus Explain workforce affordable housing. We’re not in luxury housing. Our residents are working. They’re going to wake up tomorrow morning and go to work. Our average rents are, for example, in Washtenaw County, about $1,100 to $1,200 or in Orange County, or Seminole County, Florida, $1,400 or $1,500. So these are affordable rents. And the difference between us and affordable housing is our buildings are not subsidized. They’re all market rate, and they’re all privately owned. The owners are not receiving any form of subsidy, nor are the residents. However, if you wanted to sort of assess residents and low-income housing tax credit deals compared to ours, they’re probably not too dissimilar, the median incomes. The McKinley residents in, let’s say, Washtenaw County, when you look at the numbers are probably not going to be too much different than what you would see in a traditional LIHTC deal. But again, our buildings, the primary differences, our buildings are market rate and they’re not subsidized any way.
II don’ don’t think it’s overblown to use the word “crisis” for Ann Arbor’s afford affordable housing situation. Give us your perspective on how the city should go about addressing it. I think it’s a supply issue. The reality is that Ann Arbor has not really welcomed solutions from the private sector and has only sought solutions from the public housing side or the community nonprofit side. And both of those groups, while I think they’re very well intentioned, don’t have the capital and the expertise to resolve the problem at the scale it’s needed. To put it in perspective, you know, the Washtenaw County study that came out had a need of about 3,000 units. And if you look at the cost per unit today, and let’s say $250,000 or $300,000 per unit to build a brand new unit today, you know, it’s an $800 million to a $1 billion problem, so I don’t think that’s a problem that gets resolved on the public side or on the community nonprofit side. You know, they have to go to places to seek capital and there just isn’t enough capital, nor do they have enough resources or expertise to resolve the problems. So the city I think, by and large, has attempted to do this in those ways because they really haven’t welcomed the private side. And there is a lot of expertise and there’s a lot of capital that could do this, from the private side perspective. It just hasn’t been the way that Ann Arbor operates, so you see what has happened in Ann Arbor year over year, decade over decade is there’s a lot of conversations about affordable housing, but there’s no solutions. You were talking a little bit earlier about how McKinley got out of retail and office. What led to that decision and how has that reflected or shaped your business strategy? It was a risk profile that we were just not comfortable with. We are a generational business and so we look at our assets in
a way that we never expect to sell them. We expect to invest in them so they last for long term, and we just couldn’t see that on retail. We saw a significant degradation of our rent rolls. We had buildings that were, let’s say, 70 percent to 80 percent investment-grade credit tenant composition and then we saw that we saw that quickly degrade. We just didn’t see a place where we could really have an asset class retail that would last for the long run. And then office in many ways, the same way. The way people are shopping and the way people are occupying offices today, the risk profile is very different than it was, let’s say, when we were making those investments 20 and 30 years ago, so for us, it was the right move. It’s paid off because, had we held many of the assets today, they would be significantly compromised. I think they would be worth a lot less. We started those sales about six years ago, and we sold a lot of that early on, so we sold them still at a time they were being valued significantly more than they would be worth today, in our opinion. And we sold some big buildings. I mean, these weren’t small buildings. We sold a 1 millionsquare-foot shopping center, for example, in Norfolk, Va., which is one of the largest power centers in the state of Virginia. So these weren’t small assets. So they were important for us to move them out at the right time, and for people that thought that was there was a good upside for them, so we actually sold them at good prices, and certainly we couldn’t have sold them at those prices today.
trajectory was to where you are today in terms of the head of McKinley. I left (Cuba) compliments of Fidel Castro in early 1959 because of the Cuban Revolution. We had to flee. It was survival to leave the country at the time and my parents relocated to Miami. We were fortunate for that. We’re fortunate to have left alive, fortunate to have resettled in what is without question the greatest country on the planet. I was not born here. I was born in Havana and I emigrated as a Cuban refugee just before I was 4 years old with my parents. What consumes your day outside of the office? My wife and I walk. We like to boat, so those are the two things. In our summers we live at Saugatuck, and it’s a great place to live. We’d live there year-round, but it’s a little too cold in the winter.
Can you give thumbnail sketch of coming here and what your
Albert Berriz, CEO and managing member, McKinley Inc.
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16 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | MARCH 15, 2021
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hroughout Dandridge Floyd’s careers — whether as a social worker, attorney or assistant superintendent of Oakland Schools — making change has always been a buildings at 1515 WoodGroup AG’sneighboring U.S. and Canadian center point. groups can use free UBS of charge ward Ave. and Fourteen metro Detroit employees don’t really have adequate resources wealth management business, New 1529 Jer- Woodward Ave. • Bedrock-owned buildings The twoManagement buildings built around 1900 are will move to the downtown office to or adequate officeUnited space to host do-pitched a framework to Oakland Schools sey-based UBS Wealth When Way undergoing renovations by Detroit-based will lease LLC 13,000 feet from Bedrock LLC starting around mid-2018 buildings: Grin- meetings or things nor events the or board start, but the office has the capacity toin two Americas, plans toowned lease 13,000 square UBSBedrock nell Building (center at 1515 Woodward andnew the Sanders Buildingalong (center right) 1529 Bush said. and are undergoing said left) for aatlines,” countywide breakfast program to address poor nutrition those hold another six toAve. eight staff memon inthe connected sixth floors of renovations, Reprinted with permission from Crain’s Detroit Business. © 2019 Crain Communications Inc. All RightsUBS reserved. plans to open anfeet office downAve. for bers, Bush said. It will act as an extension John Bush, 60, WoodMichiganWoodward market head UBS’s investment in the new ofneighboring buildings at 1515 Further duplication without permission is prohibited. Visit www.crainsdetroit.com. #CD1134 town Detroit in mid-2018, the company as resources a“significant,” way to heimprove UBS Wealth ManagementFourteen Americas.metro of fice will be said, as its academic achievement, Floyd — who the other wealth management offices. don’t really have adequate Detroit employees announced Monday. ward Ave. and 1529 Woodward Ave. “The real impetus open atonew The twoCanadian buildings built around 1900 arefor us “uniqueness said Bush is based Birmingham office space to hostcomes do- at a price.” willto move the downtown office out to ofortheadequate UBS Group AG’s U.S. and experienced foodHeinsecurity growing up — knew firsthand the office inBedrock Detroit is to support what’s owned by Detroit-based LLC he could or not yet provide an estimate but travels to to the will meetings norothers eventsand or board things start, but the goofficeoffice, has the capacity wealth management business, New Jering renovations, on in the city, ” saidhold Bush, a Detroit and are undergoing said on the cost of the build-out, be spending in thealong Detroit branch. those lines,” Bush said. another six to eight new stafftime mempowerful impactasitsome could have. sey-based UBS Wealth Management native who grew up Garden City. “We John Bush, 60, Michigan market head forin contracts have yet The Detroit location will have a less UBS’s investment in the new of- to be finalized. bers, Bush said. It will act as an extension UBS will lease 13,000 feet from Bedrock LLC starting around mid-2018 in two buildings: the GrinAmericas, plans to lease 13,000 square UBS Wealth Management Americas. really felt like we wantedofto have a physfice will be “significant,” hecompany said, its the other wealth management offices. The plans to start buildtraditional, more “urban” feelright) than To as secure theitsneeded funds, Floyd led a team that earned 1515 Woodward Ave. and the Sanders Building (center atthe 1529 feet on the connected sixth floors of nell Building (center left) at “The real impetus for us to open new ical presence to reinforce “uniqueness comes at saidnext year, depending Bush is based outothers, of the he Birmingham outa price.” processHeearly said. New York-based architecAve. adowntown neighboring buildings office at 1515 Wood- toWoodward in Detroit is our support go-particular support from 28 local districts to finance the program — vision what’s for this areatravels and toture he will could not yet an estimate office, but the firm others and will Cale on when renovations on theall buildings Verderame design the provide ward Ave. and 1529 ing Woodward Ave. don’t really have adequate resources Fourteen metro Detroit employees on in the city,”tosaid Bush, a Detroit reinforce our on Barton the costMalow of the build-out, as some be spending time inspace; the Detroit branch. are complete. Southfield-based The two buildings builtnative around 1900 areup in adequate office space to have host dowill moveCity. to tothe officelocation to or will despite the fact employs that a majority of them would see no benefit. who grew Garden “Wedowntown commitment contracts finalized. The Detroit have aon less based in Switzerland, Co. has signed as general contractor.yet to beUBS, owned by Detroit-based Bedrock nor events or board or things start, thea physoffice has the capacity really felt likeLLC we wanted tobut The company plans to startacross its buildtraditional, moreto“urban” than the outmeetings the city. ” have 60,000 54local countries. About 34 were phenomenal,” Floyd said. “The UBS feel plans to rent about half of the and are undergoing renovations, “The districts along those lines,” Bush said. early next year, depending hold six to eight new he staff memical presencesaid downtown toWealth reinforce others, said. New office York-based architecUBS another — 6,000 square out feetprocess — at no cost percent of them work in the AmeriJohn Bush, 60, Michiganour market head UBS’s investment the renovations new of- on the buildings bers, said. It will act an extension vision for for thisMparticular oninorganizations, when tureasfirm VerderametoCale will design theother a n aBush g e marea e n tand cas, according a news release. UBShow quickly it happened. Education is a nonprofits and biggesttosurprise was UBS Wealth Management will beMalow “significant,” he said, as its of the other also wealth management offices. ficeBarton to Americas. reinforce our Americas are be complete. space; Southfield-based Bush said. The space will called UBS Wealth Management Americas em“The real impetus for commitment us to open a new “uniqueness comes at a price.” He said is based thehas Birmingham to has Bush based signed on as Woodward general contractor. metro De- out ofCo. and democracy can be very slow, but this ploysdemocratic 280employs in Michigan, system 225 of whom Gallery. Its UBS, design and in artSwitzerland, office in Detroit is to support what’s go- office, but travels to theUBS heabout couldhalf not yet provide an estimate others and the city. ” 60,000 across 54 countries. About 34 plans towill rent will out of the troit offices in aim to showcase Detroit’s history are based in metro Detroit. ing on in the city,” said Bush, on the cost the build-out, asthem somework inhappened spending Detroit branch. UBS a Detroit Wealth B be percent Amerioffice — 6,000 square at noofcost in sixbusiness to seven months. That showed how committed irm i n g h a time m , in the The the wealth management andfeet a— hub-and-spoke layout ofwill renative who grew up in Garden contracts have yet tocas, be finalized. M a n a gCity. e m“We e n t Troy, The Detroit locationtowill have a and less other according to a news release. UBS nonprofits organizations, Farmington recorded operating income of $2.13 flect the city’s road system. really felt like we wanted to have a physAmericas also Hills, The plans to startManagement its buildtraditional, more “urban” people to ma Wealth Americas em-were Bushfeel said.than The the space will becompany called Plymouth in the third quarter of 2017 — a “Some of theUBS organizations that op- billion UBS Group AG’s U.S. and Canadian UBSan plans to open wealth this•was opportunity toundergoing make a renovations wealth management business, New Jer-
Bedrock LLC
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P ex Sys ems nc Troy manu acur ng so ware prov der acqu red Kors Eng neer ng Co nc Wa erord Townsh p an eng neer ng sysems consu an The acqu s on s effec ve mmed a e y and a Kors emp oyees have o ned P ex Webs e p ex com
MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS
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Mo orC y Cas no Ho e os $183 680 a s phys ca spor sbook as mon h mark ng he firs oss or a Dero cas no on re a spor s be ng s nce aunched a year ago Tha s a rac on o wha os n he firs 10 days o on ne spor s be ng — $5 7 m on accord ng o da a rom he M ch gan Gam ng Con ro Board On ne gam ng rece p s or February he firs u mon h or ega on ne be ng n M ch gan won be re eased unnex week For n-person spor s be ng MGM Grand De ro a so ook a h o $8 761 n February accord ng o he con ro board s mon h y revenue repor reeased Tuesday Greek own Cas no-Ho e rema ned n he b ack w h $114 814 n ad us ed gross rece p s The osses racked up around he me o Super Bow LV show ha many M ch gan be ors managed o bea he house as mon h bu hey a so h ghgh a very d fferen approach among cas nos or ro ng ou spor s be ng n hese ear y days o on ne spor s be ng opera ors have flooded he marke w h adver s ng and a sor s o ree promo ona p ays n a ba e o ge new gamb ers reg s ered and p ay ng on he r p a orms w h he expec aon ha hey w become profi ab e cus omers n he ong erm n he firs 10 days o on ne spor s be ng MGM ook a $53 343 oss wh e Greek own fin shed $1 7 m on n he b ack O he 11 cas nos n M ch gan w h on ne spor sbooks nc ud ng hree n De ro and e gh r ba proper es seven have os money on on ne spor s be ng s nce s aunch Bay M s nd an Commun y repor ed $1 2 m on n osses n anuary he nex h ghes beh nd Mo orC y Cra n s reached ou o he De ro
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CONDO
From Page 1
Once completed, it has the potential for an in-home gym and sauna, a cinema room, wine cellar, cigar lounge or a huge reading room to hold a library’s worth of books, Taylor said. Potential buyers can see the property’s potential with a private showing that uses virtual reality to illustrate how the overall layout might look for its new owner, he said. “There’s only one unit like this,” Taylor said. “There are properties that are mass produced and everyone can have it. This one is more like a Lamborghini — it’s for someone who wants something custom.” One unit in the four-unit building is already finished and its sale is expected to close this month, he added. That condo was listed at $1.65 million with three bedrooms and two-and-ahalf baths in 3,000 square feet. The owner-developer of 1529 Broadway Development LLC, Rick Ghersi, acquired the building in 2002 and has
March March 15, 15, 2021 2021
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This condo, listed for more than $3 million, would far eclipse the next-highest most recent sale in the city at $1.45 million, if its asking price is met. | JAY TAYLOR & ASSOCIATES
used it for commercial leases over the past two decades, Taylor said. Austin Black II, head of Detroit-based brokerage City Living Detroit, said any luxury buyer looking at this condo wants this kind of top-tier renovation that requires little to no maintenance and has downtown
swagger. The potential buyer may consider it for a second home that lets them experience city life as well as indulgent living. “Buyers at this level are going to be extremely particular about the space, location and finishes,” Black said. “They’re going to look at properties
HEALTH CARE
that are exactly what they want (and) when the right property hits, they’re going to move fast to get it.” With high-end finishes, prime location and enormous square footage, “If a property were to command top-dollar in this market, it would be this one,” said Lyndsey Sass, a Realtor C ’S D B and associate RE/MAX RAIN’S broker CRAIN DETROIT ETROITwith BUSINESS USINESS Leading Edge in Dearborn Heights. Sass noted that most high-end luxury condos in Detroit also are 3,000 square feet or smaller, so having this Page 19 kind of space would appeal to certain buyers. “However, the listing price goes well and above the next highest recent sale in the city at $1.45 million. The next highest priced condo for sale is priced at just under $2.4 million with 2,900 square feet has been on the market for almost a year,” Sass said. Detroit’s business district also has seen its share of hits over the past 12 months, Sass said. Many of the area’s employees are working from home “so the appeal to move to the city is not as high as even this time last year,” Sass said.
“With many restaurants, bars, shops and attractions closed or with restrictions, it’s simply not as fun to be in the heart of the city at the moment, and the real estate market is making this clear,” Sass said. “We are seeing longer days on the market, and many condos selling less than their asking price, which is a huge change from 12 months ago,” Sass added. “This renovation didn’t happen overnight; when the construction was put in motion, the Detroit condo market was in much better shape than it is now. Time will tell if this sells close to its price, but it appears to be wishful thinking based on current comps and the surrounding market.” Yet, as the spring housing market picks up, Sass said this condo may get fresh eyes and new interest. “Someone looking for the highest-priced condo in Detroit is not likely concerned with overpaying and is more concerned with status, privacy and amenities, which may make the record-high price worthwhile,” she said.
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Amazon opens company health clinics, offers telemedicine to employees in Michigan
worksite or employee health clinics have been catching on in Michigan Amazon and Crossover Health have AVAILABLE POSITIONS opened two employee neighborhood and elsewhere, Crain's has reported. Kautexcare Inc. clinics has an in opening in Troy, for a Sr. Battery Systems areEngineer to give employees convehealth Westland and MI Goals CBU responsible for Ideation Prooftoof Concept dev’t. activiBrownstown Township and &plan nience,product/process increase worker productivities for Innovation Dep’t. focus on incl. Battery Sysopen a third on March 22 w/ in Royal Oakinnovative ty andtechnology, lower costs, experts say. Wiring,22,000 improved vehicle functionality & in-vehicle totems, serveElectrical the company's employFor example, DTE comfort. EnergyMasCo. ter’s in Mech., Ind. or Electrical Engg. or related & 3 yrs. exp. in automotive (or opened a worksite health clinic in ees and dependents in Michigan. Bachelor’s & 5 yrs.). Must have legal auth. to work permanently in the US. EOE. 2017 its corporate office in Detroit Since the two centers have opened, http://www.textron.com/careers (Requisition ID at 290059) 680 employees have signed up with 46 with Henry Ford Health System. Especially with the COVID-19 clinic visits and a 99 percent patient POSITIONS AVAILABLE satisfaction score, a Crossover official pandemc, Amazon has seen a need told Crain's. Amazon has 14,600 eligi- to offer its growing workforce in ble full-time and part-time employees Michigan health care options. It has fulfillment centers in Livonia, Sheleligible for the clinics. Telemedicine services also are of- by Charter Township, Romulus and fered to eligible Amazon employees Brownstown Township, and delivery and dependents through each clinic. stations in Romulus, Wixom, SterEmployees can schedule their own vir- ling Heights, Pontiac and Hazel tual and in-person appointments Park. "Access to convenient comprethrough Crossover's patient portal. Crossover is a California-based hensive primary care is essential for health provider that runs clinics and all employees and we are proud to virtual care for self-funded employers see the Neighborhood Health proand health insurance plans. Besides gram with Amazon continue to exMichigan, Crossover has clinics in Tex- pand throughout the country,” said Sally Larwood, chief nursing officer as, Arizona, Kentucky and California. The clinics provide full-spectrum for Crossover Health, in a statement. “Our unique Primary Health acute, chronic and primary preventive care, including prescription medica- model delivers a better member extions, vaccinations, mental health ser- perience and improves health outvices, physical therapy, chiropractic comes — with care delivered care, health coaching, and care naviga- through online and in-person care channels,” Larwood said. tion to specialty referral services. Crossover is also registering to be a vaccination provider with the U.S. Contact: jgreene@crain.com; COVID-19 Vaccination Program. (313) 446-0325; @jaybgreene
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Wayne State- University - Mike Ilitch School of Business Project Engineer Glass Processing Equipment – Guardian Glass, LLC,
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in Auburn Hills, MI, seeks Lecturer a Project Engineer - Glass Processing Equipment to Marketing supervise the design and installation of glass processing equipment, including The Department of Marketing and Supply Chain Management at the Wayne Float Glass Capping and Packing Systems; Sputter Coater Systems; Wet CoatState University’s Mike Ilitch SchoolLaminating of Business is seeking to fill aHandling non-tenure er Systems; Tempering Systems; Systems; Material Systrack position starting Fall 2021/Winter 2022 at the Lecturer level. Candidates tems; and Float Glass Automation and Robotic Systems. Up to 40% domestic & will be expected to: int’l travel to project sites req’d. Some telecommuting permitted. resume to: Rebecca.Stremersch@kbslp.com. • Teach 3-4Send sections of Marketing a semester with an emphasis on advertising, social media and digital marketing. • Workwith other faculty toPOSITIONS maintain, adapt and deliver advertising curriculum AVAILABLE that is current, effective, and appropriate to the advertising program. State University Mike Ilitch School of Business Business • Wayne Instruct a classroom,--online setting Waynestudents State in University Mikeand/or Ilitchhybrid School of • Perform duties as assigned includingMarketing those related to the Marketing program Lecturer Lecturer Marketing and student success, such as leading the advertising specialization, serving as The Department of Marketing and Supply Chain Management at the Wayne The Department of Marketing and Supply Chain Management the faculty advisor for marketing related student organization, overseeing the marketState University's Mike Ilitch School of Business is seeking toatfill a Wayne non-tenure State University’s Mike Ilitch School of placement Business2022 isofseeking to fill a non-tenure ing advisory assisting marketing students, serving track committee, position starting Fall with 2021/Winter at the Lecturer level. track positionwill starting Fall 2021/Winter 2022 at the Lecturer level. Candidates on committees, etc. Candidates be expected to: will be expected to: Requirements for the position include Master’s in Marketing, or a related degree, • •Teach on advertising, advertising, Teach3-4 3-4sections sectionsofofMarketing Marketingaa semester semester with with an an emphasis emphasis on from an media AACSB-accredited school for the Lecturer position. The ideal candidate social and digital marketing. social media and digital marketing. haveother highly evaluated experience in teaching advertising andcurriculum marketing • •would Work with to maintain, maintain, adapt and deliver deliver advertising Workwith other faculty faculty to adapt and advertising curriculum related ideal candidate would also significant industry experithat iscourses. current, The effective, and appropriate to thehave advertising program. that is current, effective, and appropriate to the advertising program. in marketing fields, and excellent •ence Instruct students and in a advertising classroom, related online and/or hybrid settingconnections with • Instruct students in a classroom, online and/or hybrid setting marketing and advertising employers. The candidate possessprogram the qual• Perform duties as assigned including those relatedmust to thealso Marketing •and Perform duties as assigned including related to specialization, the Marketing program ifications necessary to be designated a those qualified faculty member in accordance student success, such as leading the advertising serving and success, as leading the student advertising specialization, serving as with AACSB standards. Salary and benefits packages are competitive. Teachas student faculty advisor forsuch marketing related organization, overseeing the faculty advisor forTeaching marketing related student organization, overseeing thestu marketing Evaluations, Statement. Interested candidates apply online marketing advisory committee, assisting with placement ofshould marketing ing advisory committee, assistingetc. with placement of marketing students, serving at http://jobs.wayne.edu (Refer to posting 045455). dents,serving on committees, on committees, Wayne State etc. University is an equal opportunity/affirmative action Requirements for the position include Master’s in Marketing, or aemployer. related deRequirements for the position include Master’s Marketing, or a related degree, gree, from an AACSB-accredited school for theinLecturer position. The ideal canfrom an AACSB-accredited school for the Lecturer position.advertising The ideal candidate didate would have highly evaluated experience in teaching and marwouldrelated have highly evaluated experience in teaching advertising and marketing keting courses. The ideal candidate would also have significant industry related courses. The ideal would alsofields, have significant industry experiexperience in marketing andcandidate advertising related and excellent connections ence in marketing advertising related fields, and excellent with with marketing and and advertising employers. The candidate mustconnections also possess the marketing and advertising The candidate must also member possess in theaccqualqualifications necessary employers. to be designated a qualified faculty ificationswith necessary be designated a qualified faculty member are in accordance ordance AACSBtostandards. Salary and benefits packages competitive. with AACSBwill standards. Salary and are competitive. Applicants submit online and willbenefits requirepackages CV/Resume, Cover Letter,TeachThree ing Evaluations, Teaching Statement.Teaching Interested candidates should apply online References, Teaching Evaluations, Statement. Interested candidates at http://jobs.wayne.edu (Refer to posting 045455). should apply online at http://jobs.wayne.edu (Refer to posting 045455.) WayneState State University University is is an an equal equal opportunity/affirmative opportunity/affirmative action Wayne actionemployer. employer. MARCH 15, 2021 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | 17
WINDFALL
From Page 1
Early estimates from a congressional committee show Wayne County could get a $339 million windfall, about 54 percent of the annual general fund budget for Michigan’s most populous county, which narrowly escaped the graveyard of bankruptcy court after Detroit emerged from Chapter 9 in late 2014. Oakland County, Michigan’s second-most-populous and wealthiest, is to receive nearly $244 million. Oakland County Executive Dave Coulter, a Democrat, acknowledges the county has no budget hole to fill — and he’s not sure yet how he’s going to dispose of a quarter-billion dollars. “That’s a very good question — and it’s a complicated question, because it’s a lot of money and we want to spend it wisely,” Coulter told Crain’s. “I mean, just in its size and its breadth of what it can be used for, this is really a transformative opportunity — and I want to use it as such.” The actual need for the aid varies from community to community, Coulter said. In Ferndale, where Coulter was previously the mayor, the city has suffered a $1.5 million loss in revenue from parking over the past year due to the extended closure of dine-in service at its many bars and restaurants along the Woodward Avenue and Nine Mile Road commercial corridors. The economic stimulus bill is providing $1.98 million to Ferndale, and the money could be used to supplant lost parking revenue used to pay down municipal debt, Ferndale Mayor Melanie Piana said Thursday. Ferndale officials are considering using the federal stimulus funds to restore jobs in the recreation department that had to be cut last year when money got tight amid the economic upheaval of the pandemic, Piana said. “We’re also talking about our small businesses and how do we best support them going forward,” Piana said. Congress attached few strings to spending the money, other than prohibiting cities and states from depositing the money in underfunded pension funds to lower their long-term liabilities. But the money could swapped for normal general fund revenue, freeing up that money to be used to pay down debts and liabilities, Freed said. “I can assure you that’s what most communities probably will do,” he said. The Michigan Legislature cannot use the money to make state-level tax cuts, but there’s nothing preventing counties, cities, villages and townships from issuing tax refunds or waiving future payments, said Michael LaFaive, senior director of fiscal policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a conservative Midland-based think tank. LaFaive said he worries the stimulus money could finance “a series of” boondoggles and he’s urging local officials to issue tax refunds instead of spending the money on programs that may strain budgets in the future. “It’s a far more responsible use of the money,” LaFaive said of issuing property tax refunds. “... The magnitude of the money that is coming down is remarkable.”
‘A sigh of relief’ Some municipal officials caution that the U.S. Treasury Department 18 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | MARCH 15, 2021
Port Huron may receive as much as $19.6 million in federal aid from the $1.9 trillion COVID economic stimulus bill President Joe Biden signed into law Thursday. | JESSIE FREED
In the money Municipalities that got the most money in the $1.9 trillion stimulus package. Figures in millions: Detroit Wayne County Oakland County Macomb County Kent County Flint Grand Rapids Genesee County Washtenaw County Ingham County Ottawa County Saginaw Kalamazoo County Lansing Dearborn Kalamazoo Livingston County Saginaw County Muskegon County
$879.59 339.27 243.90 169.50 127.41 99.33 94.05 78.70 71.29 56.71 56.60 53.90 51.41 50.99 48.70 40.63 37.24 36.95 33.66
SOURCE: HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ANALYSIS
could add spending restrictions and requirements to the money. The new law gives municipalities through 2024 to spend the money. In Sterling Heights, the $20.2 million that Michigan’s fourth most populous city is slated to receive will stave off layoffs after the city experienced a decline in tickets and citation fees, Mayor Michael Taylor said. “I breathe a sigh of relief knowing that we’re not going to have to make those very difficult decisions about laying people off, cutting services and removing the essentials that we have to provide,” Taylor said. “Because we have this funding now, we can sort of get back to what we do best and not have to worry about
where the money’s going to come from.” Taylor and Piana touted the benefits of the stimulus law during a press conference on Zoom with U.S. Rep. Andy Levin, D-Bloomfield Township. Levin said the stimulus law will help cities recover faster from the COVID economic shock than they did during the Great Recession. “We came out of it much too slowly because we failed to aid our local governments,” Levin said. The stimulus law does allow the money to be spent on transportation, water and sewer infrastructure. Infrastructure is one area most local government officials said would be a top spending priority, creating new business opportunities for road-building companies, engineers, architects and consultants to redesign and rebuild city streets, water and sewer systems. “We can always use money for roads,” Coppler said. “And water line projects.” Coulter said one way Oakland County could use its stimulus money is partnering with cities and townships and even the State of Michigan on underground infrastructure to split the cost. “I’m very interested in that space,” Coulter said. “That’s going to take some thoughtful discussion and planning. But the opportunity to do something significant in that space is tremendous.” State government is getting $5.6 billion from the stimulus bill. The $4.4 billion in aid for municipalities flows directly to counties, city, villages and townships, bypassing Lansing.
Funding formula questioned Congress used the Community Development Block Grant funding formula to divvy up money to so-
“FOR THE CITY OF LANSING TO GET $50 MILLION AND ANN ARBOR ONLY GET $11 MILLION, THERE’S SOMETHING WRONG IN THE CALCULATION THERE. WE NEED TO MAKE SURE THE CITIES ARE TREATED EQUITABLY.” — U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-12th Congressional District
“IT’S A FAR MORE RESPONSIBLE USE OF THE MONEY. ... THE MAGNITUDE OF THE MONEY THAT IS COMING DOWN IS REMARKABLE.” — Michael LaFaive, senior director of fiscal policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy
“WE CAME OUT OF IT MUCH TOO SLOWLY BECAUSE WE FAILED TO AID OUR LOCAL GOVERNMENTS.” — U.S. Rep. Andy Levin, D-Bloomfield Township
called “entitlement” cities in cities in metropolitan areas with higher levels of poverty and crowded housing. There were some questions among political leaders about how the money got divvied up. Royal Oak, an affluent city of 60,000 residents, is set to receive $29.7 million, while Ann Arbor is getting $11.8 million for its 120,000 residents. Lansing is getting about $51 million from the stimulus bill, more than four times as much Ann Arbor, Michigan’s fifth-largest city with about 3,000 more residents than the capital city. “For the city of Lansing to get $50 million and Ann Arbor only get $11 million, there’s something wrong in the calculation there,” said U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, a Dearborn Democrat whose 12th Congressional District includes Ann Arbor. “We need to make sure the cities are treated equitably.” Smaller cities, villages and townships got funding on a per capita basis, said Dan Gilmartin, executive director and CEO of the Michigan Municipal League. Last year when Congress passed the CARES Act — the first of several rounds of economic intervention by Washington — aid for local governments grappling with escalating costs of personal protective equipment and first-responder overtime was restricted to municipalities with more than 500,000 residents — Detroit and Wayne, Oakland, Macomb and Kent counties. “This time around ... we crafted a formula state by state that would allow money to go to everybody to help,” Gilmartin said. “That’s something we’re very happy with.” Contact: clivengood@crain.com; (313) 446-1654; @ChadLivengood
NOMINATIONS OPEN For more information, visit crainsdetroit.com/nominate
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Since 1997, Crain’s Most Influential Women list has honored 100 women business leaders who have made a significant cultural and social impact in metro Detroit and Michigan. Past winners include CEOs, company founders, nonprofit leaders and elected representatives. Do you know a woman deserving of this prestigious designation? Honor them by submitting a free nomination to Crain’s 2021 100 Most Influential Women award. Chosen winners be honored in the July 26 issue of Crain’s.
NOMINATION DEADLINE: March 24
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BATTLE
From Page 3
“This decision is not really in the broker’s best interest,” Mansourian said on YouTube. “If UWM has personal issues with (Rocket), I don’t want to be a part of it, and Niemiec I don’t want to give up my freedom (as an independent broker). At the end of the day, that’s what it is. And UWM doesn’t seem to be backing off this stance.” In a phone interview with Crain’s last week, Mansourian said that pre-pandemic UWM had been his “go-to” company for deals, but had pivoted toward Rocket over the last year, citing rising rates from the former last spring. Mansourian said that as of Friday afternoon he had not yet decided with certainty which company he would choose to work with, but was “99 percent” certain it would end up being Rocket. Mansourian laid out in great detail in one of his videos why he’s skeptical of the allegations being levied, saying that in his experience, Rocket has never tried poaching his clients, as Ishbia has frequently alleged. Other brokers and loan officers Crain’s spoke with, on condition of anonymity, said they had experienced Rocket poaching clients.
Forced to choose The notion of freedom to choose among lenders in search of the best overall rate came up multiple times in interviews Crain’s did with independent brokers. Most requested ano-
United Wholesale Mortgage went public on Jan. 22. | NYSE
nymity to be able to speak freely, citing fears of retribution from one or both companies. Michael Foote, another independent broker based in California, echoed the freedom sentiment in a report last week in Inside Mortgage Finance, reportedly saying Ishbia’s ultimatum is “forcing brokers to become more of retail [representatives] for UWM.”
“The whole point of being a broker is to give our customers choice and not to have a broker have all of his eggs in one basket,” Foote reportedly told the publication. Guy Cecala, the publisher and CEO of industry trade publication Inside Mortgage Finance, told Crain’s that typically brokers like having twoto-three different large lenders to work with, giving them and their cus-
Rock
tomers a wide variety of choice when it comes to pricing and loan products. “It’s usually not in a broker’s DNA to deal with just one lender,” said Cecala. “Flexibility is what most brokers need and thrive on.” The addendum brokers are being asked to sign reads, in part: “that until client provides written notice terminating its agreement with UWM,
client and its employees will not submit mortgage loan applications or mortgage loans to either Rocket Mortgage or Fairway Independent Mortgage for review, underwriting, purchase and/or funding.” A violation of the agreement would result in brokers owing fines to UWM of $5,000 per loan closed, or up to $50,000, whichever number is greater.
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other faster. Very possibly, he said, answers could have been found for questions such as which medications and treatments are most effective? Why do African American men have significantly higher mortality rates? What is the impact of COVID-19 on mental health? “We used dexamethasone, a steroid that is very effective, and remdesivir, which is very expensive, as sort of a cocktail” for very sick COVID-19
patients, Slubowski said. “We can’t even say today which one in proportion is helping people the most.” Slubowski said answers to these questions could have saved lives. “Addressing COVID makes this concept all the more real when you think of the good (Big Data) can do” in the hands of an inquisitive doctor or researcher, he said. But to make Truveta self-sustaining and give a possible return on investment to the health systems in five years, Slubowski said the company will sell anonymous data sets to such external entities as technology companies, health insurers and drug makers. Companies that want to use the data will also have to meet ethical guidelines determined by a committee of doctors, scientists and patients, Truveta said. “We want to be self-sustaining, but just to recoup the startup costs are going to be enormous,” Slubowski said. “We are going to market early as we can to biopharma (companies) to begin to pay back some of our investment.” He declined to state the amount invested in startup costs. But Slubowski said the Truveta partners didn’t create the company expecting it to be a big moneymaker. The reason was based on the health systems’ commitment to patient care improvement, he said “As nonprofits, we put back everything into our mission,” he said. “Our aspiration is to earn a 3 percent operating margin. We’re not even near that and don’t expect to be for awhile.” Over the past few years, Big Data
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TRUVETA
From Page 3
“We saw a unique opportunity to bring data together for the benefit of improving the human experience. We all know that data is king, and data helps us get consumer insights and drives our decision making tools in our hospitals and clinics,” Edwards said. “We tried to jump on as quickly as possible to be in that early stage of Truveta.” In March 2020, Truveta hired CEO Terry Myerson, a former Microsoft executive, who has hired more than 50 health care data scientists, clinicians and support staff to getting the company launched. “(Myerson) really has been looking for people who are inspired by the mission of saving lives with data and with ethical innovation around this,” Slubowski said. “We want to have a profound impact on health care.” Slubowski said the plan is to make products available to partners and for sale to others by the end of the year. “They’re taking the business plan now and turning it into what hardware, what software, what base development you need to create the data lake” for clinicians and researchers at the member health systems, Slubowski said. Once doctors and researchers have access to the clinical data that is expected to span across all diagnoses, geographies and demographics, Edwards said patients should have a more accurate diagnosis of their medical conditions that could lead to more effective treatment therapies. 20 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | MARCH 15, 2021
GETTY IMAGES/ISTOCKPHOTO
For example, Henry Ford could use data from around the country to aid its efforts in Michigan to address the higher rates of breast cancer among African American women or the higher diabetes rates among African American and Hispanic communities. Edwards, who trained in epidemiology, said Truveta could help cut the time to diagnose people with rare conditions, inform physicians and families on the best treatment and
therapies, and generally improve quality of life. “We serve a diverse community here in Southeast Michigan, not just Detroit, but also in Jackson, and Downriver,” she said. “So for us, this is really an exciting opportunity to advance science, advance health equity and improve treatments.” Slubowski said if Truveta had existed in the early days of COVID-19 in 2020, physicians could have learned the best treatment plans from each
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Looking forward The exact outcome come Monday, the deadline Ishbia has given to brokers to choose which lenders they want to continue working with, remains unclear. At least one rival lender of UWM and Rocket believes that the increasing division could allow for increased market share for their company. In an earnings call with analysts last week, Willie Newman, the CEO of Ann Arbor-based wholesale lender Home Point Capital Inc., was asked about what the company has heard in recent days from the broker community as they’re mulling their decision. The answer: lots of inbound inquiries about needing another lender to work with. “So what we’re basically hearing from the broker cohort is that, by and large, they’re looking for another large source,” said Newman. “And there’s a lot of concern about not having the level of choice that they’ve come to appreciate, I guess, prior to the announcement (by Ishbia),” Newman said. “So I think for us that certainly is a positive. We feel like we’re very well positioned to be that next choice if it does turn out that they only have one of the two largest other lenders to work with.”
Rocket Companies went public last summer. | NICK MANES/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS
For his part, Ishbia has said the point of his announcement is to further shed light on Rocket and Fairway’s “underhanded” attempts to chip away at the wholesale channel, and steal business from independent brokers. In a previous interview with Crain’s just after making the announcement about the addendum, he said he understands that brokers
will have a choice to make and will hold no ill will against those who continue doing business with Rocket. “There’s 75 great lenders in (the) wholesale (channel), and you can either be with us and 73 others, or be with them and 74 others,” Ishbia said. “No problem, whatever you want to do.” UWM has said that around 90 percent of the approximately 3,200 bro-
has become a buzzword and many competing companies are developing similar AI data platforms. Some include IQVIA Holdings Inc., a data company that claims it has some 800 million patient records from more than 150,000 suppliers, the company said. Others are Blue Health Intelligence, a licensee of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, that draws on data from 200 million Americans. The nonprofit Health Care Cost Institute uses data from commercial health plans on 55 million people, and 40 million from Medicare, to better understand health care spending trends. IBM Watson Health has also acquired health data providers, such as Truven Health Analytics in 2016. “We’re very excited about it and we view it as a potentially game changing opportunity for advancing health outcomes,” Slubowski said. “The difference here is that it is sponsored by health systems. It’s not sponsored by some of the very proprietary health companies. We do feel kind of a higher purpose in this work.” Besides the three Michigan systems, Truveta will combine records representing about 13 percent of U.S. hospitals, said Rod Hochman, CEO of Seattle-based Providence, which hatched the idea and invited in the other health systems. Slubowski said more health systems have inquired about Truveta and he anticipates more announcements of new members later this year. Truveta’s other participating hospital systems include Chicago-based Advocate Aurora Health and Com-
monSpirit Health, Cincinnati-based Bon Secours Mercy Health, Norfolk, Va.-based Sentara Healthcare and New York’s Northwell Health. Last year, Southfield-based Beaumont Health nearly merged with Advocate Aurora in a deal that would have formed a 34-hospital health system. In October, the two health systems called off the merger, citing problems raised with the deal by some of Beaumont’s doctors and donors. Executives touted many benefits, including working together to maximize IT resources and data for improved patient outcomes. Edwards said Henry Ford, Trinity and DMC haven’t yet discussed how to work together in Michigan using the Truveta data sets. She expects Henry Ford to work in partnerships with other Michigan-based health systems. “We want to find ways to work together to bring value directly to our community, particularly in the space around health equity and health disparities,” Edwards said. Slubowski said it is still fairly early to make specific plans, but he said he envisions local subgroups will be formed at the regional level to analyze specific problems, especially for underserved populations. “All of us volunteered people to work on the due diligence and the construction of the clinical data,” he said. “I’d like to see the team get a little bit of sea legs around putting the company together first before we start that local work.” Contact: jgreene@crain.com; 313-446-0325; @jaybgreene
kers that have worked with both Rocket and UWM have opted to remain with the latter. Executives at Rocket Mortgage, on the other hand, have a simple message for independent brokers feeling caught in the middle: “Just don’t sign it,” Austin Niemiec, executive vice president of Rocket Mortgage’s wholesale business, Rocket Pro TPO, said in a video last week, responding
to Ishbia’s allegations. “This move is all about control,” Niemiec said of UWM’s actions. “UWM is looking to control the market. And the beautiful thing about being a broker is you have control,” Niemiec said. “Brokers control the market. Every lender needs your business. You control UWM. Not the other way around.” Rocket has shown data from Inside
Contact: nmanes@crain.com; (313) 446-1626; @nickrmanes
GAMBLING
From Page 3
If the member does not have the ability to repay their negative balance, the credit union must then charge off the balance and take it as a loss. Other institutions in Michigan also are not willing to take that bet. From the onset of legal online gaming, Comerica Bank notified customers trying to use credit and debit cards or accounts to gamble that “attempting to use these sites” may result in accounts being temporarily disabled. “We generally do not comment on our internal policies, but yes, the notice is correct,” Matt Barnhart, Comerica’s vice president of corporate communications, Michigan Market, said in a recent email to Crain’s. “Nevertheless, like most banks, we will continue to monitor the federal and state legal and compliance framework surrounding internet gambling for guidance how to safely provide banking services in that area.” Other large banks blocking online gaming in Michigan and elsewhere include JPMorgan Chase, Huntington Bank and Capital One, while several of the large credit card issuers have followed suit. Patricia Herndon, executive vice president of government affairs for the Michigan Bankers Association, said it is probably not prudent for a bank to make credit available for online betting. “If you are the bank stuck with that debt, that’s not a positive risk assessment to jump into,” she said.
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subs or cket dent ing,
Mortgage Finance showing that since July of 2017 the company’s market share in the wholesale channel has been outpacing UWM’s, growing as much as 500 percent. Last year the company said it increased broker loan deals by 125 percent from 2019. Niemiec cites such data as the reasoning behind UWM’s decision to instill the choice on brokers.
In addition to the risk of writing off gambling debts, banks do not want to run afoul of federal law. While there is no blanket law in the U.S. prohibiting online gambling, there are laws that forbid certain types of it, such as gambling that crosses state lines. However, different states have different laws, which has further complicated the issue and compelled banks to stay away for now. The issue is not unlike that of banking marijuana money, a practice big banks have avoided due to pot’s federal categorization. Still, some smaller institutions in Michigan have welcomed marijuana merchants and grown very quickly because of it. Similar to the marijuana industry, online betting operators are
hopeful banks will change their tune when legalization becomes more widespread, but the largest institutions have shown no sign of changing policies, according to an American Banker report. Peters said her credit union could reverse its policy toward online gambling, but she thinks the move benefits both the business and customers. “It makes me question the amount of marketing” by the online gaming companies, she said. “It’s an early onset to get people hooked. They’re plugging that card into these apps, and they’re playing, and they’re playing and they’re playing.” Contact: knagl@crain.com; (313) 446-0337; @kurt_nagl
MARCH 15, 2021 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | 21
THE CONVERSATION
Detroit entrepreneur goes bust to boom with fuel supply, real estate ACE PETROLEUM: Behind a nondescript cinder block and steel façade off McNichols Road on Detroit’s west side, Moses Shepherd, founder and CEO of Ace Petroleum, squints at an old prison music catalog. The plush private office, complete with a steam room and cigar lounge, is almost blinding with white marble floors and fancy fixtures throughout. Jazz music plays from speakers in the ceiling as Shepherd, 55, leans back in his leather chair. “I try to run a stress-free environment in my office,” he said. “I don’t like anybody to be stressed about anything that goes on around here, you know. Everything that happens, it happens for a reason.” That’s been Shepherd’s mantra all along the roller-coaster journey of starting a successful business on his own, losing it all and building it back up even stronger. At 19 years old, Shepherd took a job at a Sunoco gas station in Detroit and became a manager. He eventually launched The Music Company Inc., which supplied music cassettes and CDs to gas stations, before bringing the model to prisons in Michigan and throughout the country. It was a successful business that collapsed with a bad investment. The failure taught him how to be better, and he would go on to amass a real estate portfolio of more than 1,000 rental units in the city and start one of the nation’s largest minority-owned fuel suppliers. With a pipeline of new contracts, the $20 million per year company is on pace to hit $150 million in revenue in three years, Shepherd said. | BY KURT NAGL How did you get started as an entrepreneur? I was born and raised in Detroit. Graduated from Western High School in Detroit. I grew up in the 12th and Clairmount area right there. So, I went to work for a company as a manager of a (Sunoco) convenience store on the east side of Detroit, and I was 19 years old, and I ended up becoming a manager. I ran the stores, made all of the stores profitable. I had about eight stores that I ran. And, you know, I just tried to learn as much as I possibly could. I worked 12 hours a day, six days a week for a salary of $375. But it really wasn’t the money at all, it was about what they taught me, so eventually I could write my own paycheck. How long did you do that? I did that for three years, and then I ended up leaving, and I started my own company. I started a music distribution company where I was supplying music to gas stations across the city, which ended up going, actually, nationwide. Quite a few convenience stores. I supplied all of the stores on the Ohio Turnpike with music. So, I grew that business into a pretty profitable business. During that time, I decided to expand my business. I had three record stores — one in Pontiac, one in Detroit and one in Inkster. So, as the market turned, I decided to shutter the stores, and I had an idea to start selling music and electronics to prison inmates. And I started with one prison in 1996, and by 2000, I was supplying 3,500 prisons across the country. … So, this was my product that I had manufactured in China and shipped over here. And they were transparent, so
couldn’t buy the books, so I had to sit in the bookstore and read the books. My credit was marginal enough to be able to buy a house and fix it up. OK, so my books told me that I can buy this house for $50,000. My book said (list) the house for $65,000, and I can pull $15,000 back at the closing. I started buying more houses, and then I ended up with a couple hundred houses over in between the University District, Bagley and Grandmont-Rosedale Park, OK. I had so many houses that I actually controlled what the rents were. As 2008 came, when the market tanked, I started buying the entire neighborhood. So anytime a house went on the market I would buy it … and I decided to, you know, continue to buy. Moses Shepherd, founder and CEO of Ace Petroleum
the inmate couldn’t hide any contraband. What happened to the music business? I had this business up and running, and it was going very well, OK. There was a guy that copied my display for the gas stations. When he did that, I was upset. Now that was 10 years prior. So, by the time I got enough money, I wanted to basically go and try to put this guy out of business for what he did. OK, being vindictive. A smart businessman should never be vindictive. Shrewd, but not vindictive. So, I had a million dollars of my own money, and I decided to hold off on this prison business where it was
extremely profitable and get back into the rack distribution business where I made maybe $1 a unit, where I was making $10 of profit on a CD. OK, so it goes to show where my mindset was, right … And when I did that, I went out of business. It was a flop. So, I lost that business, and I lost the prison distribution business. So after losing everything, how’d you climb out of that hole? My investment was gone, so I’m sitting at my house — my house was in foreclosure — and I couldn’t afford to do anything. So, what I did was, I started reading real estate books. I
How did you come full circle back into the fuel business? Well, you know, I try to always recognize lucrative opportunities, and I understand the fuel business, and I have some good people in the field I used to work for. The Atlas Oil family, they’ve been great friends. I launched Ace Petroleum in 2017… So, when I started Ace Petroleum, I knew that it would be a success because there’s a need for minority fuel suppliers — you really don’t have any. We’re a local fuel supplier with a national footprint. I supply Cassens (Transport Co.). That was my first account. ... We had the contract last year with the city of Detroit, which actually picked up a lot of momentum for us, but then COVID hit, so it kind of shut down any kind of negotiations with anyone. I did sign NDAs (nondisclosure agreements), so there’s a lot I can’t say about new business.
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RUMBLINGS
Detroit auto show organizers file $2.4M suit against insurer ORGANIZERS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN International Auto Show in Detroit filed a lawsuit Thursday against its insurance company for $2.4 million. NAIAS LLC, the holding company for the auto show organized by the Detroit Auto Dealers Association, filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court alleging a breach of contract and bad faith from the insurance provider, Texas-based Houston Casualty Co., for not paying out its full coverage after the organizers canceled the June 2020 auto show due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Detroit Auto Dealers Association announced the cancellation of its annual auto show on March 28. Plans to turn TCF Center into a field hospital to handle COVID-19 overflow patients were reported a day later. | CHAD LIVENGOOD/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS
22 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | MARCH 15, 2021
Houston Casualty paid out $2.4 million in December 2020 then another $878,938 on Wednesday of the roughly $5.6 million policy, the auto show’s lawyers said in the lawsuit obtained by Crain’s. “In early 2020 when the pandemic hit, the NAIAS was canceled by a government mandate that the TCF Center, where the show is held annually, would be used for a field hospital for COVID-19 patients,” Rod Alberts, executive director of the show, said in a statement. “For the health and safety of our community, it was the right call. Unfortunately,
some of the coverages and assurances that we put in place have not been met and we had no choice but to pursue legal action.” Organizers allege the insurance company’s denial of some payouts is a breach of contract, the court filing states. The auto show paid a $14,483 premium on the policy, according to court records. Alberts and team are planning for the return of the Detroit auto show for September 2022, 32 months after the last auto show took place in the city in January 2019.
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