THE CONVERSATION
SUPPLIERS: Vinnie Johnson’s Piston Group loses minority certification PAGE 3
How NSF International helped streamline the vaccine rollout PAGE 22 CRAINSDETROIT.COM I APRIL 5, 2021
WATCH THIS (OFFICE) SPACE How post-COVID workspaces are playing out in reality BY KIRK PINHO
For more than a year, a global pandemic has upended the traditional office space environment and kept many workers at home under state health directives intended to reduce the spread of
COVID-19. As the rollout of vaccines becomes more widespread and some office workers begin a slow, gradual return to their desks, the true impact the coronavirus has had on See OFFICE on Page 18
NEWSPAPER
VOL. 37, NO. 13 l COPYRIGHT 2021 CRAIN COMMUNICATIONS INC. l ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
HEALTH CARE
Who’s forgotten in vaccine push? New efforts underway to reach the unreached BY JAY GREENE
As the state of Michigan expands COVID-19 vaccine eligibility Monday to anyone over the age of 16, tens of thousands of people have been left out, forgotten or overlooked in the race to achieve herd immunity in the state of at least 70 percent vaccinated. Who are these people? And what are state officials and vaccine provid-
ers doing to identify them, and get the potentially life-saving coronavirus vaccines to them? Experts say the overlooked people are the homebound elderly, the disabled, and some health care workers such as therapists, hospice aides, personal care aides and home care workers. There also is a declining percentage of those still reluctant to get the vaccine.
FOCUS: BLACK-OWNED BUSINESSES
Michigan officials tout that vaccine outreach efforts through hospitals, health departments and pharmacies so far have reached two-thirds of the state’s over age 65 population of 1.765 million with at least one dose as of March 25, according to the state’s vaccination dashboard. Michigan is slightly behind the See VACCINES on Page 17
Countless programs exist to offer assistance to small businesses; many have stated goals of addressing financing gaps for Black-owned businesses. But major gaps remain when it comes to access to capital. PAGE 8
NEED TO KNOW
MARKETING
THE WEEK IN REVIEW, WITH AN EYE ON WHAT’S NEXT ROCKET STOCK SALE TO FUND GILBERT COMMITMENT THE NEWS: Billionaire mortgage mogul Dan Gilbert will fund his $500 million Detroit-focused philanthropic initiative with the proceeds from a stock sale last week. Regulatory filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday evening show that Rock Holdings Inc., of which Gilbert and his wife, Jennifer, are the majority shareholders, divested 20.2 million shares — a sliver of their stake in Rocket Companies Inc. WHY IT MATTERS: Gilbert plans to use his portion of the proceeds to help fund the recently announced $500 million commitment to Detroit’s neighborhoods. The first project aims to use $15 million to help residents with past-due property taxes.
DEFIANT BARBER FINED $9,000 OVER PANDEMIC PROTEST THE NEWS: A Michigan barber who defied Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and reopened his shop last spring during the coronavirus pandemic was fined $9,000 for violating licensing rules, including joining a protest where hairstylists cut hair on the Capitol lawn. Karl Manke will appeal the penalties in court, his lawyer said. WHY IT MATTERS: Manke last year became a symbol of resistance to lockdowns meant to curtail the pandemic.
tising spending on Black-owned media to 4 percent by 2022 and 8 percent by 2025. Those targets will be published in GM’s annual report on its social and sustainability goals.
ENBRIDGE SEEKS UNION CONTRACTOR FOR LINE 5 THE NEWS: Enbridge Inc. has completed the design and engineering for a 4-mile-long underground tunnel to house its Line 5 oil pipeline under the Straits of Mackinac and is now seeking a union contractor to construct the tunnel. The Canadian oil pipeline company will issue a request for proposals for a contractor to bore out the tunnel some 100 feet into the bedrock below the bottom of Lake Michigan, west of the Mackinac Bridge. WHY IT MATTERS: Enbridge remains locked in legal battles with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Attorney General Dana Nessel over maintaining the flow of oil and natural gas liquids through its existing underwater pipeline.
GM SAYS IT WILL SPEND MORE WITH BLACK-OWNED MEDIA THE NEWS: After leaders of Blackowned media companies called for more of an audience with General Motors Co., the Detroit-based automaker said it plans to increase adver-
WHY IT MATTERS: The plans came after a group of Black-owned media companies took out full page ads in the Detroit Free Press and Wall Street Journal accusing GM CEO Mary Barra of ignoring multiple requests for meetings.
ECONOMY ADDS MORE THAN 900,000 JOBS THE NEWS: U.S. employers added the most jobs in seven months with improvement across most industries in March, as more vaccinations and fewer business restrictions supercharged the labor market recovery. Nonfarm payrolls increased by 916,000 last month, according to a Labor Department report Friday. The unemployment rate fell to 6 percent.
Little Caesars spends crazy bread on cheesy ‘naming rights’ gimmick When it comes to corporate naming rights, it appears nothing is off limits, even outside the stadium. Basements and living rooms are where the marketing chiefs at Little Caesars are targeting next in the latest campaign to drum up business for the Detroit-based pizza chain and the Detroit Red Wings, both owned by the Ilitch family. The company on Wednesday rolled out a promotion to “buy the naming rights to living rooms, basements, and anywhere NHL hockey is watched,” according to a news release. Those who sign on will receive a coupon every Wednesday for free Crazy Bread with a pizza purchase through the end of the NHL season. The Wings’ last game of the regular season is scheduled for May 8. With a last-place 12-21-4 record in the Central Division, it’s safe to say they won’t be making the playoffs. Little Caesars’ new promotion comes complete with a mock contract for customers to rename their room the “Little Caesars NHL Hockey Room.”
WHY IT MATTERS: Rising COVID-19 infections had severely restrained the labor market for months, but now more than 2 million Americans are getting vaccinated daily and economic activity is picking up.
Correction
Little Caesars wants the naming rights to fans’ TV-watching rooms for the remainder of the NHL season. | LITTLE CAESARS
A story in the March 29 issue misspelled the last name of Keith Schatko of The Macomb Group.
NEW FITNESS CENTER!
E NTI R E WE ST B U I LD I N G AVAI LAB LE 72,517 RSF AVAILABLE
PREMIUM SIGNAGE ON WOODWARD
41000 WOODWARD AVENUE | BLOOMFIELD HILLS, MI FOR MORE INFORMATION DENNIS KATEFF 2 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | APRIL 5, 2021
DKATEFF@KOJAIAN.COM
248-644-7600
AUTO SUPPLIERS
REAL ESTATE
Piston Group vows to fight back Organization revokes its minority enterprise certification BY DUSTIN WALSH
DATE WITH DEMOLITION This 4,186-square-foot home on W. Long Lake Road in West Bloomfield Township, designed by Michigan architect Irving Tobocman, is scheduled to be torn down this spring. | (NIC ANTAYA FOR CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS
Famed architect’s home in West Bloomfield slated for teardown BY KAREN DYBIS | SPECIAL TO CRAIN'S DETROIT BUSINESS
With its clean white brick, sleek interior, floor-to-ceiling windows and lakefront views, it’s clear the house at 2810 W. Long Lake Road in West Bloomfield is an Irving Tobocman design — one that is slated to be torn down. According to estate-sale organizer Alison Robb, the property’s new owners are more traditional, so the plan is to demo the house and build something new. The home is one of the finest her company, Alison’s Magnificent Obsession Estate and Moving Sales, ever handled, Robb said. Late last month, she arranged an estate sale for the new owners, including beds, kitchen cabinets,
landscaping and the home’s original blueprints. “It’s such a tragedy to tear it down. It’s such an iconic house. But life does move on,” Robb said. “If you have the money to do what you want, why not? Life’s too short otherwise.” The 4,186-square-foot home with four bedrooms and threeand-a-half baths sold in January for $2.525 million, according to West Bloomfield Township records. The land value alone is $2.025 million with 146 feet of frontage on Pine Lake, a private, all-sports lake that spans nearly 400 acres. The lake itself is “so scenic, you can get lost in your thoughts here,” said one five-star Google review. Old blueprints from Michigan architect Irving Tobocman at 2810 W. Long Lake Road in West Bloomfield Township. | NIC ANTAYA FOR CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS
See HOME on Page 20
Piston Group, the $3 billion auto supplier owned by former Detroit Pistons star Vinnie Johnson, is preparing to fight back after losing its valuable minority-business enterprise certification. Late last month, the Michigan Minority Supplier Development Council revoked Piston’s minority enterprise status on the grounds that the day-to- Johnson day operations of Johnson’s company were largely run by white men, in violation of the organization’s rules. Piston is the largest Black-owned auto supplier in the country and a major supplier to Ford Motor Co. and Stellantis, formerly FCA. In an emailed statement to Crain’s, Johnson said the company is prepared to take legal action against the MMSDC in an effort to restore its certification if the ongoing appeal of the decision does not result in Piston Group’s recertification as a minority business enterprise. “I am deeply disturbed regarding the actions taken to alter my long standing status as a minority business enterprise,” Johnson said in the statement. “I own and control 100 percent of Piston Group. I am actively engaged in all aspects of the business and have been since the business was started in 1995. My commitment to my 10,000-plus employees, our customers and the local communities that we support through our charitable contributions is unwavering. I expect the Piston Group to be judged by our customers on the merits of our work product and service. See PISTON on Page 21
SPORTS BUSINESS
Detroit Lions CEO: ‘We’re not taking a year off’ BY KURT NAGL
For Ford Field and the Detroit Lions, hosting the largest mass COVID-19 vaccination site in Michigan is one way to keep the lights on. The 65,000-seat stadium in downtown Detroit has sat mostly empty for the past year. So, when the Federal Emergency Management Agency began scouting the region for vaccination sites, Lions President and CEO Rod Wood eagerly submitted a bid. Like other sports teams in the city and country, the Lions have been bleeding money without fans in seats. All concerts scheduled for this
“I THINK WE’LL HAVE FANS. WHETHER IT’S 25 PERCENT OR 50 PERCENT OR 100 PERCENT DEPENDS ON A LOT OF THINGS OUTSIDE OF MY CONTROL BETWEEN NOW AND THEN.” — Rod Wood, CEO and president, Detroit Lions
year at Ford Field have officially been called off. The next non-vaccinating event at the stadium will more than likely be the Lions’ next home game
in the fall, Wood said, and he is holding out hope that it will be packed with fans. The organization is ready to do anything it can to make that happen, such as facilitating up to 6,000 shots of vaccine each day for eight weeks. Hosting the emergency clinic will also provide work for around 100 fulland part-time employees handling operations, security, parking and janitorial services. The contract between the Michigan State Police and Ford Field will pay the Lions for its expenses totaling around $1.4 million, according to a copy of the agreement obtained by Crain’s. The normal rental fee,
which would have been an additional $1.4 million, was waived by the Ford family. “This is really kind of a community-supporting event, not something to generate rental revenue for us,” Wood told Crain’s. The operation has so far garnered favorable reviews on social media and scores of smiling selfies inside and outside Ford Field. Many have commented on the efficiency of the vaccination process, and quips about people feeling the best they’ve ever felt leaving Ford Field have been plentiful. See LIONS on Page 20
Rod Wood | ASSOCIATED PRESS APRIL 5, 2021 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | 3
REAL ESTATE INSIDER
A New York City-based co-owner of The Fisher Building in Detroit’s New Center area is in choppy legal and financial waters.
YOU MADE NEWS IN CRAIN’S
Share your success with custom Reprints, E-prints and more! Contact Laura Picariello at lpicariello@crain.com
Former Michigan Attorney General
A fighter for Michigan, and now a fighter for you! Commercial & Business Litigation Administrative Law Employment Litigation 17430 Laurel Park Dr. North, Suite 120E, Livonia, MI 48152
Antitrust Regulatory Counseling Insurance Law
(734) 591-4002 | info@mikecoxlaw.com
Mike Cox • Donald Hutchinson • Melissa Raycraft • Jackie Cook
4 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | APRIL 5, 2021
| COSTAR GROUP INC.
Financial, legal peril for Fisher Building co-owner. No, not that one. A co-owner of the Fisher Building in Detroit’s New Center area is facing growing legal and financial woes in New York City, where it is headquartered. Kirk HFZ Capital PINHO Group, which is run by Ziel Feldman, is part of the investment group that paid just $12.2 million for the Fisher Building and the Albert Kahn Building, which total 925,000 square feet, and two parking decks with about 2,000 spaces in 2015. Today, HFZ’s mountain of unpaid real estate debt and construction bills looms as luxury condo sales in the Big Apple have faltered and the market became oversaturated by developers with eyes bigger than the city’s stomach, Crain’s New York Business, a sister publication of Crain’s Detroit Business, and others have reported in recent months. It faces lawsuits from lenders and contractors alike. The others rounding out the Detroit joint venture were Detroit-based The Platform LLC, run by Peter Cummings, which declined comment; John Rhea, a Detroit native and managing partner of Rheal Capital Management LLC, who could not be reached for comment; and Southfield-based developer and landlord Redico LLC, which sold its ownership interest in the property a few years ago. The precise structure of the ownership is not known. An HFZ spokesperson said in a statement to Crain’s: “HFZ remains committed in its partnership with The Platform to the continued rebirth and success of the Fisher Building.” The joint venture sold the Albert Kahn Building three years ago to developers Matthew Sosin and Adam Lutz, which is converting the building into apartments. HFZ laid off more than 30 this winter, Crain’s New York reported,
The Columbia Center office complex in Troy has two towers over 250,000 square feet each, one built in 1989 and the other built in 1998. | COSTAR GROUP INC.
and lost control of four of its condo projects to a lender last month, The Real Deal reported. The commercial real estate industry publication reported in December that HFZ’s unpaid debts total more than $300 million and that the company had been fast-growing and ambitious, making big bets on luxury condominium sales that floundered. Its website says it is managing $10 billion-plus in development with 6 million square feet and 2,500 residential units. HFZ’s financial stake in Detroit is certainly infinitesimal compared to the reckoning it faces in New York. An afterthought for Feldman’s company, for all intents and purposes. But it’s still worth noting. Earlier this year, Bloomberg reported that there are some 15,000 unsold units across about 900 developments with a listing value of $45 billion. HFZ’s investment in the Detroit market was sparked by Feldman’s son, Adam, who went to the University of Michigan Stephen M. Ross School of Business and was a student of local real estate broker Steve Morris, who is also a professor at the school.
JLL snags Columbia Center listing Columbia Center, one of the bestknown office complexes in the region, has a new listing broker. The Royal Oak office of JLL picked up the listing for the two buildings earlier this year. Southfield-based Signature Associates Inc. had the listing previously. Built in 1989, Columbia Center I is at 201 West Big Beaver and has 255,000 square feet, according to CoStar Group Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based real estate information service. The 252,000-square-foot Columbia Center II is at 101 West Big Beaver. It was built in 1998, according to Troy-based developer Kirco Manix’s website. AJ Weiner, managing director of JLL, said the complex is 85 percent leased and the asking rent is $26 per square foot per year, plus gas and electric. The assignment became effective March 1. Contact: kpinho@crain.com; (313) 446-0412; @kirkpinhoCDB
Stay Safe on Spring Break!
MASK UP, MACOMB As We Fight This Virus Together Remember When You Leave Your Home Wear A Mask • Socially Distance • Stay Home If You Don’t Feel Well
MACOMB COUNTY RESIDENTS
are responsible and hard working. Thank you for doing your part during this challenging time. Make
Macomb Schools your home
Anchor Bay Schools, Armada Area Schools, Center Line Public Schools, Chippewa Valley Schools, Clintondale Community Schools, Eastpointe Community Schools, Fitzgerald Public Schools, Fraser Public Schools, Lake Shore Public Schools, Lakeview Public Schools, L’Anse Creuse Public Schools, Mount Clemens Community Schools, New Haven Community Schools, Richmond Community Schools, Romeo Community Schools, Roseville Community Schools, South Lake Schools, Utica Community Schools, Van Dyke Public Schools, Warren Consolidated Schools, Warren Woods Public Schools
For more information about Macomb Schools, go to www.misd.net
COMMENTARY
It’s time to bring back ‘earmarks’ BY JOE NEUSSENDORFER
DANIEL SAAD FOR CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS
R
COMMENTARY
Help us find Michigan’s most influential women
D
o you know a woman of influence? We want to hear about her — and give credit where it’s due. Every five years since 1997, Crain’s Detroit Business has honored 100 influential women in business, public policy, nonprofits and higher education whose work has had significant impact on the state and region. It’s time once again for us to seek out candidates for this prestigious list. We want to cast a wide net — and diversity is important to us. We want our honorees to reflect the community and industries they are working to improve. Nominations come from a variety of sources, including you, our readers; our reporters and editors; an evaluation of our own news WE WANT TO involving CAST A WIDE NET stories women-led companies and initiatives; — AND and suggestions from DIVERSITY IS past honorees themselves. IMPORTANT TO Our 2016 honorees US. WE WANT included a host of OUR HONOREES CEOs and other high-profile names, TO REFLECT THE including Mary Barra, chairman and COMMUNITY AND GM CEO; Martha Ford, INDUSTRIES THEY Detroit Lions owner; Worthy, Wayne ARE WORKING TO Kym County prosecutor; IMPROVE. and Barb McQuade, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan. But it also included many lesser-known but no less important influencers — women who are not (yet) household names in Michigan but are making a mark in their industries in
Kelley
ROOT
Executive Editor important ways. Nominees will be selected by top newsroom leadership based on the significance of their contributions and specific examples/ stories of real influence and impact. Previous Most Influential Women honorees may be selected again this year if they are in a new or expanded role or have a momentous new accomplishment to share since they last appeared on the list. Nominations are due April 12. Honorees will be featured July 26 in a special section online and in Crain’s print edition. The women selected will be honored at an event in late summer/early fall. Learn more and start a nomination at crainsdetroit.com/nominate. To view the 2016 honorees and learn more about how the selection process works, visit https://www.crainsdetroit.com/awards/ most-influential-women-2016. We look forward to unveiling our new “class” of 2021 influencers. Questions, suggestions or feedback? Feel free to email me at kelley.root@crain.com.
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.
ecently, the U.S House of Representatives Appropriation Committee Chair Rosa DeLauro announced new reforms for community project funding, or “earmarks.” Earmarks were banned by Congress Joe Neussendorfer in 2011. Now, the new Congress wants to bring is a Life Member them back with more acof the Detroit countabilty and transparEconomic Club ency. Many members are and an Affiliate still adamant, and want to Member of the American Society ban them permanently. The term “earmark of Civil Engineers. spending” refers to part of a spending bill that allocates funds for a specific thing, such as location, project or institution. The difference between an earmark and a general budget line is the specificity of the recipient, which usually is a particular project in a specific member of Congress’ district or a senator’s home state. Sure, there have been abuses in the past, but they have been few, and when caught have led to congressional sanctions. We elect our congressmen and send them to Washington to represent our local needs. Denying them the ability to “bring home” needed local community projects and resources is to deny our true representation. We send them to Washington to represent our districts. We remember all of the past Detroit-area and Michigan projects that were championed by the late U.S. Rep. John Dingell Jr., such as at Metro Airport and the Detroit VA Hospital. In the near future, there will be a far-reach-
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
On health care, a case of the Blues TO THE EDITOR: The Blues are giving me a bad case of the blues. After reading the comprehensive and well-written Crain’s article in the March 22 edition about the Blue Cross settlement as part of an antitrust lawsuit, I had to ask myself, “Why do we continue to put up with this abuse?” Is it bad enough that the CEO of BCBS Michigan brings in about $12 million a year in salary and bonuses? Or that in 2020 the Michigan Blues recorded a $6 billion surplus and $8 billion in cash and investment assets? Now we get to see our hard-earned dollars being spent by the Blues to defend themselves in antitrust activity; that is, trying to eliminate competition and drive insurance premiums higher? As noted in the article, Michigan ranks as the third-least-competitive health insurance market in the United States, and has the ninth-highest health insurance premiums for small businesses, according to the 2020 American Medical Association. Enough is enough. Medicare for All continues to attract atten-
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. 6 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | APRIL 5, 2021
ing National Infrastructure Plan. Targeted, community project funding should be part and parcel of that plan. U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio, chair of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, recently announced that his panel will bring back earmarking of special projects for legislators. In 1984, Michigan Gov. James Blanchard formed a “Michigan Infrastructure Coalition.” I was honored to be a member of this coalition. I remember the lengthy deliberations, with Michigan’s congressional delegation, state lawmakers, mayors, engineering, construction and road-building companies to develop the “Governor’s Infrastructure Building Plan” that was announced in Detroit in 1984. The Coalition worked very closely with Michigan’s congressional delegation to identify critically needed infrastructure projects in each district. Infrastructure needs are best understood at the local level. Mayors, city councils, city engineers (professional and civil) and planners all know what their needs are based on citizen input. And they have direct, ongoing communications with their respective federal and state representatives. Why interrupt this important needs-relationship by banning earmarks altogether? For Congress to call for a permanent abandonment seems to be foolhardy and to each member’s detriment. U.S. Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigeig, who has been a mayor and can directly relate to the critical importance of community project funding, and the knowledge that America’s states, cities and towns know best their infrastructure needs, is the right person leading from a transportation perspective, to champion our nation’s future infrastructure program. So, earmarks yes, but with transparency and accountability.
tion, in part through the abuse of the insurance industry on businesses, their employees and individuals who purchase insurance in the marketplace. As outlined in their recently published book “Medicare for All, a Citizens Guide,” by doctors Abdul El-Sayed and Micah Johnson, the insurance industry is able to engage in unethical business practices in part due to their monopolistic status. The book also highlights the cozy relationship between health care systems and the insurance industry to guarantee each other’s profits and high administrative cost structures. Even though the Blues agreed in the settlement to stop engaging in anticompetitive practices, it will be up to a judge to monitor compliance. Do we really expect the Blues to change their behavior and reduce their own administrative costs? Can we only hope that the Blues will use their leverage and power to reform inequities in payment for home health workers or family practice physicians? Or is it more likely that they will continue to abuse the businesses, employees and individuals who must pay into the system? Jim Lemire Ferndale
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
A Responsible Bidder Ordinance would benefit Detroiters BY DOUGLAS STOCKWELL
Anyone driving around, shopping, or living in Detroit today cannot help but marvel at the amount of construction going on in the city. The skyline is full of Douglas cranes lifting maStockwell is terials for new Operating buildings and the Engineers 324 roads are being business repaired and remanager and placed by excavageneral vice tors, pavers and president. dozers. But renewal by itself is not enough. The investment into rebuilding Detroit means very little if it does not also come with an investment in Detroiters. That is why it is essential for the city to select contractors who truly have the best interest in providing opportunities both to the city of De-
COMMERCE
Portal launches to connect Detroit-based suppliers with buyers
troit and its residents. It is why Detroit needs a Responsible Bidder Ordinance. Putting a Responsible Bidder Ordinance on the books protects Detroit while empowering its citizens. It would require contractors bidding on city-funded projects to meet criteria to prove that they have the best interests of the residents — who are funding this work — at heart. A crucial part of this language is a requirement that eligible bidders offer a U.S. Department of Labor-certified Registered Apprenticeship program. This will guarantee that companies wanting to work in the city limits will offer Detroiters highly skilled training, and
lifelong careers, not just temporary jobs. These are the careers that Detroiters and their children are entitled to, and it is a moral necessity that the city supports, not discourages, the efforts and work of those that provide those opportunities. At Operating Engineers 324, we know and understand these opportunities well. We have over 14,000 members throughout Michigan who know what it means to have gone through a Registered Apprenticeship, and become a skillful, compensated professional. They understand it takes more than a printed certificate and a handful of training hours to be-
come a journeyperson. Our apprenticeship numbers are the largest in our history and include the largest number of Detroit residents we’ve ever had. As our footprint in the community has increased — through career fairs, A. Phillip Randolph Technical High School, pre-apprenticeship programs we sponsor and more — the interest in our program has increased as well. We partner with contractors to self-fund a Registered Apprenticeship program that costs millions of dollars to maintain. We make sure our apprentices and graduate apprentices are the best in the world. But these apprenticeships require
employers, and the projects the city of Detroit can provide. That is why it is imperative Detroit require companies bidding on city construction contracts to meet criteria that include partnership with a Registered Apprenticeship program. It is an investment in the communities, and opportunities for the families of Detroit to find sustained career success in a field that has been too foreign for too long. Greater access to opportunities creates a greater Detroit, and the city can help provide that access by requiring contractors to build rewarding careers as well as roads, bridges and structures.
NOMINATIONS
OPEN
BY ANNALISE FRANK
A free portal with contracting opportunities specifically for Detroit companies launched Thursday. The nonprofit Detroit Economic Growth Corp.'s portal is its first program under a new initiative called BuyDetroit, under which it wants to help Detroit vendors connect with procurement opportunities. The business-to-business portal is similar to a government bid site like BidNet, for example, but suppliers must be either fully headquartered or at least based — has a major facility and pays taxes — in Detroit. Buyers, however, can come from anywhere. The DEGC hopes to get companies from around the country that are looking for suppliers to join. The portal will include public bids from the city of Detroit as well as private companies. The DEGC, the city's quasi-public development coordinating agency, enlisted Ann Arbor-based Connect Space to make and host the new portal. It cost around $70,000, paid for through donations from the New Economy Initiative, a project of the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan, and Detroit-based TCF Bank. BuyDetroit has signed on a group of corporations that regularly contract with a host of smaller companies to what it calls a Buyer Council that helped create the portal. That list includes DTE Energy Co., Comerica Bank, Henry Ford Health System, For Motor Co., the city of Detroit, Detroit Medical Center and Crain Communications Inc. (the parent company of Crain's Detroit Business). The portal and more details can be found at degc.org/buydetroit.
We are looking for business leaders who identify as LGBTQ and are making an impact through professional, civic and philanthropic achievements. Winners will be featured in the Sept. 6 issue of Crain’s Detroit Business NOMINATION
DEADLINE:
MAY 19
FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT
crainsdetroit.com/nominate
APRIL 5, 2021 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | 7
W
INSIDE THIS PACKAGE Vendor development program opens doors for Detroit fashion entrepreneur.
Financing struggles followed by pandemic woes for local day care operation. PAGE 11
Startup gets a leg up from program supporting Detroit-born cannabis ventures. PAGE 10
The pandemic means constant uncertainty for some business owners.
BLACK-OWNED BUSINESSES
PAGE 11
‘THERE’S WORK TO DO’
VALAURIAN WALLER FOR CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS
PAGE 10
From
Orena Perry, owner of Detroit-based event planning and consulting company JEADL Enterprises LLC.
Black-owned businesses need connections, infrastructure to access capital, other resources BY ANNALISE FRANK Just 13 percent of Black-owned
businesses in the U.S. get the funding they need. For whiteowned businesses, it’s three times higher: 40 percent. Thousands of programs exist in metro Detroit to offer financing and assistance to small businesses; many even have stated goals of addressing this long-standing gap in accessing capital. But experts and business owners say what’s lacking are the connections and overarching infrastructure to sufficiently connect Black-owned businesses with the right resources. “I want to scale. I want to grow. I want to contribute to my community on a larger scale, and I don’t know how to do that,” said Monique Woods, sole proprietor of a West Bloomfield-based insurance agency, Monique Woods Agency LLC. “I don’t know where to get the resources to do that.”
8 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | APRIL 5, 2021
The stats are evident: Black owners are turned down for loans at a rate double that of white owners, according to Federal Reserve data. During the pandemic, they were 30 times less likely than other businesses to get government aid, according to a study released late last year. These wealth and opportunity gaps are evident in metro Detroit, anchored by a city with the highest percentage of Black-owned businesses of the largest 50 cities in the country: 77 percent, per U.S. Census Bureau data. Michigan had nearly 160,000 minority-owned (defined as non-whiteowned) businesses as of 2012 — the most recent data available — per the Census Bureau, with 51,000 of those in Detroit and the vast majority Blackowned.
“WE KEEP TIPTOEING AROUND IT AND WE KEEP ACTING LIKE, ‘OH, OK, WELL, TELL US WHAT TO DO, TELL US WHAT WE SHOULD BE DOING’ AND WE’RE LIKE, ‘YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHAT TO DO. STOP.” — Orena Perry, owner, JEADL Enterprises LLC
“I think Detroit has made incredible progress in the last 10 years in terms of building out the resources needed for entrepreneurs of color ...,” said Chanell Contreras, executive director of ProsperUs, a nonprofit that supports and makes microloans to entrepreneurs of color. “But with that said, I think there’s still tremendous opportunity to improve ... there’s work to do to create efficiencies in the system.”
A big question is whether, as the entrepreneurial ecosystem becomes more streamlined, it’s intentionally prioritizing Black business owners and other entrepreneurs of color, and voices of Black leaders, Latino leaders and others, Contreras said. Black entrepreneurship has been on the rise, with the number of Blackowned businesses increasing 35 perSee WORK on Page 9
cent 2020 Blac Ame H troit with as r tion have Ame crea with imp “W keep wha doin ly w own and pris Kee essa L tem size ditio that of c neu time mak sible crim pers leng nati jorit icy a Th peo race troit new Busi “I to d that trus love thos wha here whe alrea W any trera cent trep
Res
W to e Allst pen ther esta Sh 2019 insu wou as o ness com gled She’ Allst prie ture “I coun but pren sam hear you
VALAURIAN WALLER FOR CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS
WORK
s
e s y s d s
n -
9
Unequal financing
From Page 8
Minority-owned small businesses had more difficulty accessing credit in 2020.
cent from 2007 to 2012, according to a 2020 report from the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation and Bank of America. However, the history of metro Detroit and the country is intertwined with racist and abusive practices such as redlining and lending discrimination that have their roots in slavery and have continued to keep many Black Americans’ opportunities for wealth creation down. And now a pandemic with inequitable health and economic impacts has been added to the mix. “We keep tiptoeing around it and we keep acting like, ‘Oh, OK, well, tell us what to do, tell us what we should be doing’ and we’re like, ‘You know exactly what to do. Stop,’” said Orena Perry, owner of Detroit-based event planning and consulting company JEADL Enterprises LLC. “It’s just that simple. Stop it. Keep it simple and just do what is necessary.” Looking at traditional financing systems like major banks that emphasize size of credit, capacity, collateral, conditions of loans and more, it’s evident that some Black entrepreneurs, others of color and low-income entrepreneurs “are going to have a very difficult time meeting those requirements,” making traditional financing inaccessible, Contreras said. A variety of discriminatory forces feed into this, from personal health and financial challenges to a lack of “social capital,” the national nonprofit Small Business Majority says in a summary of its 2021 policy agenda. The first thing? Acknowledge how people are served differently based on race, said Charity Dean, a former Detroit executive who’s heading up the newly launched Metro Detroit Black Business Alliance. “It’s an uncomfortable conversation to deal with, but when you deal with that first, then you can start building trust,” Dean said. “So, I think, I would love to see more institutions ... having those conversations about, ‘You know what, we’re not hitting the mark here, here’s where we want to go.’ Because when you acknowledge that, now I can already let my guard down.” While Black-owned businesses of any size face obstacles to growth, Contreras said it’s important to specifically center low- to moderate-income entrepreneurs.
Share of firms that received all financing sought
Resources to grow Woods, a native Detroiter, isn’t new to entrepreneurship — she’s a former Allstate Corp. franchisee, and her independent business came out of her father’s, Otha Williams Agency, which he established in 1989. She went out fully on her own in 2019, with plans to offer a larger suite of insurance to a broader clientele. That would mean hiring employees, as well as offering home, life, property, business and health insurance to Detroit communities. But Woods has struggled to access capital needed to scale. She’s had eight staff in 2015 under the Allstate banner, but is now a sole proprietor. She previously had the structure of a franchise. “I have history, I have strong ... accounting skills, my numbers are good, but I think just as a Black female entrepreneur, I feel like I don’t have the same resources, I feel like I’m not heard the same,” she said. “Sometimes you just need the opportunity to may-
37%
All firms
Black-owned
13%
20%
Hispanic-owned
31%
Asian-owned
40%
White-owned SOURCES: BLOOMBERG, FEDERAL RESERVE SMALL BUSINESS CREDIT SURVEY
Chanell Scott Contreras
CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS GRAPHIC
Rashmi Menon
Monique Woods
In addition to traditional resources like banks, following are some other helpful resources for Black- and minority-owned businesses:
through University of Michigan aimed at helping entrepreneurs rebrand, streamline operations, deal with legal matters and gain profit
loans for startups and older businesses
Detroit Community Wealth Fund: Character-based capital for businesses "interested in both extending ownership to all their workers and democratizing their decision-making process"
Impact Studio: Open-source materials and education on reopening amid the COVID-19 pandemic, selling online, pricing products and cash-flow analysis through the University of Michigan
Michigan Women Forward: $2.500$50,000 loans
Detroit Means Business: One-on-one coaching in workforce management, sales, marketing, strategy, legal issues, bankruptcy, accounting and more
Resources
Visa She's Next Grant Program: Black women-owned businesses in Detroit and five other cities can apply for $10,000 and a year of coaching through April 16
SCORE: Partner of the Small Business Administration, free network of mentors
Detroit Neighborhood Entrepreneurs Project: Accelerator program
Great Lakes Women’s Business Council: Business growth financing,
be sit in front of a banker and say, ‘Hey look, here’s my story, and this is what I need,’ and I don’t feel like those resources are available to me. And I feel that it’s because I’m a Black female entrepreneur. And that’s the sad part about it.” Woods declined to disclose revenue.
took a back seat, compared with helping others. The entrepreneur is based at Central Baptist Church on Seven Mile Road near Outer Drive West in Detroit, but wants to acquire her own building. She said she got a $1,000 COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan, but needs more to make a difference. Perry came from a background of service, having funded multicultural events out of pocket for years. She started JEADL in 2016 while thinking about generational wealth and what she wanted to pass down to her kids. She rec orded $20,000 in revenue in 2019 but dipped to $13,000 last year. “One of the barriers that has prevented small businesses is personal credit and the lack thereof,” she said. “How am I to build or better my credit if I’m shelling my own money out to build this company?”
‘Barely staying afloat’ An accountant recently told Perry of JEADL Enterprises that she needs to spend $700 to straighten out her financials in QuickBooks software. “I’m like, where am I going to get $700? I’m barely staying afloat,” Perry said. “What you don’t know, you don’t know — I can’t say that enough. So I’ve been working diligently.” Perry accesses workshops and information through Black business advocacy group the National Business League. She’s also learned a lot on the Great Lakes Women’s Business Council’s certification review committee, but said she never really applied that knowledge to her own company. It
Public, private solutions Rashmi Menon, entrepreneur in residence at the University of Michi-
National Business League Inc.: Black-owned business association with a Detroit chapter that's focused on the digital economy and helping businesses recover from the pandemic Metro Detroit Black Business Alliance: New local chamber of commerce planning events, networking and programming Grand River Workplace: Coworking incubator, retail space, networking, programming Global Detroit: Resource connector for those in immigrant communities Startup Space: Lists various resources
gan’s Ross School of Business, said mentorship exists, but not enough that targets underserved groups. And, echoing Woods, she said it’s not easy enough to find. There are public solutions and there are private solutions. While governments do, to an extent, encourage investing in contractors from underrepresented groups, Menon said more economic incentives could be put in place. “How do we change hearts and minds? Government programs are extrinsic motivations, I’d love to see more intrinsic motivations,” she said. While various research has shown diversity in companies and supply chains is good for the bottom line, educating companies on those facts — and on systemic bias — is a task far from complete, Menon said. Small Business Majority has called for more community-based funding, government credit-building programs, protections against predatory lenders and collecting more demographic data from programs like the Small Business
Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program loan program to analyze potential discrimination better. But wide-lens changes also need to connect down to a web of local actors who know members of “underserved” business communities. Various private and public sector groups offer localized pitch- or application-based funding programs. Take Rocket Mortgage Detroit Demo Day or Detroit’s Motor City Match program, for example. They award grants or other financing, but applying for each individual opportunity can be a time-intensive, expensive process and it adds up if an entrepreneur doesn’t win, ping-ponging from potential funding source to potential funding source. The likelihood an entrepreneur can access capital varies widely. It depends on where they are, their industry, their culture, language, money and business knowledge, according to a 2018 report published by the New Economy Initiative and The Eckblad Group. This is where connections come in for ProsperUs, which offers loans up to $50,000 and has made nearly $500,000 in loans to more than 25 businesses since 2014. The nonprofit works with community development groups that are on the ground and have a line to entrepreneurs. ProsperUs partners include Dream of Detroit, which is working to increase entrepreneurship and access to skilled trades education in an area west of Highland Park. Contreras said she’s seen more interest in philanthropic support for nontraditional lending. The annual budget increased from $1.1 million last year to $1.6 million this year, due partly to a new project partnering with NEI and six community development organizations to provide capital to businesses seen as neighborhood anchors. Some of this need comes as community banks in Detroit neighborhoods went out of business in the Great Recession, with the number of small bank branches falling 61 percent from 1994 to 2010, according to the NEI report. Banking relationships are often considered critical for making financing easier to access. NEI calls low- to moderate-income neighborhoods in Detroit “underbanked,” which can make credit more expensive. Banks such as Detroit-based TCF Bank have announced initiatives targeted toward underserved owners. TCF announced in July a $1 billion loan fund for entrepreneurs of color and women entrepreneurs. It also gave $1 million to start up the Black chamber headed by Dean. Detroit Means Business, a public-private coalition, aims to be a one-stop shop for small business assistance and mentorship. “Collaboration over competition,” NEI says in its report on capital access in Detroit, Hamtramck and Highland Park. An “ecosystem” of support is needed to get money into the right hands at the right time. That means not just creating organizations that can help, but addressing the problem at a higher level in institutions and policy. There’s mentorship, financial assistance, education on business plans, accounting, legal issues, software use and market access, but joining those pieces is another thing entirely. “How do you take all of those points and put them all together and create something where you have sustainable growth and the impact is tangible?” asked Woods, the insurance agency owner. Contact: afrank@crain.com; (313) 446-0416; @annalise_frank
APRIL 5, 2021 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | 9
FOCUS | BLACK-OWNED BUSINESSES
Vendor development program opens doors for fashion entrepreneur BY DARLENE A. WHITE | SPECIAL TO CRAIN'S DETROIT BUSINESS
Montee Tayion Holland always had an eye for fashion. That was his reason for quitting his high-paying job to start a fashion line. “I always wanted to be in the fashion industry,” said Holland, president and CEO of the Tayion Collection. Holland is a Detroit native and Marine Corps veteran. He is also a businessman who left a job at Pfizer to step out on faith and start designing men’s suits. “When I went to the Marine Corps and spent time overseas, I would always make things for myself,” he said. Back then, he didn’t realize he was designing when he put together outfits from pieces he bought from street vendors. But the positive feedback Holland received about what he wore inspired him to make a more serious go of it. He decided to attend the MAGIC Las Vegas fashion convention to learn more about the industry. “I went to that trade show twice and by the third time I was ready to get my own small booth to showcase my collections,” Holland said. In 2003, on his third trip to MAGIC, Holland showed his clothes for the first time. “We made a million dollars in three days at that trade show,” he said. “(But) I had no idea how to price my suits wholesale. I didn’t have any samples to maximize my economies of scale — I just had what I had.”
“STEVE HARVEY LOVED MY COLLECTION AND WANTED TO COLLABORATE WITH ME. HE INTRODUCED ME TO THE PEOPLE THAT WERE LICENSING HIS NAME AND THEY LOVED MY COLLECTION AS WELL.” — Montee Tayion Holland, president and CEO, Tayion Collection
During that same visit Holland met Steve Harvey. The TV personality, who happened to be at MAGIC promoting his own suits, liked what he saw from Holland. “Steve Harvey loved my collection and wanted to collaborate with me,” he said. “He introduced me to the people that were licensing his name and they loved my collection as well. Long story short, they decided to bring my collection to life.” Holland said that to get his clientele he would he attend every event possible wearing pieces from his collection. “Before social media, I went to fights in Las Vegas, big basketball games, parties in Detroit, even church,” he said. “I would wear these unique style pieces and we made a reputation for ourselves being very well-dressed.” The connections that Harvey helped him make got Holland into stores nationwide, where his product began selling to high-end customers. Access to decision makers at big-
Montee Tayion Holland, president and CEO of the Tayion Collection. | CYDNI ELLEDGE PHOTOGRAPHY
box stores has been a challenge for Holland in growing his business. That’s why 2019 was a turning point when Holland was one of 15 designers out of 3,000 applications selected to participate in The Workshop at Macy’s, a vendor development pro-
gram designed to give minority and women-owned businesses tools to succeed in the industry. “We did very well at the end of the weeklong program,” he said. “They taught us things from how to get on the Macy’s website, retail math, how to sell to customers. It was a lot. At the end of the week, we presented to Macy’s executives and even customers. When the program
was over Macy’s offered different opportunities to certain participants and a company (New Yorkbased MBE Capital Partners LLC) offered me $10 million in purchase order financing.” Tayion Collection will launch in mid-April in 50 Macy’s retail stores and 30 Men’s Wearhouse stores nationwide, in addition to at least 100 specialty stores.
Startup gets a leg up from program supporting Detroit-born cannabis ventures BY DARLENE A. WHITE| SPECIAL TO CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS
For Tre Hobbs, entrepreneurship has not been an easy ladder to climb. “It’s been a grind, a lot of early mornings and late nights,” said Hobbs, owner and founder of Neighborhood Essentials, a marijuana microbusiness. “I’ve felt every emotion going through this process, but it’s part of the process. I’m learning a lot and I’m thankful for all of it.” Hobbs has dedicated his life to educating his neighborhood about the benefits of cannabis. Growing up on Detroit’s east side, Hobbs says his upbringing was filled with poverty. Back then, his main focus was football and he stayed away from weed because he was an athlete. “My main reason to play football was to get my people out and make a better way for my family,” he said. Hobbs played football throughout high school and college. He was offered a spot in the NFL until he 10 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | APRIL 5, 2021
“ACCESSING FUNDING IS ALWAYS A DIFFICULT THING TO OBTAIN WHEN YOU LOOK LIKE ME AND COME FROM WHERE I COME FROM.” — Tre Hobbs, Neighborhood Essentials
got hurt two weeks into camp. His doctors prescribed him drugs that his body did not agree with. That’s when a friend introduced him to CBD oil. Within two weeks Hobbs began seeing results in his body. He began exploring other strains of weed, figuring out what worked with his body and what didn’t. He realized that the plant had more benefits than just the euphoric feeling. That’s when he decided to create Neighborhood Essentials. “Cannabis is essential and we’re excited to bring you some of the best, high quality indoor flower on the market,” reads Neighborhood Essentials’ mission statement. “We
know it’s about more than the high. It’s about your health and well-being.” Hobbs came up with the idea for the marijuana business last year. As of today, he is still working on opening it. When you aren’t born into money, it’s a longer process, Hobbs says. “Money and funding are a big deal in this industry and the main reason why most legacy applicants aren’t getting into the legal markets all over,” he said. He is also waiting on the city to start granting licenses for recreational marijuana businesses. The Adult Use Recreational Marijuana ordinance, approved by Detroit City Council late last year, gives preference to longtime Detroit residents seeking licenses. Adult Use Recreational Marijuana license applications opened April 1; Legacy Detroiters will have first priority in the review process. Other perks of Legacy Detroiter status include a 99 percent discount on licensing fees in 2021 and 75 percent discount on licensing fees in
Tre Hobbs, founder of Neighborhood Essentials. | VALAURIAN WALLER
“W cou ing “Sm us. bus T lion to d as s bus
202 city app al” yet o H cob up h vest disc gran niaplat part tor p H ship the key “A diffi you whe “Yo vest to ta peo sion Th he s borh “M long righ wor stro
rent ticiorkLC) hase
h in ores na100
FOCUS | BLACK-OWNED BUSINESSES
Financing struggles, followed by pandemic woes BY DARLENE A. WHITE | SPECIAL TO CRAIN'S DETROIT BUSINESS
Deandrea Murray can remember the excitement she felt last year when she signed her closing deal on her dream day care center. But the day care remained a dream for quite some time. “When I first started the process of financing my building it was overwhelming,” said Murray, owner and CEO of Geniuses On Board Child Development & Learning Center in Southfield. It took eight months for Murray to secure financing on the building. “The original bank that I applied with denied me almost right away without any real reason why,” she said. “I can remember calling the agents of the building and telling them how my bank denied me and unfortunately I needed to withdraw my offer on the property.” She thought that was the end of the journey. But while she was planning her next move, Murray received a phone call from her real estate agent. “A week (later) the agent called back and said the property owners really felt my business was a good fit for the location and asked me to try again,” she said. “I was introduced to a broker who took over helping me get financed.” Murray started off as the owner of an in-home day care center in the
“We doubled our store accounts, because we are now selling to big box stores,” he said. “Small guys are very important to us. We still want to keep that business.” Tayion Collection did $3 million in revenue in 2020 and plans to double that number this year as some normalcy returns to the business world post-pandemic. 2022, a 75 percent discount on city-owned land, and ability to apply for a one-year “provisional” license if the applicant does yet own a property. Hobbs said he has started to cobble together funding to start up his business. He has some investments that he declined to disclose and won a $50,000 grant from Eaze, a California-based cannabis software platform and marketplace, as part of its Momentum accelerator program. Hobbs said building relationships, telling his story and finding the right partners has been the key as he has sought investors. “Accessing funding is always a difficult thing to obtain when you look like me and come from where I come from,” he said. “You have to sort through the investors that are snakes and want to take advantage of you and find people who understand the vision and want to be a part of it.” Though it’s early in the game, he sees a bright future for Neighborhood Essentials. “My company is being built for longevity,” he said. “I have the right team around me, my hard work is being paid back with a strong support system.”
“I PRAY ONE DAY OUR BUSINESSES WILL BECOME SUCCESSFUL AND FLOURISH ONCE AGAIN.” —Deandrea Murray, owner and CEO of Geniuses On Board Child Development & Learning Center
Berg-Lahser neighborhood in Southfield. She directed that center for eight years. “I opened the new center (as) an expansion of my current program,” she said. “I purchased my building in February 2020 and by March 2020 the state shut down.” The COVID-10 pandemic put a stop to all of her plans, she said. Murray went from having a waiting list of 88 children to scrambling for enrollment. “Everyone was now working from home or too afraid to put their children in any child care programs at the time,” she said. Her declining enrollment also made it harder for Murray to qualify for many of the grants and loans that the state offered to child care owners during the pandemic. “I did have access to some of the grants that were offered but because many of them were based on enrollment and because I was new, I did
Deandrea Murray, owner and CEO of Geniuses On Board Child Development & Learning Center in Southfield.
not have a ton of students to boost the amount of assistance I was able to receive,” she said. A year later, as COVID-19 continues to spread, Geniuses On Board Child Development & Learning Center is beginning to see enrollment grow. The center is licensed for 103
students and has 46 students. “My advice to any business owner is to be very mindful of unnecessary spending and don’t lose hope and continue to believe in your vision,” Murray said. “I pray one day our businesses will become successful and flourish once again.”
Pandemic means constant uncertainty for some business owners BY DARLENE A. WHITE | SPECIAL TO CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS
Just as the COVID-19 pandemic has had a disproportionate health impact on Black communities in Michigan and the U.S., it has also caused disparate financial hardships for Black business owners. William McCray, owner of Willpower Fitness Group in Clawson, said running his business during the pandemic has been a roller coaster ride of emotions. While struggling to operate his fitness center during the crisis, he was left with many unanswered questions. “Running a business during COVID means that you’re operating under a sense of uncertainty,” he said. “Will my business be forced to close its doors again? Will there be additional restrictions placed upon my business? What new problems will tomorrow bring? These are all questions that I never had to answer pre-COVID.” The fitness center now offers online training courses in addition to in-person training. “I made a hefty investment in high quality camera equipment and accessories in order to stay competitive in the online training market,” McCray said. “Now our focus is how we can bring the gym experience to the comfort of your own home.” For McCray, keeping Willpower Fitness Group open during the pandemic was never a sure thing. His biggest challenge was finding financial assistance in his time of need.
“GET COMFORTABLE WITH PIVOTING YOUR BUSINESS MODEL. IT COULD BE THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THRIVING AND BECOMING A CASUALTY OF THE PANDEMIC.” — William McCray, owner of Willpower Fitness Group
“I applied for several grants that I didn’t get selected for, unfortunately,” he said. “The process is highly flawed. The funds are extremely limited. For example, there was one grant in particular in which there were only enough funds to support 650 businesses. The application opened at 9 am. I went to apply at 9 a.m. and there were already 10,000 businesses ahead of me in the queue. It ended up being 20,000 businesses fighting for 650 spots.” McCray wanted to apply for a Paycheck Protection Program loan, but the funds were exhausted before he had the opportunity to apply. “Most of those funds were allocated to larger corporations, leaving the small establishments struggling to survive,” he said. McCray is not alone in facing these challenges. Minority-owned businesses in the U.S. are more likely to have tried and failed to secure a loan to make it through the pandemic — 13
William McCray, owner of Willpower Fitness Group in Clawson. | WILLPOWER FITNESS
percent versus 8 percent of nonminority businesses, according to a report by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and MetLife. McCray said he saw a 60 percent decrease in revenue during seven months of gym closures. Willpower Fitness Group reopened in September. “While online training numbers have increased by 60 percent, we have seen a stark contrast with in-person training, which is down approximately 25 percent due to the
pandemic,” he said. But McCray remains hopeful and has plans for his business. His advice to other entrepreneurs is to adapt to the current climate, he said. “Implement clear COVID protective measures for your business to reassure your customers (that they) are safe,” he said. “Get comfortable with pivoting your business model. It could be the difference between thriving and becoming a casualty of the pandemic.” APRIL 5, 2021 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | 11
FAST TRACK YOUR BRIGHTEST TALENT Since 2017, more than 100 rising leaders from Google, Beaumont, Lineage Logistics, Lear and more have graduated from Southeast Michigan’s premiere leadership course designed for mid-level managers — the pool most oftentapped for future senior leader roles. Graduates say Crain’s Leadership Academy helped them build a professional network of like-minded peers from a crosssection of industries. At a time when building connections is more important than ever, nominate a deserving employee.
PROGRAM DETAILS: Weekly virtual lunchtime sessions from April 29-July 3 Individualized DISC® leadership skills assessments Small group coaching sessions
NOMINATION DEADLINE EXTENDED: April 9
LEARN MORE AND NOMINATE: crainsdetroit.com/leadershipacademy *Qualified participants must be professionals with 5 years of business experience and who are on the fast track for increased responsibility at their organization.
HEALTH CARE
Beaumont nurse anesthetists vote to unionize at 3 hospitals CRNAs employed by NorthStar organize to bargain wages, benefits, patient care issues BY JAY GREENE
Nurse anesthetists at three of Beaumont Health’s hospitals voted to form their own union, taking another step toward negotiating wages, benefits and patient care changes with their new employer, NorthStar Anesthesia. The March 29 vote was 153-22 in favor, a union official said. The next step in the coming days is for the National Labor Relations Board to certify the election results. In early January, approximately 180 certified registered nurse anesthetists at Beaumont’s Royal Oak, Troy and Grosse Pointe hospitals were outsourced by the Southfield-based nonprofit health system to Irving, Texas-based NorthStar, which also began providing anesthesia services to Beaumont. The CRNAs petitioned the NLRB to form a union under the name Southeast Michigan CRNAs & Associates, or SEMCA, said Sally Gribben, a CRNA at Beaumont Hospital, Royal Oak and president of SEMCA. NorthStar CEO Adam Spiegel said the company will bargain in good faith with SEMCA after the NLRB certifies the election results. “We have always supported our CRNAs’ right to decide for themselves whether or not to unionize,” Spiegel said in an email to Crain’s Monday night. “We would prefer to have a direct working relationship with our teammates and would have hoped the CRNAs would have given NorthStar time to prove ourselves as a great employer. “We respect the outcome of this vote and will bargain in good faith with the union after the NLRB certifies the election result. We remain committed to continuing to build our relationship with the CRNAs at Beaumont Health.” Two CRNAs at Beaumont’s northern hospitals previously told Crain’s they wanted to form a union to gain a
“WE RESPECT THE OUTCOME OF THIS VOTE AND WILL BARGAIN IN GOOD FAITH WITH THE UNION AFTER THE NLRB CERTIFIES THE ELECTION RESULT. ” — Adam Spiegel, CEO, NorthStar
CRNAs at Beaumont Health’s Grosse Pointe, Royal Oak and Troy hospitals are employed by Northstar Anesthesia. | LARRY PEPLIN FOR CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS
seat at the policy table at each of the three Beaumont hospitals to directly advocate for safe staffing ratios and greater patient safety measures. They also want to negotiate wages and benefits such as guaranteed vacation time and regular breaks during the day. “Beaumont respects the right of NorthStar’s CRNAs to join a union,”
Beaumont said in a statement. “However, Beaumont believes having a direct relationship between managers and employees is best.” In August, NorthStar started managing anesthesia services at Beaumont’s Dearborn, Taylor, Trenton and Wayne hospitals and their associated ambulatory surgery centers and pain clinics. Beaumont’s Royal
Oak, Troy and Grosse Pointe hospitals were folded into the contract on Jan. 1. But Beaumont’s eighth hospital, Beaumont Hospital, Farmington Hills, the former Botsford hospital, continues to use employed Beaumont CRNAs and a contract anesthesia team, Beaumont has said. NorthStar employs about 250
CRNAs at seven of eight Beaumont hospitals. While it offers the CRNAs the same employment contracts, it has split hospitals into north and south groups. SEMCA, if certified by the NLRB, would be the first unionized group of CRNAs at any of the 140 hospitals and medical centers in the U.S. where NorthStar manages anesthesiology services. The company employs more than 500 anesthesiologists and 2,000 CRNAs. In Southeast Michigan, NorthStar has been contracting with six-hospital Detroit Medical Center since 2015. DMC is owned by Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare Corp. NorthStar also contracts with Spectrum Gerber Hospital in Fremont. In 2018, NorthStar was acquired from TPG Growth by Cranemere, a London-based holding company that invests in health care and other businesses firms. Last year, a group of registered nurses, including the CRNAs when they were Beaumont employees, attempted to form a larger union with the Michigan Nurses Association. After settling unfair labor practice charges with the NLRB in late August, the MNA dropped representation of the union and the nurses dropped their union effort. The MNA said Beaumont’s anti-union campaign was too difficult to overcome. Contact: jgreene@crain.com; (313) 446-0325; @jaybgreene
MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS
Ann Arbor-based Millendo to merge with Silicon Valley firm Reverse merger deal with biotech company Tempest Therapeutics values Millendo at $36M BY NICK MANES
Having exhausted its options on clinical trials to treat a variety of illnesses, the board of Millendo Therapeutics Inc. has agreed to an all-stock reverse merger deal with a Bay Area cancer treatment company. The Ann Arbor-based biotechnology company, which as Crain’s has reported struggled to show its experimental drugs worked, plans to merge with Tempest Therapeutics Inc., a clinical stage oncology company out of South San Francisco, Calif. Pending shareholder approval, the proposed deal will value Millendo at $36 million and the company’s shareholders would own about 18.5 percent of the combined company, according to a news release Monday morning. The deal would close later this year, and Millendo would get one seat on the combined company’s board.
“THE COMBINED COMPANY WILL BE WELLCAPITALIZED WITH SIGNIFICANT RESOURCES TO ADVANCE THEIR PRODUCT CANDIDATES THROUGH WHAT COULD BE KEY DATA READOUTS.” — Louis Arcudi, CEO, Millendo
The combined company would trade on the Nasdaq Capital Market under the ticker symbol TPST. In late January, Millendo announced in a regulatory filing that its board had approved a corporate restructuring plan that included installing a new CEO and terminating 85 percent of the company’s staff by mid-April. “After a comprehensive review of these options, we are confident that the proposed merger provides the best path forward, in that it will deliver immediate and significant poten-
tial value to Millendo shareholders,” Millendo CEO Louis Arcudi said in a call with analysts Monday morning. “The combined company will be well-capitalized with significant resources to advance their product candidates through what could be key data readouts.” In a news release announcing the merger agreement, Tempest said it has secured $30 million in financing that is set to close in the coming months, concurrent with the merger. Tempest, which will then become a public company, has two clinical
programs in its pipeline, to treat “tumor growth and the proliferation of suppressive immune cell populations,” according to the release. “We are very pleased to announce this proposed merger with Millendo Therapeutics, which will facilitate the advancement of our broad pipeline of targeted oncology programs,” Tempest CEO Tom Dubenskey said in the release. Millendo, in 2018, also went public via a reverse merger. Millendo had tested drugs to treat a variety of illnesses, ranging from menopausal symptoms to the genetic Prader-Willi Syndrome. In January 2016, Millendo raised $62 million in venture funding, at the time the largest VC haul in the state’s history, and announced a partnership with British drug giant AstraZeneca. As a general rule, just 1-in-10 drugs that advance to a clinical trial actually
wind up succeeding. Millendo, over its roughly decadelong lifespan, tested four drugs, but none ever proved effective for commercialization. Asked in an interview with Crain’s on Monday morning whether Millendo will continue to have any presence in Ann Arbor, a hub for biotechnology and pharmaceutical startups, CEO Arcudi said forthcoming regulatory filings will provide more specifics. But he acknowledged that the assets of the company will henceforth be part of an emerging California company. “I think it’s safe to say at this point that the company is located in the Bay Area, similar to when Millendo went public ... we didn’t take anybody from the Massachusetts organization,” Arcudi said. “This probably will be similar.” Contact: nmanes@crain.com; (313) 446-1626; @nickrmanes APRIL 5, 2021 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | 13
NONPROFITS
No-kill advocate may face challenge in transition to association Michigan Pet Fund Alliance shifts focus to standards of care after reductions in euthanasia BY SHERRI WELCH
After spending nearly two decades advocating to reduce euthanasia of treatable animals in Michigan’s public and private shelters, the volunteer-run Michigan Pet Fund Alliance is transitioning to a professional membership association that will work to set industry standards for animal care and advocate for animal welfare legislation. The alliance led the “no-kill” campaign for over a decade, releasing the euthanasia rates shelters reported to the state and advocating for operating changes to lower those rates. Michigan effectively reached “nokill” status when the collective euthanasia rates at shelters dropped to 10 percent in 2018 and 9 percent in 2019, according to the annual Michigan Shelter Live Release Report the alliance compiled each year from information shelters provided to the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development. But that campaign may have alienated some of the shelters the alliance is now looking to attract as it shifts to a professional membership organization. After the state effectively met the threshold considered no-kill, the alliance had to make a decision: Walk away after it met the goal or look at other needs, said Chairwoman Deborah Schutt, retired former head of the economic development group Woodward Avenue Action Association and supervisor of planning for Oakland County. The need to shift to a professional membership association focused on best practices, training and advocacy became clear in light of shelter assessments the organization had done. “Although they were saving lives, they weren’t necessarily following best practices,” Schutt said. “We were concerned about the standards of care.” While there is a breeder association for dog breeders, and veterinarians have an association, there is no single professional association focused on animal welfare in Michigan, said Tanya Hilgendorf, CEO of the Humane Society of Huron Valley in Ann Arbor and vice chair of the nonprofit association now operating as Michigan Pet Alliance. Existing advocacy for animal welfare has come through individual nonprofits. But the lack of a professional association for the animal shelter and rescue industry in the state is a point of weakness, she said. The industry lacks an organized advocate for legislation to update and advance animal welfare and quality of care and to share best practices in animal care, from animal health to behavior and disease prevention, she said. In the absence of licensing and regulation, for example, it’s a “wild west” among animal rescues, Hilgendorf said. Many are doing great work, but others are functioning more like hoarders. “All of these groups start with good intentions, but that is not enough,” she said. “By having a stronger, unified voice, we hope to pass laws (and) better public policy so we can better protect our animals.” 14 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | APRIL 5, 2021
Deborah Schutt, chairwoman, Michigan Pet Alliance | MICHIGAN PET ALLIANCE
Tanya Hilgendorf, board member, Michigan Pet Alliance, and CEO, Humane Society of Huron Valley | ANNE SAVAGE
Dr. Courtney White, a shelter veterinarian, examines a puppy taken in at the Humane Society of Huron Valley in Ann Arbor. | HUMANE SOCIETY OF HURON VALLEY
Advocacy history Since its launch 18 years ago, Michigan Pet Fund Alliance had operated as a volunteer-run training and nonprofit advocating to make Michigan a no-kill state. It advocated for a number of strategies to reduce euthanasia among shelter populations, including changes to adoption protocols, how animals are assessed and treated, better marketing for adoption and sterilization of feral cat populations. It began tracking Michigan euthanasia statistics in 2009 from mandatory annual reports submitted by shelters to the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development and making those figures public, something some shelters have said they viewed as adversarial and confusing to the public, since some animals are terminal or not treatable and some shelters won’t turn any animal away. Shelters that spoke with Crain’s about lingering tensions with MPA declined to go on the record. Publishing the data was effective, said Hilgendorf, whose Humane Society of Huron Valley has been a lead donor to the Michigan Pet Fund Alliance. “We did drastically reduce needless (animal) euthanasia in the state to the point where only about 10 percent of animals in shelters are now euthanized,” she said. Still, “there is lot more work to be done because it’s not just about keeping the dogs and cats alive,” Hilgendorf said.
In the absence of a national association representing shelters, the Michigan Pet Alliance said it will work to share best practices from national experts focused on the art and science of saving and protecting homeless and abused animals, including: the Association of Shelter Veterinarians, which is working to set standards on quality of care for shelter animals; the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals; and two national, no-kill advocates: Best Friends and Maddie’s Fund. Michigan Pet Alliance is continuing to operate under the same (501) c3 status with the new name. Donations to the group will continue to be tax-deductible, Schutt said. It will provide training to implement best practices in care, grants to institute best practices and a bi-annual conference, along with advocacy on legislation impacting animal welfare, operating on an annual budget of about $75,000, funded through a mix of donations and grants, Hilgendorf said. The organization also plans to become a strong advocate of animal welfare legislation, she said, pointing to House Bill 4496, which was introduced in April 2019 and was referred to the committee on Agriculture that November but was never taken up. Among other things, the legislation would require research facilities to offer animals that had been used in laboratory testing to animal protection shelters for adoption before euthanization and to submit annual reports to MDARD with information on the release of laboratory animals.
Kim Cross, president and CEO, Friends for Animals of Metro Detroit | FRIENDS FOR ANIMALS OF METRO DETROIT
“We really need to be working together to be more effective ... we are way behind in terms of legislation protecting animals,” Hilgendorf said. As an initial step toward professionalizing the organization, it’s launched a search for a part-time CEO, its first paid employee. The new CEO will be charged with building relationships with donors, members and legislators, said Hilgendorf who is chairing the search committee. At the same time, the alliance has launched a membership drive in a bid to attract members from among the 170-180 public and private shelters in the state and rescue groups, she said.
Member recruitment may present challenges As it shifts to a professional association, the alliance may face some challenges attracting as members the same shelters it targeted in its no-kill campaign. Michigan Humane and Michigan Animal Rescue League in Pontiac both declined to make any comment on MPA’s plans. Kim Cross, president and CEO of Dearborn-based Friends for Animals of Metro Detroit, said there could be a role for a professional association to raise awareness about the role that animals play in our lives, to help set standards around learning and training for employees and to bring together small rescues to help them develop standards. But setting standards could be complicated around things like adoptability.
“I think our standards at Friends may be different than standards in a rural community,” she said. For example, Friends for Animals will not euthanize any animals that are adoptable. They will stay at the shelter as long as it takes to get them adopted, Cross said. But “someone else may look at that animal and say she’s not adoptable. How do you create a standard to say what is adoptable?” “I don’t think it would hurt to have another organization, and maybe with a new executive director, new board members and a different focus, maybe they can regroup and relaunch and do something,” Cross said. But any standards would need to be based on a collaborative agreement amongst everyone, she said. Friends of Animals and several other local and national groups are already meeting quarterly as the Metro Detroit Animal Welfare Coalition, with the goal of ending euthanasia of healthy and treatable animals in Detroit by 2025, Cross said. Other members include Michigan Pet Alliance, Michigan Humane, Humane Society of the U.S., Detroit Animal Care and Control, Michigan Anti-Cruelty Society, the national group Best Friends Animal Society, All About Animals Rescue and Bark Nation. Given those meetings already happening, Cross said she’d need to see the value proposition Michigan Pet Alliance brings to members and animal welfare as a professional association before considering whether her organization would become a member. “If I see that they are really getting in there and making things happen, then that would be a group I would want to join,” she said. “We have to give people a second chance and build relationships; that’s how you improve.” The Michigan Pet Alliance is looking to represent shelters and rescues across the state, Schutt said, rather than just in Detroit. There are five shelters with the Detroit-focused coalition and almost 180 in the state, “so I don’t see where there would be any overlap.” Shelters have very different needs depending on where they are working, in urban or rural areas, she said. “You have to be sensitive to the needs of the different groups.” All About Animals, a member of the coalition, is on the MPA board and Best Friends will be invited to join, Hilgendorf said. “It will obviously be on us to make our case and help individuals understand the benefits of membership,” she said. Building membership will take time and will be “bumpy, as with all change,” Hilgendorf said. As with all industries there will be early adapters eager for improvement and change, those who are more comfortable with the status quo, and skeptics who will need to see the proof in the pudding, she said. “But the more organizations who join the call to work together in a more coordinated fashion the more effective we will be.” Contact: swelch@crain.com; (313) 446-1694; @SherriWelch
CRAIN’S 2021
GIVING GUIDE OPPORTUNITY
ELEVATE YOUR VOICE. SHARE YOUR MISSION.
OUR GIVING GUIDE LETS YOU: Crain’s Giving Guide provides nonprofits with diverse Share your mission and voice what you need most platforms to tell their stories. Our mission is to bring together Take part in a month-long crowdfunding campaign: 100% of proceeds nonprofits and businesses to go to your organization promote the common good for Reach Crain’s 23,000+ print and digital our communities. members and nearly 1 million monthly visitors
ISSUE DATE: June 14 | EARLY CLOSE: May 10
For more information on this advertising opportunity, contact Kristin Bull: kbull@crain.com
REAL ESTATE
Packard Plant owner pays some back taxes, avoids foreclosure BY KIRK PINHO
An 11th hour payment of hundreds of thousands of dollars in late property taxes will keep the Packard Plant in owner Fernando Palazuelo’s hands for the time being. The developer from Peru, who as of six weeks ago owed $821,426 including late Detroit Water and Sewerage Department fees and was at risk of losing the property, paid approximately $340,000 on Wednesday, preventing some of the dozens of Packard Plant parcels from heading to the Wayne County tax-foreclosure auction, according to Mario Morrow Sr., a spokesperson for Treasurer Eric Sabree. The $340,000 payment covers half of what’s owed for the 2017 and 2018 tax cycles and Palazuelo has entered into a Regular Stipulated Payment Agreement, or REGSPA, that requires five monthly payments to cover the remaining roughly $340,000 owed. The first payment is due May 6, with additional payments due June 8, July 9, Aug.
The Packard Plant in February 2021. | KIRK PINHO/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS
13 and Sept. 10. “We offer the stipulated plan to all taxpayers facing foreclosure,” Morrow Sr. said in an email. “The foreclosure law and process doesn’t work by allowing us to foreclose immediately upon a missed pay-
HEALTH CARE
ment. The payment plan basically extends the redemption period until the next March 31. The properties will remain on the 2022 foreclosure list until redeemed like all others in a payment plan.” In a February email to Crain’s, Pala-
zuelo said the coronavirus pandemic has constricted his revenue stream, causing delays in tax and other payments. “As you are well aware, our efforts at the Packard Plant are funded entirely from our operations in Lima and other areas of the world where the commercial operations of the tenants in our buildings have been on government-imposed shutdown for the past year,” Palazuelo said. “However, we are fully aware of the amount needed to pay past due taxes and the extreme drainage fee assessments for our Detroit properties prior to the end of March and are making arrangements to ensure that those amounts are paid well in advance of the deadline.” The dozens of properties were subject to foreclosure at the close of business Wednesday if the taxes weren’t paid. They would have then been sold at a tax-foreclosure auction, the same kind of auction at which in 2013 Palazuelo bought them for just $405,000. Palazuelo’s tenure as the dilapidated
former plant’s owner has been marked with repeated property tax delinquencies and other unpaid bills; a lawsuit over unpaid office rent; the collapse of the iconic Packard Plant bridge over East Grand Boulevard; grandiose visions that never materialized and an unfinished redevelopment of the former administration building that’s 3 1/2 years in the making. A photo shoot involving wild animals drew international attention in 2015. In late October, he hired local brokers from Newmark Knight Frank to market the property for sale or lease for a large scale industrial or warehouse user, along the lines of what experts for years said should have been the vision instead of the bohemian mixed-use plan Palazuelo originally floated. Much of the complex, which sits on both sides of Grand Boulevard, would be demolished if this new vision goes according to plan. Contact: kpinho@crain.com; (313) 446-0412; @kirkpinhoCDB
REAL ESTATE
Former Lear building in Capitol Park sold to H.W. Kaufman Group Group of insurance companies plans satellite office BY KIRK PINHO Henry Ford Village, a 1,038-bed continuing care retirement community in Dearborn, has a purchase agreement with Long Island-based MED Healthcare Partners. | HENRY FORD VILLAGE
Henry Ford Village enters into $69M purchase agreement BY JAY GREENE
Henry Ford Village, a historic 1,000bed retirement community in Dearborn, has entered into an asset purchase agreement with MED Healthcare Partners. Under what is called a “stalking horse” agreement, the deal remains subject to a higher or better offer in accordance with bid procedures established by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, Southern Division. If the deal goes through during the bid period, Long Island-based MED would acquire substantially all the community’s assets for $69 million. MED and its affiliate companies own and operate senior living facilities, including five continuing care retirement communities, 150 skilled nursing facilities and 20 assisted living and memory care facilities across the country. The deadline for competing offers to be submitted is April 30, according to court documents. A hearing to approve the sale transaction is scheduled for May 24. “When we first began this process, we did so with the goal of fulfilling the nonprofit’s mission and maintaining the standard of living and values our community strives to achieve,” said Chad Shandler, the Village’s chief restructuring officer, in a statement. 16 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | APRIL 5, 2021
“The bid offered by MED has recognized those values in the best interests of our residents, our employees and, ultimately, our whole community,” Shandler said. “We’re pleased to establish a solid baseline bid at this stage of our restructuring as we move our community forward towards successfully emerging bankruptcy in a manner that maintains the health, safety and lifestyle of our residents for years to come.” Last November, Henry Ford Village filed for bankruptcy protection as the owner, Des Moines, Iowa-based Life Care Services, faced mounting liabilities, rising costs and the COVID-19 pandemic. In early October, the village received a notice of default on its bond obligations. In a statement, an MED owner and operator, Samuel Feuer, said the company is excited to have reached an agreement with Henry Ford Village. “As the proud owner and operator of a variety of senior living communities throughout the U.S., we know that the deep sense of care within the Henry Ford Village community is unique and worth preserving,” Feuer said. Henry Ford Village is represented in the matter by Dykema Gossett PLLC. Contact: jgreene@crain.com; (313) 446-0325; @jaybgreene
The Capitol Park neighborhood building in downtown Detroit formerly occupied by Southfield-based automotive supplier Lear Corp. has been sold to an affiliate of Farmington Hills-based H.W. Kaufman Group. At least some of the 34,500-square-foot building will become a satellite office for the Kaufman Group network of insurance companies, the chairman, president and CEO of the firm said in an emailed statement confirming the purchase Wednesday evening. “It will serve as a downtown satellite location in addition to its headquarters remaining in Farmington Hills,” Alan Jay Kaufman said in the statement. “Our company was founded in Detroit more than 50 years ago,” the statement said. “We have been looking for an opportunity to go back to our roots with a downtown location. The Kaufman network has more than 60 locations globally and having a presence in Detroit again is very important to us.” It wasn’t immediately known how many square feet H.W. Kaufman Group, which employs more than 2,000 across more than 60 offices in the U.S., Canada and the U.K., would occupy. H.W. Kaufman Group is the parent company of Burns & Wilcox Brokerage, Burns & Wilcox Canada, Atain Insurance Companies, Afirm, Global Excess Partners, RB Jones, Stonemark, Minuteman Adjusters, Kaufman Institute, Burns & Wilcox United Kingdom, Chesterfield Insurance Brokers, Lochain Patrick, Cranbrook Underwriting and Node International, the firm’s website says.
The 34,500-square-foot building at 119 State St. in the Capitol Park neighborhood of Detroit has sold to an affiliate of Farmington Hills-based H.W. Kaufman Group, a network of insurance companies. | COSTAR GROUP INC.
Peter Jankowski, senior vice president of Farmington Hills-based Friedman Real Estate, and Richard Deptula, national director of investment advisory services for Friedman Real Estate, represented the buyer, while Jared Friedman, director of opportunities for Friedman Real Estate, and Jordan Friedman, director of special projects for Friedman Real Estate, represented seller Lear. Jankowski declined to disclose the purchase price. Lear paid Dan Gilbert’s Bedrock LLC, the previous owner, $2.85 million for it in September 2015, according to city land records. The Capitol Park building is the second downtown building Lear has sold in recent years.
In October 2018, Lear sold the former Hemmeter Cigar Co. building at 243 E. Grand River Ave. at Centre Street in the Paradise Valley Cultural and Entertainment District (formerly known as Harmonie Park) to father-and-son real estate investors Linden and Sanford Nelson in October 2018 for $13.25 million. Lear had purchased the 56,000-square-foot building for $5.98 million in July 2015, at $106.79 per square foot. It bought the building from Detroit real estate investor Dennis Kefallinos and began a multiyear, $3.55 million renovation that was completed in 2017. Contact: kpinho@crain.com; (313) 446-0412; @kirkpinhoCDB
VACCINES
From Page 1 national average of 68 percent for those people ages 65 or older who have received at least one dose, the CDC said. Overall, 180.6 million doses have been distributed with 28 percent receiving at least one dose and 15 percent fully vaccinated. To date, Michigan has administered 4,207,102 vaccines, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's office said Wednesday. Whitmer announced the state this week will receive a record 620,040 vaccine doses, an increase of 66,020 from the previous week's high. The number includes 147,800 doses of the single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine, up from 10,000 to 15,000 the past three weeks. “The state is working hand-in-hand with health care systems, local health departments, federally qualified health centers, primary care providers and others to get Michiganders vaccinated with the safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine as quickly as possible,” said Dr. Joneigh Khaldun, chief medical executive and chief deputy for health, in a statement. But many health experts, including Dr. Bobby Mukkamala, president of the Michigan State Medical Society, believes more should be done to reach people who want vaccines but for some reason cannot get an appointment. "Half of the 35 percent (unvaccinated seniors) want to get a vaccine and have difficulty navigating the system or it is too much for them to manage. Half of those are hesitant or don't want one. We need to do more outreach and education," said Mukkamala, an otolaryngologist who practices in Flint and also volunteers with the Genesee County Health Department to administer vaccines. Mukkamala and Dr. Mark Hamed, president of the 4,200-member Michigan Academy of Family Physicians, said doctors have been ready for weeks to address those underserved populations needing vaccines, especially now when the state expands eligibility to those over age 16 on April 5. "We know that J&J is a game changer, a single dose that requires normal refrigeration. We can tap into those doses when the state gets more" to allocate to vaccine providers, said Hamed, who also is director of emergency medicine and hospital medicine at McKenzie Health System in Sandusky. But Hamed, who also is medical director of health departments in eight Thumb and northeast Michigan counties, is worried the state may have moved too fast down the list from frontline health care workers to highrisk people and the elderly and now to all people over 16. "We can't overlook the people in the vulnerable categories we started out with" in mid-December, Hamed said. "There should have been a stronger effort in the beginning to reach everyone. Now that is happening. But we still have pockets the community who don't go to hospitals or health departments." While Elizabeth Hertel, director of the state Health and Human Services Department, said the state hasn't made public announcements, officials have been working directly with health organizations that are trying to reach the homebound or other underserved populations who want vaccines. "We haven't had a uniform statewide initiative because we do rely on our local partners to reach the communities that they serve," said Hertel, adding that the state's effort began in early January when people ages 65 and over became eligible.
April 5, 2021
CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS
April 5, 2021
CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS
A nurse from Careline Health visits a patient’s home in Jackson to deliver a COVID-19 vaccine. | COURTESY OF CARELINE HEALTH
Hertel said the state has spent a lot of time focusing on the vulnerable population, including those ages 65 or older. "We've completed a number of the nursing home clinics so that those individuals are fully vaccinated and then we continue to look at the rates across the counties to ensure that counties that may be under the state average get a little bit more vaccine to make sure that they are reaching those populations," Hertel said. Ruthanne Sudderth, senior vice president for public affairs and communication with the Michigan Health and Hospital Association, said the state has taken the right approach in allocating vaccines and rolling out eligibility based on positive cases and availability of doses. But Sudderth said medical providers are "extremely concerned" about the new COVID-19 surge. "The population spreading (COVID-19) is younger populations," she said. Michigan now ranks No. 1 in the country with the highest number of COVID-19 cases per capit, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Vaccine hesitancy Experts told Crain's there is some vaccine hesitancy among older folks, but more people in Michigan are dropping their opposition as word about vaccine success has gotten out. For example, a new CDC study, which involved 4,000 essential workers, found that protection reached 90 percent after a second shot of a PfizerBioNTech or Moderna vaccine. Sudderth said she believes as the numbers of doses increase, more vaccine providers will be authorized and supplied. "As we go forward, we will have more and more providers who are engaged in vaccine administration to reach those hesitant," she said. Those waiting or refusing to get a vaccine also varies by ethnicity, with Blacks or Hispanics more reluctant, along with those living in rural communities and those identified as Republicans, data shows. For example, a survey conduct Jan. 27-Feb. 11 shows nearly one in three family caregivers who live in rural communities said they won't take an older adult under their care to get the COVID-19 vaccine-nearly double the refusal rate of urban and suburban caregivers at 16 percent. But another new survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that only 17 percent of Americans are taking a "wait and see" approach to the vaccine, down from 39 percent in December, according to the the Michigan Health and Hospital Association. Still, 13 percent say they won't take the vaccine, Kaiser said. However, the Kaiser survey suggest-
ed that half of the 35 percent seniors who haven't been vaccinated want to get the vaccine as soon as they can, if they could. Only 7 percent want to wait and 8 percent saying they definitely will not get a vaccine. Experts tell Crain's there are pockets of eligible people who either have tried to get an appointment and failed, or they don't want to go to a large facility like a hospital or health department, or they can't access the Internet to register for a vaccine. Hertel acknowledged the problem, but said with the additional vaccines coming into the state, especially the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine, more people will have access. "We also have some individuals and those populations who may be homebound or unable to get to a fixed site and we are working with health departments and other providers to be able to offer vaccines in a more mobile capacity and reaching people where they are so we continue to work through the challenges with that population to ensure that we are able to give them an opportunity to get a vaccine," Hertel said. While Barry Cargill, president and CEO of the Michigan HomeCare & Hospice Association, said more needs to be done to reach the homebound and certain health workers, the state needs to continue to open up eligibility to the general population because of the increasing numbers of younger people becoming infected. "My members provide transportation and are bringing people to (vaccine) facilities," Cargill said. "There are limitations on how much vaccine we have. But we can't forget about the disabled and homebound." Cargill said the state needs to allocate more vaccines to home health agencies and ambulance companies that could deliver doses to homebound populations. Some transit agencies stepped up this week to help connect people with vaccines, and mobile units are being dispatched to help the homebound. In late February, Cargill said he was partially successful in getting the state to expand its definition of vaccine eligibility to those health care workers who are paid and unpaid direct care workers, also known as private duty home care. These caregivers include nurses, therapists, home health aides, hospice aides, personal care aides, home care workers, home medical equipment delivery, sleep and rehabilitation technicians, he said. "I remain concerned for the care workers providing the nonmedical services of daily living," Cargill said. "I believe they fit the definition of health care worker. It means they can register for the COVID-19 vaccination and check the health care worker box that
will give them a higher priority for vaccination.” Cargill said unpaid caregivers could include spouses and family members who care for seniors and disabled. "The unpaid family caregiver is a health care worker and important partner working with the paid home care agencies," he said.
Sudderth said hospitals are beginning to identify those patients in their registries who can't come in for vaccine shot appointments. "Several health systems in Michigan are doing vaccinations of homebound individuals who lack transportation," said Sudderth. Those systems include Henry Ford Health System, McLaren Health Care, Spectrum Health, Holland Hospital, Harbor Beach Community Hospital and ProMedica. "There is a large network of providers in communication to address those who are more vulnerable and help them access vaccine points or lack of transportation," said Sudderth, who is a member of the Protect Michigan Commission a large group of stakeholders who are meeting weekly to develop strategies to expand vaccinations and address the pandemic. "We are hoping Johnson & Johnson will help them get vaccinated more quickly," she said. "Some health departments are working on getting to homebound individuals as well. It takes time to put the pieces in place." Contact: jgreene@crain.com; (313) 446-0325; @jaybgreene
Advertising Section
CLASSIFIEDS To place your listing, contact Suzanne Janik at 313-446-0455 / sjanik@crain.com or, for more information, visit our website at: www.crainsdetroit.com/classifieds
REAL EAL ER STATE ESTATE OFFICE BUILDING OFFICE BUILDING
Port Huron, MI LET YOUR TENANT MAKE YOUR PAYMENTS! 56,000 sq ft building, can be two units, 5 truck wells, crane bays, HD electric. Email: srsco3500@gmail.com
VISIT OUR WEBSITE: www.crainsdetroit.com/ classifieds
J OB FRONT JOB FRONT POSITIONS AVAILABLE
POSITIONS AVAILABLE ACCOUNTING Tax Manager, People and Organisation (Mult Pos), PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP,ACCOUNTING Detroit, MI. Assist org withACCOUNTING resetting their talent strategies & delivering bus results through their employees. Req Bach’s deg or foreign equiv in Acct, Econ, Tax Manager, People and Organisation (Mult Pos), PricewaterhouseCoopers Bus Int’l Mgmt rel resetting + 5 yrs post-bach’s work exp;bus OR LLP,Admin, Detroit, MI.Bus, Assist orgor with their talent progrssve strategies rel & delivering Master’s deg ortheir foreign equiv in Acct, Econ, Bus Int’lequiv Bus, in Mgmt rel + results through employees. Req Bach’s deg Admin, or foreign Acct,orEcon, yrs rel work exp.Mgmt Certs or Req: CPA Lic or foreign equiv, Enrolled Bus3 Admin, Int’l Bus, rel US + 5 Active yrs post-bach’s progrssve rel work exp; OR Agent, Member of the Bar, Global Professional HR orInt’l Global Master’s deg or foreign equiv in Acct, Econ, Busin Admin, Bus,Remuneration Mgmt or rel + Travel to 40% of Lic theor time is req. 3 yrs rel workProfessional. exp. Certs Req: USup Active CPA foreign equiv, Enrolled Apply mail, referencing Job Code MI2775,inAttn: SSC/Talent ManageAgent, by Member of the Bar, Global Professional HR HR or Global Remuneration ment, 4040 W.4040 Boy W. Scout Tampa, FL is 33607. nagement, Scout Tampa, FL 33607. Professional. Travel upBoy toBlvd, 40% of Blvd, the time req. Apply by mail, referencing Job Code MI2775, Attn: HR SSC/Talent Management, 4040 POSITIONS W. Boy ScoutAVAILABLE Blvd, Tampa, FL 33607. POSITIONS AVAILABLE Application Development Manager (Accenture LLP; Detroit, MI): Manage project execution to ensure adherence to budget, schedule, and Application Development LLP; Detroit, MI): scope. Must have willingness Manager and ability(Accenture to travel domestically approximately 80% of the time to meet clientadherence needs. Multiple Positions Available. Manage project execution to ensure to budget, schedule, and For complete job description, list of requirements, and to apply, go to: scope. Must have willingness and ability to travel domestically approxiwww.accenture.com/us-en/careers 00953748). Equal Opportunity mately 80% of the time to meet client(Job# needs. Multiple Positions Available. – Minorities/Women/Vets/Disabled. For completeEmployer job description, list of requirements, and to apply, go to: www.accenture.com/us-en/careers (Job# 00953748). Equal Opportunity AVAILABLE Employer –POSITIONS Minorities/Women/Vets/Disabled. POSITIONS AVAILABLE Application Development Manager (Accenture LLP; Detroit, MI): Manage project execution to ensure adherence to budget, schedule, and scope. Must have willingness Manager and ability(Accenture to travel domestically approxiApplication Development LLP; Detroit, MI): mately of the time to meet clientadherence needs. Multiple Positions Available. Manage80% project execution to ensure to budget, schedule, and For complete description, of ability requirements, to apply, go to: ww scope. Must job have willingnesslist and to travel and domestically approxi(Job# 00953053). mately 80%w.accenture.com/us-en/careers of the time to meet client needs. Multiple Positions Available. Equal Opportunity Employer – Minorities/Women/Vets/Disabled. For complete job description, list of requirements, and to apply, go to: ww w.accenture.com/us-en/careers (Job# 00953053). Equal Opportunity Employer – Minorities/Women/Vets/Disabled. APRIL 5, 2021 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | 17
OFFICE
From Page 1
offices in the region can be better understood. But not entirely. Office brokers and landlords, architects and builders, have long effused their beliefs that people have a strong desire to return to offices, although whether that desire will outweigh lingering health concerns or convenience of working from home is another question altogether. Some businesses have all but shuttered their office space because of cost considerations and other issues, even going so far as to put splashy owned buildings in central business districts up for sale. Others are in the process of evaluating precisely how much space they need as more shots in arms are administered and, at some point, public health orders will be modified to allow a somewhat more normal office landscape. Some still are full speed ahead on opening up new space. In short, there is no cookie cutter answer to the question of what, exactly, the metro Detroit office market will look like next week, next month or next year. Steve Morris, a longtime broker focused on tenant representation with his Farmington Hills-based Axis Advisors LLC firm, anticipates by the fall some 25 to 30 percent of workers in permanent work from home situations while the remainder come into the office between three and five days a week. “Employers need to take into account the workforce demographics of the future,” Morris said. “Attracting and retaining talent, branding the work space to give it its own identity, adapting to local culture and finally managing to costs remain important factors.” Sam Munaco, president of Advocate Commercial Real Estate Advisors in Southfield, said some of his clients have done surveys of their employees and the results about how to use office space are contingent upon industry and age of the workers. “Millennials are of the opinion that they can continue to work from home and be productive,” Munaco said. Older workers, he said, tend to want to return to the office for the social interaction it provides. But the future remains a mystery. “If anyone tells you what the new norm is going to be, then they’re looking into a crystal ball that I don’t have possession of,” Munaco said. Vacancy rates ticked up slightly in the fourth quarter, the most recent available, according to the Southfield office of Colliers International Inc. In the third quarter it was 10.3 percent and in the fourth quarter it was 10.4 percent across some 9,800 buildings and 205 million square feet. But that marks an increase of 0.9 percentage point from Q4 of 2019, when it was 9.5 percent. Some 318,000 square feet of sublease space — which is space that a tenant on the hook on the lease doesn’t intend to use for the duration of the contract — was between March 2020 and the end of Q4, Colliers says. Some 245,000 of those square feet were added in the fourth quarter alone. All told, there is about 803,000 square feet of sublease space on the market right now. Only time will tell who, if anyone, fills that. 18 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | APRIL 5, 2021
field-based HED was the interior design and engineering firm and the Southfield office of Advocate Commercial Real Estate Advisors represented Warner Norcross on its lease
The COVID-19 pandemic hasn’t had much impact on Warner Norcross + Judd’s new Detroit office space, said the firm’s Linda Paullin-Hebden. |
` FOR MAYS MULTIMEDIA, PANDEMIC CUT REVENUE, STAFF AND, ULTIMATELY, OFFICE SPACE
SUBMITTED PHOTO
` WARNER NORCROSS + JUDD STICKS WITH NEW DETROIT OFFICE Two and a half years after announcing its plans, Grand Rapids-based law firm Warner Norcross + Judd LLP has largely completed its new Detroit office next to Little Caesars Arena in the Ilitch family’s District Detroit area. The COVID-19 pandemic hasn’t had much impact on the firm’s new 30,000-square-foot space in the 127,000-square-foot building, said Linda Paullin-Hebden, executive partner of the firm’s Southfield office. Other than the fact that, even though it’s largely done, it won’t be used right away. “We will continue to work from home, under the state of Michigan orders, until those orders are lifted,” she said, referring to state public health directives requiring that office workers who can work from home do so in order to combat spread of the deadly virus, which has claimed more than 6,300 Michigan lives. There is room for up to 60 attorneys to work in the new space at 2715 Woodward Ave. — sandwiched between the Wayne State University Mike Ilitch School of Business to the north and Little Caesars Arena to the
south — as COVID-19 restrictions are lifted. The firm’s third-floor space has a kitchen and cafe area that has room for up to 40 people, client and visiting attorney workstations, a media center and conference rooms. “When we made the decision to move to Detroit, when we picked the location that we’re in, we thought about the way that we meet with clients and engage with clients had been changing and will continue to change over the years,” Paullin-Hebden said. “What we wanted was our office to be more of an entertainment spot to check in with clients. It still has all the traditional meeting space, but we really picked the location where there’s more of a social feature to it.” She believes that once vaccinations are more widespread, client demand for social events will be even higher than it was before the pandemic. “One thing that the last year has taught us is that we don’t need to meet in person as much as we thought we once did,” she said. “Once we are all vaccinated and whatever the normal is, we get back to going to games and things like that.” “In addition to providing professional, quiet offices for concentrated legal work, our design plan also put a
premium on interactive areas to encourage collaboration and client interaction in a variety of settings,” said Katherine Pullen, a partner at Warner Norcross and member of the office design team. “We want our clients to feel welcome in the Warner office beyond our business meetings. With the lounge and cafe areas, clients can stop in as part of their evening in Detroit, before a cultural, sports event, dinner on the town or just when they need a comfortable place to plug in and get some of their own work done.” The firm’s Southfield office will relocate to a to-be-determined location in Oakland County, although some of the attorneys in that office will move to the new Detroit location. Boston Consulting Group is expected to lease one of the building’s floors, Crain’s reported in December 2019. Last year, the Detroit Medical Center scrapped plans for a Sports Medicine Institute to take two floors of the building. The sports institute was to serve players from the Ilitch family-owned Detroit Red Wings and Tigers, as well as the public. About 17,000 square feet of ground-floor retail is also expected. Novi-based contractor Oliver Hatcher was the general contractor on the buildout, while South-
Elizabeth Mays, the third-generation owner of what is now Mays Multimedia in Detroit, had to grapple with a 75 percent reduction in the company’s revenue as the COVID-19 pandemic raged. For over 65 years, the business had been in Detroit and, for a brief spell, in Ferndale and Southfield, before returning to the city as a result of the pandemic, Mays said. “We had to downsize because we lost about 75 percent of our business,” Mays said. “We work predominantly in the area of events, and events weren’t allowed. We lost about $150,000 or more in revenue.” That also resulted in layoffs, bringing the 10-person company that does things like printing, signage, graphic design, publishing and marketing down to about four. While the space the company had in the Southfield Research Park included dedicated things like conference rooms, bathrooms and kitchens, the company’s new, smaller space in Detroit has shared amenities that Mays said are more appropriate. “We don’t have to have our own meeting space or a conference room. We don’t need our own lobby or bathrooms like we used to,” she said. “Though we reduced the amount of square footage that housed our business as an entirety, we now have everything.”
kno ing how squa nee F lars mem emp ton, “W of st “The tryin wha opp labo Sh prin rise SEM “defi we a “I that the in t our the SE bert 2013 aW ed
` AC ACC THE
` SEMCOG WEIGHS HOW MUCH SPACE IS NEEDED FOR COLLABORATION More than a year into the COVID-19 pandemic, the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments remains a work-from-home operation. But the nonprofit, more commonly
Tiffany Gunter and Trevor Layton work at SEMCOG’s offices in Detroit. The nonprofit is evaluating how much of its approximately 30,000 square feet it needs. | NIC ANTAYA FOR CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS
Sh ab Ste in
| NI
DET
It for fullTh and don spac thou H cou plus gove 200-
dethe omprese
AFF ACE
eraMulpple the D-19
had pell, e rethe
we ess,” ntly ents bout
ingdoes phic ting
had innferens, e in that
known as SEMCOG, has been surveying its staff and evaluating precisely how much of its approximately 30,000 square feet in downtown Detroit it needs. Funded from state and federal dollars as well as local government membership dues, the organization employs about 60, said Trevor Layton, communications director. “We don’t know the ideal number of staff or (square) feet,” Layton said. “The conversations have been about trying to get to the bottom of that, what’s the best way to have in-person opportunities for that important collaboration work.” Shrinking the organization’s footprint in the Dan Gilbert-owned highrise at 1001 Woodward Ave., where SEMCOG occupies two floors, is “definitely in the realm of possibilities we are looking at,” Layton said. “I think that the feeling so far is that’s probably more than we need in the long term,” Layton said. “We are in that wait-and-see mode on what our needs are going to be as well as the possibilities for the space.” SEMCOG has been in the Gilbert-owned building since January 2013, according to CoStar Group Inc., a Washington, D.C.-bas ed real estate information service.
ACCUTRAK CONSULTING AND ACCOUNTING SERVICES DOES THE MATH, GOES REMOTE
Downsizing lowered entrepreneur Bernard Kanjoma’s office costs from about $3,000 a month to just $200. | NIC ANTAYA FOR CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS
DTE Energy Co. has listed its Ashley Mews building in Ann Arbor for sale as employees shift to work from home status indefinitely. | COSTAR GROUP INC.
Road, plus space in St. Clair Shores as well as coworking space in Washington, D.C. Forgoing that space, her company paid to install security and firewalls for its staff. It’s about $150 per employee for installation and $35 a month to main-
own om. athaid. nt of usiev-
H
D-19 gan ns a
only
Shaniece Bennett abandoned her Sterling Heights office in favor of remote work.
town Ann Arbor office building up for sale for an undisclosed price as the 400 employees who worked in it will be working from home indefinitely. Peter Ternes, corporate communications manager for the Detroit-based energy provider, said Wednesday that the Power and Industrial Group employees have been working from home instead of the Ashley Mews building at 414 S. Main St. since April. Marketing materials by Southfield-based Signature Associates Inc., which has the listing, has about 117,000 square feet of office space on the second through seventh floors, and a portion of the first floor retail space is occupied by the Jagged Fork restaurant, which would be unaffected by the possible sale, Ternes said. “With about half of our 10,000 DTE employees working successfully from home, we are considering what a return to work will look like, post pandemic,” Ternes wrote in an email. Condominiums on the eighth and ninth floors are privately owned and would also not be impacted by a sale. According to Ann Arbor-based Swisher Commercial’s 2020 year-end vacancy report, the downtown Ann Arbor office market’s vacancy rate increased from 5.7 percent in 2019 to 8 percent in 2020. Of the area’s 66 buildings, 23 experienced vacancy rate increases, the report says. “A 92 percent (downtown) occupancy rate would typically signify a healthy downtown, however, casual observers saw that downtown Ann Arbor had a fraction of its normal foot traffic,” the report says. “While leases remained in place, floors of office buildings were unoccupied and parking spaces were abundantly available.”
| NIC ANTAYA FOR CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS
It was a matter of dollars and sense for Shaniece Bennett and her four full-time employees. The head of Accutrak Consulting and Accounting Services PLLC abandoned her Sterling Heights office space in favor of remote work, saving thousands. Her company, which does accounting, payroll and tax services plus work for the state and federal government, had a small 100- to 200-square-foot office at 6633 18 Mile
tain, reducing her annual cost from $7,000 or $8,000 per year in rent to under $1,700 per year. “It’s not nearly as much,” Bennett said. “The next year, I pretty much foresee us staying home.”
WITH EMPLOYEES WORKING FROM HOME, DTE LISTS ANN ARBOR BUILDING FOR SALE DTE Energy Co. has put its down-
PANDEMIC PUTS SERIAL ENTREPRENEUR’S OFFICE NEEDS ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK Bernard Kanjoma is a serial entrepreneur, of sorts. The 31-year-old native of Malawi who came to the U.S. when he was 12 has four companies, including Naranjo Designs. After he battled COVID-19 for about a month in the early stages of the global pandemic last year, by the time June rolled around, office space had become — at least temporarily
— obsolescent. A location at 1790 Livernois in Troy was shuttered, leaving only a very small space that’s sparingly used in the TechTown incubator at 440 Burroughs St. in Detroit. Space in one of the city’s WeWork outposts along the Lower Woodward corridor is also on the chopping block. “It was dead,” he said, noting that his company has about 20 employees nationwide, with 14 based in the region. “There was no life anywhere you went. You had to have a mask and hand sanitizer. It became a challenge to get in spaces.”
What had been a 5,000-squarefoot office footprint across the spaces has become virtually nil, shrinking office costs from about $3,000 a month to just $200, Kanjoma said. He doesn’t envision, at least for the time being, a situation where a more regular return to the office makes sense. “If you look at the cost of buying desks, computers, I don’t think so,” he said. “Never say never, but it depends.” Contact: kpinho@crain.com; (313) 446-0412; @kirkpinhoCDB
m a h g n i m r i B Coming to IN THE HEART OF OAKLAND COUNTY’S PREMIER SHOPPING DISTRICT... 5300 sq ft under development with frontage on two of Birmingham’s most iconic avenues Supporting a more walkable, vibrant and beautiful Birmingham Bringing new life into Birmingham’s historic buildings
FOR LEASING & OTHER INFORMATION:
(248) 646-3151
APRIL 5, 2021 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | 19
HOME
From Page 3
Tobocman’s signature contemporary design made this house memorable, especially for his sibling, Alfred, who built the house in 1982 based on his brother’s exacting principles. Irving Tobocman’s tragic death in a car accident in November 2017 ended his career, but his more than 400 homes around Oakland County and across the globe carry on his legacy, Al Tobocman said. It’s understandable why the new owners wanted the land, given it is what Al Tobocman called one of the largest pieces of property on Pine Lake. “The site is beautiful,” said Al Tobocman, who wished the new homeowners well and noted that not everything, even his brother’s work, can last forever. He compared the home to a beloved vehicle. “You can love a car, but you have to trade it in sometimes,” he noted. The Tobocman brothers built the home at 2810 W. Long Lake Road for Martin and Irene Bader, Al said. Bader, who died in November 2020 at age 98, grew the Abe Bader Bag Company into an international business that then became known as Packaging Concepts & Design, according to his obituary from the Ira Kaufman Chapel in Southfield and a 1994 article in the Detroit Jewish News. Martin had been with the company since 1946 and grew it into major custom-packaging business for industrial customers such as Steelcase Inc. and Johnson Controls. Irene died in 2007. Martin Bader traded a family cottage on the property for the Tobocman-designed home and he kept it perfectly maintained, Al Tobocman said. Although Bader eventually lost his sight, he kept updating the home and called on Al Tobocman from time to time to consult on any improvements, Al said. Wyandotte architect and preservationist Thomas Roberts said the Tobocman name is well known in Michigan and around the nation. While the home at 2810 W. Long Lake Road may be livable and adaptable, not every home or architect
“The site is beautiful,” said Al Tobocman, brother of architect Irving Tobocman. He wished the new homeowners well and noted that not everything, even his brother’s work, can last forever. | NIC ANTAYA FOR CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS
has the staying power to become the next Fallingwater or Frank Lloyd Wright. A home has to be evaluated by
context in terms of the architect’s skill, age of the home and association with famous personalities or historic moments, Roberts said. These are the types of criteria that determine whether a home or its architect has chops to be considered a classic or worth adding to lists such as the U.S. National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places. “If you look at an aerial photo-
graph of the property, you can see adjacent that there are 20 or so homes on a similar acreage of land,” Robert said. “Whether the purchaser of the (Tobocman) home is going to tear it down or build another McMansion single-family home, a single-family home is nicer than packing in 10 or 15 new houses.” Estate-sale expert Robb said the home is truly a showpiece. She said
LIONS
From Page 3
Ford Field exposure a win Even as the butt of a perennial joke about losing, the positive exposure is a big win for the brand. Wood referred to the vaccine clinic as “the most important event” ever hosted at Ford Field, which staged Super Bowl XL in 2006 and the NCAA Final Four in 2009. “Almost everybody in metro Detroit would know where Ford Field is,” Wood said. “Either they’ve been there to watch a game or they certainly know of it, so I think having a place that’s large that can accommodate this event and get people … comfortable with where they’re going, that’s the biggest thing I think we’re providing.” More than 300,000 doses of vaccine are expected to be administered at Ford Field. While COVID-19 cases are on the rise in Michigan, distribution of the vaccine also has ramped up. Wood said he believes the Lions should be able to host fans in the fall without capacity restrictions if the public health situation improves as predicted. Current state health orders cap large indoor venues like Ford Field at 20 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | APRIL 5, 2021
there are more than 50 pages of architectural drawings outlining every detail from the Tobocman-designed furnishings to the custom cabinets to the kinds of trees he wanted planted. The new owners, who declined to comment for this article, are downsizing to this location and wanted something more in a Cape Cod style, Robb said. Her client, who is “a
pea drea its d Apr “P in t else grow why like thin
team as a rebuild. In head coach Dan Campbell’s introductory news conference, he made an impassioned analogy about biting off kneecaps to compete. “We’re trying to put the best team on the field for this year,” Wood said. “And we’re not done putting the team together, so it’s hard to predict what will happen on the field. We still have free agents that we’re talking to so until the whole team’s put together it’s hard to predict.”
sors maj keep rolli plac gotia “W spon spon ent t for t toda W plan und safe of D team man grou tain larly “I have be h mot best peop that be.”
Finances take a hit
U.S. Air Force members line the concourse of Ford Field to help distribute COVID-19 vaccines at an emergency clinic set up at the Detroit stadium earlier this month. | KURT NAGL/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS
750 people. “I think we’ll have fans. Whether it’s 25 percent or 50 percent or 100 percent depends on a lot of things outside of my control between now and then,” he said. “I’m hoping that we start to show improvement in our numbers and getting enough people vaccinated that we
can be in that group that has the larger allotment of fans.” Empty stands have not been the only problem for a franchise that’s been incapable of finding a winning formula. After cleaning house in the front office, team owner Sheila Ford Hamp has insisted she will not settle for mediocrity.
“We’re not taking a year off,” Wood echoed. By that he means a couple of things. On the football side, the Lions are in restart mode after shipping its most prized asset, quarterback Matthew Stafford, out west. Leadership has repeatedly refused to classify the new
On the business side, the Lions have also been beaten down. The team does not disclose finances, but it’s estimated the Lions lost out on at least $60 million in ticket and concession sales last season, according to Forbes, plus an undisclosed amount of season ticket and sponsor dollars. The team has been aggressive in trying to maintain those revenue sources, Wood said. “The vast majority of (season ticket holders) kept their money on deposit and just rolled it over to apply to this coming season,” he said. “Some opted out, and those that opted out, we’re revisiting with them right now, trying to bring them back for the season.” The same scenario applies to spon-
Con (313
f arvery ned nets nted
d to wnnted tyle, s “a
Dan nferlogy te. m on And towill free the d to
have does ated lion seaunand n agrev-
cket posit this pted e reg to
pon-
PISTON
From Page 3
peach,” Robb said, is “living her dream” with this property. She said its demolition is likely to begin in April or May. “Part of the home’s legacy will be in these objects going to someone else, and they’ll likely continue to grow in value,” Robb said. “That’s why I got into estate sales. You feel like you’re saving and preserving things.” sors. Wood said the team held on to its major sponsors and worked out ways to keep corporate partners on board by rolling over deals to next season, replacing assets and in some cases renegotiating contracts. “We’re always negotiating with sponsors all the time, including our sponsors — selling them more, different things — so all that’s been ongoing for the past 12 months and continues today.” Wood said the team has developed plans to reopen Ford Field for events under a host of different capacity and safety scenarios. He said he and leaders of Detroit’s other professional sports teams, including Pistons Vice Chairman Arn Tellem and Chris Granger, group president of sports and entertainment at Ilitch Holdings, talk regularly about reopening plans. “I never envisioned that we wouldn’t have had fans (last) fall, or that we’d still be having so many people working remotely,” he said. “We’re just doing the best we can to support getting as many people vaccinated as possible, and all that helps get us to where we want to be.” Contact: knagl@crain.com; (313) 446-0337; @kurt_nagl
“The certification issue will be handled through an appropriate legal process and I am confident we will be vindicated. We are evaluating all legal options, and we will not be able to decide a course of action until we see the outcome of the pending appeal.” The MMSDC declined to discuss in detail the certification or the appeal process. At the center of the dispute is whether Johnson runs the day-today operations of his large supplier, which operates four subsidiaries — Piston Automotive, Irvin Automotive, the Detroit Thermal Systems joint venture with Valeo and office furniture unit Airea. To be certified, a company must be 51 percent majority-owned by a person of color; actively managed in the day-to-day operations by a person of color; and operate independently. “Our certified firms have diverse teams comprised of minority and non-minority talent, but the active day-to-day leader must be a qualified ethnic minority,” the MMSDC said in the statement. While Johnson serves as the founder, chairman and CEO, the heads of the Southfield-based company’s largest business units are white men. Bob Holloway serves as president of Piston Automotive, which accounts for $2.2 billion of the company’s nearly $2.9 billion in revenue. Joe Finn, serves as president and CEO of Irvin Automotive and Detroit Thermal Systems. Melissa Price serves as president for Piston’s office furniture unit Airea, which makes up only a small percentage of the company’s overall revenue. Gordon Fournier, COO and CFO, and Rob Fisher, group vice president of marketing and sales, are also white men. Frank Ervan, Piston Group’s vice president of government affairs, is a Black man. Fisher was a member of the MMSDC’s board of directors until Piston Group’s minority business enterprise status was revoked. However, it remains unclear how the MMSDC determined Johnson was not in control of the daily operations of his company. The certification process involves a rigorous review involving attorneys, accountants and certified fraud examiners and the determination to decertify Piston Group was verified by a third party, the MMSDC told Crain’s in a statement. “ ... the MMSDC is in the business of certifying minority-owned businesses, not decertifying them without sufficient cause,” the organization said in the statement. “In fact, in the very rare occasion when decertification is required, we take the extra step of engaging external certification experts to review the file.” Louis Green, former president of the MMSDC and current CEO of Detroit-based consulting firm Supplier Success LLC, said the certification process is rigorous and not unlike an audit from the Internal Revenue Service. The auditors can make a determination on whether a CEO is in charge of day-to-day operations by reviewing board meeting minutes, for example, he said. “Some of it is judgment,” Green said. “But there are a set of guidelines and a manual.” John Graves, Detroit-based chairman of the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Push Coalition nonprofit that
Vinnie Johnson, Piston Group’s founder, chairman and CEO | PISTON GROUP
tracks and advocates for minority-owned enterprises, said the decertification of Piston sends the “wrong signal” to the minority community looking to grow business. “We respect MMSDC and they have really been at the door to ensure companies are certified in a proper manner and the organization is very important, but we are challenged by this decertification,” Graves said. “We think that having a company of that size 100 percent owned by an African American is what we all strive for. When someone is decertified, it gives the appearance that you’re a front or you’ve done something wrong. Vinnie Johnson, his integrity and character, is beyond reproach.” Graves is urging the MMSDC to review its rules, arguing that they were written at a time when there were no multibillion auto suppliers owned by minorities. “I think that MMSDC would be well served in the future to retool its guidelines,” Graves said. “They are not set up for companies this size. We aspire for more than this. We should have more Vinnie Johnsons, not less.” Green agrees that the guidelines are not in line with today’s growing companies like Piston Group.
“THE CERTIFICATION ISSUE WILL BE HANDLED THROUGH AN APPROPRIATE LEGAL PROCESS AND I AM CONFIDENT WE WILL BE VINDICATED. “ — Vinnie Johnson, Piston Group
“There are lots of people that will tell you that the guidelines are outdated and I would concur with that,” Green said. “But the rules are the rules. There is a compelling case for those who say the guidelines are outdated but until they are changed, there has to be some order.” A CEO of another minority-owned auto supplier familiar with the situation, who spoke to Crain’s on the condition of anonymity, said Johnson’s commitment to the cause of diversity is what’s on trial in the dispute. “One of the frustrations with the minority certifying regime is that the rules are not static and there isn’t a lot of transparency,” the CEO said.
“But I think they really want to see a commitment to diversity at his company and not have a CEO say things like, ‘I can’t find any Black or Brown people who are qualified to run my operation.’ That is his (Johnson’s) view that gets around in the minority business community. The politics of the situation is difficult and probably influences the council to stiffen its back a little bit.” The dispute is also likely to highlight just how important working with minority-business enterprises is to automakers, who frequently tout their purchasing totals with minority-owned businesses. Automakers’ reactions to Piston Group’s decertification will determine whether the supplier faces steep financial consequences for not adhering to MMSDC’s rules. Ford Motor Co. has pledged for years that 10 percent of its supplier purchases would come from minority- and female-owned suppliers. In 2019, Ford purchased $8.9 billion of goods from minority-owned suppliers alone, according to its 2020 sustainability report. Ford and Stellantis, formerly FCA, accounted for about 75 percent of Piston’s sales portfolio in 2020, according to a company overview on its website. If Ford or Stellantis balk at Piston over its decertification, deciding it wants those dollars counted toward the automakers’ diversity spending goals, Piston could lose out on new business contracts. FCA named Piston its Minority Business Enterprise of the Year in 2017. Ford said in a statement last week: “It’s best to speak with Piston Group about this matter. What we can tell you is that Ford fully supports parts sourcing with minority-owned suppliers — and has one of the best track records of doing so both in Michigan and the auto industry.” Stellantis said in a statement: “Stellantis will not comment on the MBE status of our suppliers as we are not the certifying agency. However, as the National Minority Supplier Development Council’s Corporation of the Year two years in a row, Stellantis has a long history of maintaining a diverse and inclusive business environment. We are committed to sourcing with certified diverse-owned suppliers and providing an environment where we can drive access, growth and development opportunities.” The CEO who spoke to Crain’s on
the condition of anonymity said the entire minority-owned sector is watching the situation closely as it could shake up the entire sector. “It’s a game of chicken. The council says thumb your nose at our rules when we bring them to you and we’ll just see what happens,” the CEO said. “What’s clearly best for both of them is to be able to work this through. I’m a little surprised that the automakers haven’t weighed in a little more effectively. Everybody is going to be looking at them if Vinnie can’t get certified to see whether minority certification really matters.” Piston is one of the fastest-growing companies in Michigan in recent
“ ... THE MMSDC IS IN THE BUSINESS OF CERTIFYING MINORITY-OWNED BUSINESSES, NOT DECERTIFYING THEM WITHOUT SUFFICIENT CAUSE.” — MMSDC statement
years. The supplier has grown from revenue of $570 million in 2012 to $2.9 billion in 2020 and more than 10,000 employees across its four subsidiaries. In 2012, Ford approached Johnson to form the Detroit Thermal Systems joint venture with Valeo, securing even more contracts with Ford. Piston kept growing with its 2017 acquisition of then-bankrupt Takata Corp. subsidiary Irvin Automotive Inc. for $175 million in a move that propelled Piston ahead of Detroit-based Bridgewater Interiors as the nation’s largest Black-owned auto supplier. In November, Johnson and the Piston Group donated $1 million to the Pope Francis Center to construct a new day center for the homeless in downtown Detroit. Piston Group is No. 1 on the 2020 Crain’s Detroit Business list of largest African-American owned businesses and Crain’s list of largest minority-owned businesses. It was No. 4 on Crain’s Fast 50 list of fastest-growing companies in metro Detroit, and No. 5 on the Private 200 list of largest privately held companies in Southeast Michigan. Contact: dwalsh@crain.com; (313) 446-6042; @dustinpwalsh APRIL 5, 2021 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | 21
THE CONVERSATION
Threading the needle: How NSF helped streamline vaccine rollout NSF INTERNATIONAL: Prior to the pandemic, Paul Medeiros, managing director of consulting and technical services for North America, worked primarily helping food and hospitality customers with food safety. But that expertise in maintaining public health led his team to confront the impact of COVID-19 on businesses and Medeiros led the reopening plan for the Detroit Institute of Arts and Michigan Science Center in the middle of the pandemic and helped develop the safety protocols for the Dlectricity light show event to be held in Midtown this September. His department also led the state of Michigan’s COVID-19 ambassador plan, which inspected and certified restaurants and other businesses with special status for adhering to heightened safety protocols. Now Medeiros and his team have reorganized around assisting local health departments in getting vaccine rollout right as the volume of those needing a shot grows exponentially. | BY DUSTIN WALSH ` How did a food safety team get involved in COVID-19 protocols? My personal part of the world was heading the North American consulting tactical services in the food division of NSF. We look at what can make people sick in food and food preparation. Then COVID-19 came along. Businesses needed help with their COVID-19 protocols so they could stay open and protect their employees and customers. So it became a natural extension to help food businesses in those areas. I am a former health inspector and most of my team (of 50) has a health background. We understand microbial risk. A lot of those principles around sanitation, hygiene and foodborne disease spread are very similar to the transmission of COVID-19. This is just another avenue of risk assessment. ` How did that translate to working with health departments on vaccine rollout? We’re a public health safety nonprofit. We focus on the areas that are going to have the biggest impact. Right now, we just got to get people vaccinated. So when I was reaching out to my public health colleague, a general manager of a health department, to talk about our ambassador program (certifying businesses that trained in COVID-19 safety protocols) they said what they really needed help with is vaccine rollout. So we just started to talk. While (health departments) are familiar with doing flu shots, they are now having to implement a mass vaccination program. I mean, some of these vaccine sites are going into arenas. These health departments are used to throughput of hundreds of vaccines per day, maybe, but now it’s thousands per day. They want to maximize safety and give public confidence they are doing this safely. That’s where we specialize.
` Who are you working with? Right now we’re working onsite with Lambton County Public Health in Sarnia (Ontario). We’re also working with others on remote work advisory. But we’re out visiting those sites now, me and one of our specialists that’s a Six Sigma black belt and lean expert. We’re focusing on maximizing throughput, understanding infection control and inventory controls with a lot of process management. Really understanding the flows and the throughput. It’s very similar to the work we’ve done with restaurants and casinos and hotels. Bringing people together safely and effectively. ` What recommendations are you providing? We do risk assessment. At any kind of vaccine clinic, what can go wrong? That’s anything from power outages to managing lines as the weather turns hotter in the summer. Theft can be another risk. Vaccines are a rare commodity. Things that are rare and expensive make them a target. But some of the recommendations without getting too specific are around anything they can do to reduce waste of the vaccine and maximize throughput. We recognize there is a certain percentage of the population who register and not show up. As high as 20 percent. So we are recommending departments consider having a separate queue. A small and manageable list of people who can come in when there are no-shows. We’re also using surveys, asking customers how the registration was and how it can be improved. Really to improve the patient experience. Such as reaching out the no-shows as to why they did not come. Understanding why people are not coming is critical to improving efficiency.
` What are some problems vaccine sites are facing? No-shows are what’s really causing frustration. Whether it’s for their second dose or their first dose, people aren’t showing up. That’s really important for anybody who is managing this, to understand why they are not showing up. There needs to be more communication. The real challenges on site are people having so many questions and slowing things down. If the vaccine sites are giving 10 to 15 minutes per vaccine, people are taking more time with questions. If everyone extends their time (at a clinic) by 25 percent, then you’re doing 25 percent fewer vaccines. The lines grow and frustration grows. One simple thing to do at all vaccine clinics is use any time waiting to answer these frequently asked questions. Whether that be digital signage, pamphlets, whatever. Any opportunity to answer a question before the face-to-face interaction is critical to maximizing throughput.
better job when we plan out these sites and are doing that risk assessment. Someone has to be there to ask what hasn’t worked well and what can go wrong. Not just a couple of people in the room, but bring in the stakeholders to apply best practices. Paul Medeiros, managing director of consulting and technical services for North America, NSF International
crainsdetroit.com
Editor-in-Chief Keith E. Crain Publisher KC Crain Group Publisher Jim Kirk, (312) 397-5503 or jkirk@crain.com Associate Publisher Lisa Rudy, (313) 446-6032 or lrudy@crain.com Executive Editor Kelley Root, (313) 446-0319 or kelley.root@crain.com Managing Editor Michael Lee, (313) 446-1630 or malee@crain.com Digital Portfolio Manager Tim Simpson, (313) 446-6788 or tsimpson@crain.com Creative Director David Kordalski, (216) 771-5169 or dkordalski@crain.com Assistant Managing Editor Dawn Bradbury, (313) 446-5800 or dbradbury@crain.com News Editor Beth Reeber Valone, (313) 446-5875 or bvalone@crain.com Senior Editor Chad Livengood, (313) 446-1654 or clivengood@crain.com Special Projects Editor Amy Elliott Bragg, (313) 446-1646 or abragg@crain.com Design and Copy Editor Beth Jachman, (313) 446-0356 or bjachman@crain.com Research and Data Editor Sonya Hill, (313) 446-0402 or shill@crain.com Newsroom (313) 446-0329, FAX (313) 446-1687 TIP LINE (313) 446-6766 REPORTERS
Jason Davis, small and emerging businesses. (313) 446-1612 or Jason.davis@crain.com Annalise Frank, city of Detroit. (313) 446-0416 or afrank@crain.com Jay Greene, senior reporter, health care and energy. (313) 446-0325 or jgreene@crain.com Nick Manes, finance and technology. (313) 446-1626 or nmanes@crain.com Kurt Nagl, higher education, business of sports. (313) 446-0337 or knagl@crain.com Kirk Pinho, senior reporter, real estate. (313) 446-0412 or kpinho@crain.com Dustin Walsh, senior reporter, economy and workforce, manufacturing, cannabis. (313) 446-6042 or dwalsh@crain.com Sherri Welch, senior reporter, nonprofits and philanthropy. (313) 446-1694 or swelch@crain.com MEMBERSHIPS
CLASSIC $169/yr. (Can/Mex: $210, International: $340), ENHANCED $399/yr. (Can/Mex: $499, International: $799), PREMIER $1,299/yr. (Can/Mex/International: $1,299). To become a member visit www.crainsdetroit.com/ membership or call (877) 824-9374 Group and Corporate Membership Sales Deb Harper, (313) 446-1623 or dharper@crain.com
` What’s been the biggest pitfall? Waste. It makes the headlines, the doses going unused. One health agency that was administering the Pfizer vaccine was wasting a dose out of every vial. You need a special syringe to get the sixth dose out and they weren’t using that tool and throwing out a dose with every vial. That’s causing part of the frustrating delays and leads to second doses getting canceled and longer lines. None of that is surprising to me. What I find is whether you’re public health or private industry, we can all do a
ADVERTISING/MARKETING
Sales Inquiries (313) 446-6032; FAX (313) 393-0997 Director of Events and Program Content Kristin Bull, (313) 446-1608 or kbull@crain.com Senior Account Executive John Petty Senior Account Manager Maria Marcantonio Advertising Sales Lindsey Apostol, Mark Polcyn, Sharon Mulroy People on the Move Manager Debora Stein, (917) 226-5470, dstein@crain.com Integrated Marketing Manager Kelsey Strachan, Kelsey.strachan@crain.com or (313) 446-1629 Insights Analyst Reginald Brown, reginald.brown@crain.com or (313) 446-1670 Senior Art Director Sylvia Kolaski Director of Media Services Joseph (Sam) Tanooki, (313) 446-0400 or sabdallah@crain.com Classified Sales and Sales Support Suzanne Janik CUSTOMER SERVICE
Single copy purchases, publication information, or membership inquiries: (877) 824-9374 or customerservice@crainsdetroit.com Reprints: Laura Picariello (732) 723-0569 or lpicariello@crain.com Crain’s Detroit Business is published by
READ ALL THE CONVERSATIONS AT CRAINSDETROIT.COM/THECONVERSATION
RUMBLINGS
$500,000 from Ralph C. Wilson Jr.’s daughters to support park A $500,000 GIFT FROM THE TRUSTS of Ralph C. Wilson Jr.’s late daughters will support the Detroit riverfront park named for their father. The gift from the trusts of Edith “Dee Dee” Wilson and Linda Bogdan to the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy will support the development of the 22-acre Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Centennial Park, with a garden in recognition of the two women. The Detroit-based foundation said in a news release that it will also recommend an estimated gift of $150,000 each year from the daughters’ endowed, donor-advised fund at the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan to support the 22 | CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS | APRIL 5, 2021
A rendering of a movie on the lawn of the Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Centennial Park | MICHAEL VAN VALKENBURGH ASSOCIATES
maintenance and seasonal plantings. These gifts add to the $40 million capital gift and $10 million endowment made by the foundation to the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy to
support creation and maintenance of the park in October 2018, as part of $200 million in total grants, split between Southeast Michigan and western New York, in honor of Wilson’s centennial birthday. “When identifying how to allocate this generous gift from their estate, we knew it would be most appropriate to honor these passions in a way that will live on through the park, along with sustaining these spaces and investing in future programming that community members can enjoy,” said Mary Wilson, life trustee and chair of the Wilson foundation The Wilson foundation said it will also honor the sisters' shared love
for tennis by recommending an estimated $125,000 annually from the donor-advised fund to support youth tennis programming, general and capital maintenance of courts throughout the region. The Detroit Riverfront Conservancy has raised and invested more than $200 million in the revitalization of the Detroit Riverfront, which in turn has generated more than $2 billion in public and private investment. In February, the Detroit Riverwalk won the most reader votes as Best Riverwalk in the country in USA Today 10 Best Readers’ Choice Awards.
Crain Communications Inc. Chairman Keith E. Crain Vice Chairman Mary Kay Crain CEO KC Crain Senior Executive Vice President Chris Crain Secretary Lexie Crain Armstrong Chief Financial Officer Robert Recchia G.D. Crain Jr. Founder (1885-1973) Mrs. G.D. Crain Jr. Chairman (1911-1996) Editorial & Business Offices 1155 Gratiot Ave., Detroit MI 48207-2732; (313) 446-6000 Cable address: TWX 248-221-5122 AUTNEW DET CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS ISSN # 0882-1992 is published weekly, except no issues on 1/4/21 nor 12/27/21, combined issues on 5/24/21 and 5/31/21, 8/30/21 and 9/6/21, 11/15/21 and 11/22/21, by Crain Communications Inc. at 1155 Gratiot Ave., Detroit MI 48207-2732. Periodicals postage paid at Detroit, MI and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS, Circulation Department, P.O. Box 07925, Detroit, MI 48207-9732. GST # 136760444. Printed in U.S.A. Contents copyright 2021 by Crain Communications Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction or use of editorial content in any manner without permission is prohibited.
FREE WEBCAST featuring live Q&A with panelists
CAPTURING MICHIGAN TALENT
How businesses can partner with colleges, universities to build a workforce-ready pipeline. JOIN THIS WEBCAST TO LEARN: • Recruiting success stories from business executives who have built programs with local colleges and universities to attract top talent. • What colleges and universities look for in a relationship with businesses. • How the state of Michigan supports the recruitment efforts of Michigan graduates.
PANELISTS TO BE ANNOUNCED SOON
REGISTER AT Crainsdetroit.com/michtalent SPONSORED BY
APRIL 20 | 1–2 P.M.
POWERED BY DETROIT
INDUSTRY ACHIEVERS ADVANCING THEIR CAREERS Recognize them in Crain’s
For listing opportunities, contact Debora Stein at dstein@crain.com or submit directly to
CRAINSDETROIT.COM/PEOPLEMOVES
Your business is always on. Your internet should be too.
S:13.5"
With AT&T Internet for Business, you get fast, highly reliable internet that’s made for business. It features Internet Backup, so even if the power goes out, our wireless network automatically keeps you connected. Go to att.com/BizInternet or call 855-432-1500 to learn more.
Ranked #1 Highest in Customer Satisfaction by J.D. Power among Small/Medium Business Wireline Service For J.D. Power 2020 award information, visit jdpower.com/awards