Crain's Detroit Business, Jan. 30, 2017 issue

JANUARY 30 - FEBRUARY 5, 2017

Touchdown dreams

Taking to the skies

Lawrence Tech makes the business case for football, Page 3

Drones help real estate pros give tours – and spot problems, Page 3

Education

Retail

Workforce

Art Van’s next act

State works at new view: Skilled trades matter

CHAD LIVENGOOD clivingood@crain.com Twitter: @ChadLivengood

Grim education numbers will show up in bottom lines The Detroit Regional Chamber’s annual report on the tremendous economic turnaround of Southeast Michigan contains a plethora of positive data about the region’s resurgence since the Great Recession. Per capita income grew 13.6 percent from 2010 to 2015, median home values shot up 21.4 percent, and there are 225,000 new private-sector jobs in southeast Michigan.

But as we say in the news business, the chamber buried the lead when it comes to the state of education in Detroit and the 10 surrounding counties.

At the bottom of Page 15 of the chamber’s State of the Region report, there’s a footnote that says 44 percent of third-graders could read at their grade level in the 2015-2016 school year.

Statewide, 46 percent of thirdgrade students were reading proficiently in 2016, down from 50 percent in 2015.

In Detroit, just 12 percent of third-graders were proficient in reading last year, according to state data.

If business leaders are numbers people, these numbers should frighten them into action. Illiteracy rates like these will prevent Michigan from growing and attracting the talent needed for a business center to thrive in the global, high-tech 21st century economy.

SEE LIVENGOOD, PAGE 16

By Dustin Walsh dwalsh@crain.com

Despite a renewed effort to improve skilled trades training under Gov. Rick Snyder, Michigan’s vocational education for high school students is still failing.

The good news is overdue changes to the system are imminent, but the state has a long way to go to align education to the needs of employers.

In February, 21st Snyder’s Century Education Commission Aukee: Curriculum

Art Van Elslander (far right) with early business partners, in a photo taken around 1959.

Van Elslander plans new for-profit, philanthropy projects

By Sherri Welch swelch@crain.com

As he prepares to close on a deal to sell the company he spent a lifetime building, Art Van Elslander is already planning what comes next.

He’s launched a new, for-profit company, Van Elslander Capital LLC, to make targeted investments and acquisitions.

And he plans to expand the philanthropy he’s known for in Michigan through a new foundation, A.A. Van Elsander Foundation.

While the investment company’s focus isn’t yet final, Van Elslander has a soft spot for entrepreneurs and helping make “their dreams come

© Entire contents copyright 2017

by Crain Communications Inc. All rights reserved

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true,” he said, as his did when he founded Art Van Furniture 58 years ago as a one-man operation on Gratiot Avenue in Detroit.

“I’m certainly not going to get in a rocking chair; I’m not ready,” he said.

Last week, Van Elslander announced a deal to sell Art Van Furniture Inc. to Boston-based private equity firm Thomas H. Lee Partners LP. Terms of the deal were not released, but a Crain’s analysis of comparable deals put the value of the sale around $550 million.

The sale isn’t expected to close until February, but Van Elslander is already preparing to begin construc-

tion of a new base at 35975 Woodward Ave. at Oak Street in Birmingham this spring.

The 11,000-square-foot building’s second floor will house the offices of Van Elslander Capital and the A.A. Van Elslander Foundation, organizations he founded last fall. The ground floor of the new building, designed

by Saroki Architecture in Birmingham, will be home to retail when it’s completed a year from this spring.

Van Elslander Capital is now in the midst of assembling a team, said Diane Wells, who was assistant to the chairman at Art Van Furniture and is now his chief of staff.

“I’m certainly not going to get in a rocking chair; I’m not ready.”

Art Van Elslander

SEE ART VAN, PAGE 16

is expected to re- just doesn’t work lease a set of rec- for every student. ommendations to the state Department of Education to rectify long-standing issues with vocational education, but it’s not yet known whether it will succeed.

While the failure of vocational education began several decades ago as legislators and educational stakeholders began devaluing vocational ed in favor of pushing students into four-year colleges, former Gov. Jennifer Granholm solidified the state’s position — skilled labor no longer mattered, according to local experts.

In 2004, Granholm formed the Cherry Commission with the mission of doubling college enrollment, resulting in the Michigan Merit Curriculum — a set of curriculum requirements for every student to increase college preparedness.

At the time, the requirements created one of the most rigorous eighth grade-through-high school graduation programs in the country. The result was an increased pipeline of students going to four-year institutions, but left students enrolled in vocational education spread thin across college prep courses and skilled labor courses.

“We’re held to this curriculum (Michigan Merit) even though it’s not working for everyone,” said Mary Kaye Aukee, executive director of career-focused education for Oakland Schools. “The world has changed.

College degrees don’t guarantee a fruitful career anymore.

Being a productive citizen is having a SEE TRADES, PAGE 17

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MICHIGAN BRIEFS Experts link Flint-area deaths to Legionnaires’ The death toll from pneumonia nearly doubled in Genesee County at the height of the Flint lead-poisoning crisis, supporting the suspicion among medical experts that many of those deaths were actually from Legionnaires’ disease that went undiagnosed, Bridge Magazine has reported.

The Michigan Health and Human Services Department has confirmed that 87 people died in the county from pneumonia in 2015. That follows 90 previously confirmed pneumonia deaths in 2014, the year state officials switched the source of Flint’s drinking water and improperly treated it, causing lead to leach from pipes into the water system.

The soaring number of pneumonia deaths over two years mark a dramatic rise from 53 deaths in 2013.

The spike coincided with an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease, a more deadly form of pneumonia that often goes undiagnosed.

Medical experts told Bridge that it’s likely some portion of the deaths attributed to pneumonia were actually undiagnosed cases of Legionnaires’. Neither McLaren Flint, a major hospital in Flint, nor county or state health officials ordered routine testing of pneumonia patients for Le-

BLOOMBERG

INSIDE BANKRUPTCIES

fessor who helped initially expose and confirm high lead levels in Flint’s drinking water, told Bridge.

But Edwards also praised Genesee for taking steps to test pneumonia patients for Legionnaires’.

Many deaths attributed to pneumonia during the Flint water crisis may have been because of Legionnaires’ disease.

Speakers: No fast Trump impact in West Michigan

gionnaires’, even well after becoming aware of a Legionnaires’ outbreak in 2014. Not until last October did Genesee County health officials note that all pneumonia patients in county health facilities were being tested for Legionnaires’, Bridge said.

Officially, 12 people died and more than 100 were sickened from Legionnaires’ disease in Genesee County since the water crisis began in 2014. “The spike in Legionnaires’ deaths deserved earlier, complete investigation. Why that did not happen is both confusing to clinicians in Flint and the community,� said Lawrence Reynolds, a pediatrician and former president and CEO of Mott Children’s Health Center in Flint who was on Gov. Rick Snyder’s Flint Water Advisory Task Force.

It is “widely accepted that Legionnaires’ disease is unreported nationally, and such was probably the case in Flint during that time as well,�

Marc Edwards, the Virginia Tech pro-

New President Donald Trump’s agenda isn’t likely to alter the West Michigan economic landscape this year, according to speakers at the 2017 Colliers Annual West Michigan Economic and Commercial Real Estate Forecast breakfast in Grand Rapids.

While the new president has promised to seal the nation’s borders, rewrite trade agreements and revive investment in the nation’s infrastructure, those changes will take time, said Paul Isely, associate dean in the Seidman College of Business at Grand Valley State University, in an MLive.com report. “The probability of its affecting the economy is very, very small. Will it affect us in 2018? Yes. But don’t worry about it in 2017,� said Isely, who predicted the West Michigan economy will continue to grow this year, albeit at a slower pace than 2016.

Isely and real estate executives who spoke at the breakfast gathering

Jan. 26 made the case that West Michigan’s economy is great already.

Despite shortages in the labor market and shortages in housing, manufacturing and warehousing space, West Michigan is in a good position to capitalize on the region’s growing popularity, they said. Barring any shocks to the economy, Isely said he was forecasting a 2 percent growth rate for the economy after seeing a 2.5 percent growth rate in 2016.

West Michigan’s economic challenges include the need for skilled labor, growth in the auto and furniture industries hitting a plateau, and strong national policy changes expected from the new administration, Isely said.

MICH-CELLANEOUS

The Michigan Department of Corrections slapped its latest food con-

J

tractor with more than $2 million in penalties for inadequate staffing and other problems since it began providing meals in September 2015, AP reported. The penalties against Oldsmar, Fla.-based Trinity Services Group were for unauthorized meal substitutions, delays serving meals, inadequate staffing levels and sanitation violations, a department spokesman told the Detroit Free Press. The penalties show significant problems persist with the privatization of prison food services after the state and its first

CALENDAR

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DEALS & DETAILS

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OPINION

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RON FOURNIER

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PEOPLE

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RUMBLINGS

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WEEK ON THE WEB

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COMPANY INDEX: SEE PAGE 18 prison food contractor, Philadelphia-based Aramark Correctional Services, ended their contract early.

J Food retailers account and their spinoff economic effects account for about 3 percent of the state’s GDP, according to a study by Michigan State University’s Center for Regional Food Systems. The West Bloomfield Township-based Associated Food and Petroleum Dealers commissioned the study, which measured the economic impact of 8,000 to 12,000 grocery stores, supermarkets, gas stations, pharmacies and other small food stores. The sector contributed $15.4 billion to the GDP, according to the study, which also said that for every 100 jobs in the food retail industry, 38 more were supported by food retailers in the industries with which they do business.

T hank Y ou

On January 13, 2017 the community came together for one of Detroit’s biggest nights, the North American International Auto Show Charity Preview. Children’s Hospital of Michigan Foundation is SURXG WR EH RQH RI HLJKW FKDULW \ EHQHȴFLDULHV RI WKLV HYHQLQJ :H JUHDWO\ DSSUHFLDWH WKH JHQHURXV support of the Detroit Auto Dealers Association and everyone who attended. :H ZRXOG DOVR OLNH WR WKDQN WKH VSRQVRUV RI RXU %LJ 6KRWV /LWWOH 6WDUV &KDULW\ 3UHYLHZ $IWHU*ORZ SPECIAL THANK S TO OUR PRESENTING SPONSOR P L AT AT I N U M S P O N S O R

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Education

Lawrence Tech makes business case for return to football

By Bill Shea bshea@crain.com

Lawrence Technological University’s decision to relaunch a football program after 70 years is part of the Southfield-based school’s business strategy to remold itself into a traditional residential college.

Football, the thinking goes, can build a cadre of loyal alumni whose school spirit, fueled by memories of bucolic gridiron Saturdays, may be willing to write checks to their beloved alma mater.

So, the private university announced last week that it will field a

football team in 2018 for the first time since the end of World War II, and that it has hired former Culver-Stockton College head coach Jeff Duvendeck as the first head coach of the Blue Devils football team.

His hiring is part of a $1.2 million budget to launch the football program, a cost that will include three full-time assistants and the purchase of equipment and uniforms, said Kevin Finn, LTU’s dean of students.

Lawrence Tech will deploy a capital campaign to raise money for an $8 million to $10 million football stadium. Last year, an anonymous donor

gave Lawrence Tech $1 million to cover the cost of an 88,000-square-foot synthetic grass field from Dalton, Ga.based AstroTurf LLC. The field was finished in September, and is lined for football, soccer and lacrosse, and has a sand and rubber in-fill base.

The capital campaign would cover the cost of 4,000 bleacher seats, lights, offices and locker rooms. Ann Arbor-based architectural firm The Collaborative has designed the field and stadium, and the goal is to have the entire project finished by 2019, Finn said.

SEE LTU, PAGE 15

LAWRENCE TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY

This past summer, Lawrence Technological University added an AstroTurf multi-sport playing field, the gift of an anonymous donor.

Health care

Technology

Mental health groups blast HMOs’ report on Medicaid care

A drone’s-eye view

By Jay Greene jgreene@crain.com

CONSTANT MOTION PRODUCTIONS

The view from the 15th floor of The Griswold development in downtown Detroit as taken by a drone.

Technology helps brokers sell real estate

By Kirk Pinho kpinho@crain.com

Many real estate companies are turning to drone and video technology in the digital age to market their properties, and many high-profile Detroit projects — ranging from Little Caesars Arena to The Scott at Brush Park — have brought those technologies to the forefront.

Yet drones, or unmanned aircraft systems, are just the start of the technological revolution in commercial real estate. And where the industry goes from here is anyone’s guess.

In addition to drones, companies

are also using aids such as timelapse photography and GoPros to give previews and show space and Oculus virtual reality glasses to let tenants visualize new offices, some said.

“We haven’t fully tapped into the potential at all,” said Andy Gutman, president of Southfield-based Farbman Group, which owns four drones but does not use them anymore because it’s more cost-effective to contract out for the service.

Gutman said Farbman Group, which bought its drones four years ago, also uses time-lapse photogra-

MUST READS OF THE WEEK Calley’s journey Crain’s Ron Fournier talks to the lieutenant governor about how he went from denial to regret to autism advocacy, Page 6

phy on construction projects and other technology.

For Detroit-based Sachse Construction, drones have helped provide real-time updates to the public on its ground-up The Scott at Brush Park development, which has about 200 apartments and retail space at Woodward Avenue and Erskine Street downtown.

Nicole Mancino, director of marketing for Sachse Construction, said drones have also been used for its build-out of the Nike Inc. store on Woodward downtown and its redevelopment of The Albert apartments in Capitol Park, to name a few.

“For us in construction manage-

ment, it allows us to highlight the scope of the project and also diagnose any logistical problems,” Mancino said.

The company contracts with John D’Angelo for drone footage; Garden City-based TrueSpaces for virtual tours of spaces; and Atlanta, Ga.based OxBlue Corp. for time-lapse photography.

“The use of technology will make things more efficient and will maybe decrease the need to, for example, view an apartment in person for leasing,” Mancino said. “But I don’t know if it will ever replace being in a building and seeing it with your own

GETTY IMAGES

SEE DRONES, PAGE 18

Show your work Earning an MBA by demonstrating competency gains in popularity, but there are pitfalls to watch for, Page 9

Six behavioral health advocacy organizations last week blasted a newly released report by the association of Michigan’s 16 Medicaid health plans on its vision of how the state should combine its dual behavioral health and physical health systems.

The public back-and-forth signaled increasing tensions in a long debate about who should administer Michigan’s Medicaid dollars allocated to mental health care.

The Michigan Association of Health Plans, which represents the HMOs, said in its report Tuesday that the state Legislature should consider pilot models that would allow HMOs to manage the $2.4 billion Medicaid mental health system. The report came amid a large state-led examination of mental health funding known as the Section 298 work group.

“The only thing bothering the MAHP is that no one other than them wants public behavioral health dollars turned over to the (managed health plans),” Dohn Hoyle, director of public policy with The Arc Michigan, an advocacy group for people with developmental disabilities, said in a statement.

“For almost a year now, the MHPs have been shut down at every stage of the Section 298 process, including the lieutenant governor’s initial 120-person work group and the subsequent DHHS 298 work group (approximately 25 members) that currently exists.”

Doyle said that in 31 smaller work group sessions last fall, a majority of the 800 participants expressed "overwhelming opposition to the MHPs controlling behavioral health dollars and services to a greater extent than now."

SEE REPORT, PAGE 18

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A study found no structural issues that would require demolition after the jail construction was halted due to cost overruns and sat languishing, exposed to the elements, at Gratiot Avenue and I-375 in downtown Detroit.

RFP date puts countdown on Gilbert-Gores jail proposal

LTU ranks fifth among U.S. colleges and universities for boosting graduates’ earning power.

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Wayne County Executive Warren Evans has effectively imposed a twoweek deadline on billionaire businessmen Dan Gilbert and Tom Gores to submit a plan to build a soccer stadium on the site of the half-built downtown Detroit jail.

Evans on Friday said Wayne County will issue a request for proposals on Feb. 10 to Walsh Construction Co. to begin completion of a plan to resume construction of the 2,000bed jail on Gratiot Avenue.

Gilbert and Gores have publicly proposed a $1 billion mixed-use development and soccer stadium at the jail site in a bid to attract a Major League Soccer franchise. But no plan or new offer has been submitted to Wayne County to purchase the property.

“Finishing the jail at the Gratiot site is the quickest and most cost-effective solution to this long-standing challenge facing Wayne County,” Evans said in a statement. The RFP will be issued “in light of the considerable public interest, and to provide absolute clarity,” he said.

Chicago-based Walsh Construction is the only firm that has been

“Finishing the jail at the Gratiot site is the quickest and most costeffective solution to this longstanding challenge facing Wayne County.”

Warren Evans, Wayne County executive

pre-qualified to bid on the project.

Evans has repeatedly said the county won’t consider any alternative plans for the jail site once the RFP has been issued to Walsh.

The Gores-Gilbert effort must submit an expansion application to MLS by Jan. 31, and the league will conduct in-person meetings with

prospective owners in the second and third quarters of this year.

Ten cities have expressed interest, and MLS said in December it will award teams to two cities this year, and two more at an undetermined time after that.

Gores’ chief lieutenant for the soccer bid, Arn Tellem, told Crain’s earlier this month that they intend to submit their bid by the deadline.

Started under former Wayne County Executive Bob Ficano, the new county jail was supposed to cost $200 million. But construction was halted in the summer of 2013 after $151 million was spent and the final price tag was expected to be $391 million. The Wayne County Commission has approved $300 million in bonds for the project.

Chad Livengood: (313) 446-1654 Twitter: @ChadLivengood Bill Shea: (313) 446-1626 Twitter: @Bill_Shea19

BANKRUPTCIES The following businesses filed for bankruptcy protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Detroit Jan 20-Jan 26.

Under Chapter 11, a company files for reorganization. Chapter 7 involves total liquidation.

Global Link Logistics Inc, P.O. Box 1072, Warren, voluntary Chapter 7.

Assets: $12,420; liabilities: $1,253,387.88.

Medical Office Partners, 29175 Ryan Road, Warren, voluntary Chapter 11. Assets and liabilities are not available.

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Senate considers employer incentive to hire ex-prisoners LANSING — The debate about whether employers should hire convicted felons is returning to the Capitol, where state senators are teeing up a plan to offer Michigan companies thousands of dollars in financial incentives to entice more of them to hire former prisoners.

If successful, it would give re-entry employment advocates another tool as they try to connect parolees with jobs. And it will continue a dialogue about the merits of hiring people with criminal records at a time when more companies are turning to ex-offenders to fill workforce gaps caused by a shortage of skilled labor — meaning it’s possible more might find work.

To qualify, a company would need to employ a person with a felony record for a minimum of 120 hours, or three weeks of full-time work. That provision has raised concerns that the incentive could lead to employee turnover, rather than stability, in order to maximize grant payments. Backers of the bill say that’s not the goal.

“The intent was to not just have the individual hired for a tax break or a tax benefit, but instead to seek to get the employee fully engaged in the workplace,” said Sen. John Proos, R-St. Joseph, the lead sponsor of the bill package. “If we can divert individuals from a further life of crime and ensure connectivity to the community with a job, then we’ll see that incarceration revolving door slow down significantly.”

The incentive, a grant being dubbed the “Work Opportunity Employer Reimbursement Fund,” is tucked into a package of criminal justice reform bills intended to keep excons from returning to prison and reduce spending within Michigan’s $2 billion corrections system.

The legislation is a carryover from the two-year term that ended in December. The roughly 20-bill package easily cleared a Senate committee on Thursday; a similar version also passed the Senate last term before stalling in the House.

Michigan’s proposed employer grant is modeled after a federal government tax credit worth up to $2,400 to employers who hire ex-offenders within a year of their release. The state program would award no more than $7,200 per year for as many as three employees who work for more than 10 weeks.

“Businesses and industries are concerned about hiring ex-offenders, and if it’s possible for them to recognize a small financial benefit to take that risk ... then we’ve married two very important goals together,” Proos said. “The first is economic success for our businesses, and the second is a returning citizen breaks the cycle of incarceration.”

Proos said the intent is not to force employers to participate in a program they can’t sustain, but to reward employers who aim to offer long-term work to parolees.

Offering employer incentives to hire people with felony records dovetails with a broader effort nationwide to increase ex-offender employment

LINDSAY VANHULLE

CAPITOL BRIEFINGS lvanhulle@crain.com Twitter: @LindsayVanHulle

About the bills A Senate committee on Thursday voted to send a package of bills that would reform Michigan’s criminal justice system to the full chamber for consideration. The bills include Senate Bills 5-24, Senate Bill 50 and Senate Concurrent Resolution 4.

The employer incentive bill is Senate Bill 14.

by removing the check box on job applications that requires upfront disclosure of criminal convictions, a practice known as “banning the box.”

To date, 24 states already have required the box to be removed from applications; Gov. Rick Snyder has said he is open to considering it.

Some employers, like Alta Equipment Co. in Livonia, have pulled the box from their own applications. Rebecca Dioso, Alta’s human resources vice president, recently told Crain’s the company has not sought any available incentive funding to hire ex-offenders.

Still, strong opinions exist on both sides of the “ban the box” practice.

Proponents encourage more employers to consider it as a way to create stable futures for ex-offenders, while critics have questioned whether doing so could lead to more implicit racial discrimination in hiring decisions or distractions in the workplace.

If adopted, Michigan’s employer incentive program would award grants to employers who hire at least one ex-offender for at least 120 hours, or three weeks. Companies that hire a parolee to work for at least 120 hours but up to 400 hours would be eligible to receive the smaller of 25 percent of the employee’s first-year wages, or $1,500. Companies that employ a parolee for more than 400 hours, or 10 weeks, can receive 40 percent of the worker’s first-year wages, or $2,400, whichever is less.

Employers would be limited to $7,200 in grant funds under the program each fiscal year, or the equivalent of three people who worked for the company for longer than 10 weeks. It’s not immediately clear how long the employer would be allowed to claim the credit.

The Senate Fiscal Agency, in an analysis of the bill, said if the fund contained $500,000, it could reimburse employers for up to 300 part-time employees or 187 full-time employees — or some combination — after accounting for administrative costs.

The bill would require the state to report annually the amount of money

received and awarded.

The nonprofit Citizens Alliance on Prisons & Public Spending, in testimony last year, said the bill contains “extremely low” eligibility requirements for companies asking to receive an incentive. The group suggested the Senate lengthen the amount of time an employee must be on the payroll and add provisions that incentivize training and exclude companies that aren’t acting in good faith.

“Incentives to employers are good.

We certainly don’t oppose them,” said Barbara Levine, the group’s associate director for research and policy. “We just want them to be structured in a way that encourages (employers) to keep people and promote them.”

The Michigan Department of Corrections said it generally supports most of the bills, though it has technical concerns with a few, including the employer grant — in part because the minimum hours worked to qualify for a grant is too low.

“The administration has typically not favored such an approach,” state corrections spokesman Chris Gautz said in an email. “The concern is that it presents the ability for employees to be churned through the system for the sake of the grant award and does not address or incentivize the goal of long-term employment.”

About half of all inmates paroled in 1998 wound up back behind bars within three years, compared with 31 percent of those released in 2012.

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OPINION

KEITH CRAIN Editor-in-chief

Calley’s journey: From denial to regret to autism advocacy

A beginning and an end

L

ike every parent, Brian Calley had dreams for his children — they would be brilliant and popular and successful and perfectly normal, if not quite perfect.

Unlike every parent, Brian Calley is lieutenant governor of Michigan and was a two-term state legislator. When his middle child, Reagan, was 3 years old, Calley heard legislative testimony from an autistic boy whose demeanor reminded him of his daughter. Calley and his wife waited a year to get Reagan diagnosed, a delay that still shames him.

“We didn’t want people thinking there is something wrong with our daughter,” he says.

Calley has committed his career to helping people with autism and other neurological challenges, supporting insurance reform in 2012 and, a few weeks ago, signing legislation that will end what he describes as “inhuman and barbaric” non-emergency restraint and seclusion practices in Michigan schools.

His next mission: Convince business leaders in Michigan that hiring people on the spectrum isn’t just a good thing to do; it’s good for business. It’s a smart investment.

Sharing an intimate corner of his conference table in Lansing, Calley recently told me about his journey from denial to regret to advocacy. His voice choked with emotion. At one point, he wiped what appeared to be a tear.

To be honest, I was emotional, too.

Like Calley, I have three children. My youngest is 19 years old and is autistic. Paralyzed by denial and fear, my wife and I didn’t get Tyler diagnosed until he was 12.

This is an edited transcript of my chat with Calley.

You said you “hid” from a diagnosis.

What were you afraid of?

I was afraid of letting go how I thought things were going to be.

How did you think things would be?

You kind of picture the picture of how a family is going to be.

When did you realize things were not going to be as you pictured them?

I went through a committee hearing on health policy; it was about autism. … This was when I was in the state House, and the description of autism was not positive at all, and that’s all I knew about it was this testimony. This young man who I think was 9 or 10 years old, and he sat there with his mother … and read testimony, and he has autism. He read testimony on how he was before he had access to behavioral therapy and just what life was like and the things he struggled with it. At that point, the things he described sounded just like

RON FOURNIER

Editor and publisher my daughter, and that was a moment in my heart: This is the answer.

You told me earlier that at a young age Reagan had a hard time transitioning from one activity to another, that she was extremely inflexible. Without any support for managing such behavior, you said your family life regressed.

You didn’t have friends over. You didn’t go out as a family. Everything revolved around Reagan’s behavior. What advice were you getting then?

The pediatrician didn’t seem to know (what to do about Reagan) and said, “Kids develop differently,” and my mother said I did not even talk until I was 4 years old: “You’re overreacting.”

How old was Reagan when you heard the boy’s testimony and suspected Reagan was autistic?

She would have been about 3. ...

She was diagnosed when she was 4 …

So there was about a year (between) when I knew and when we had a formal answer.

What is it about parenting that makes us not want to face the fact that our kids aren’t what we thought they’d be?

Look on Instagram. Everybody is perfect. So you look around and you see everybody living these perfect lives that seems like everything is going perfect. Does this mean we did something wrong? Does this mean that there is something wrong? At that time, we did not want people thinking there is something wrong with our daughter. I did not recognize it at the time, but that was it the ugly side of stigma.

(Autism does come with a stigma and it can make parents avoid getting help for their kids. Calley shared a memory that haunts him.)

Reagan came home from school with this kindergarten score. … (The standardized scorecard) said she was level 1-2, and she was supposed to be at a level 4. So we got in touch with the teacher. We said we’d like to understand why (Reagan) is behind in reading … and help her get caught up.

The teacher said, “She’s not at a level 1 or 2. She is at level 12.”

If you go back and look at that (scorecard), it didn’t say level 1 or 2, it says 12. Because she had autism, I saw something different, and so that was a wake-up call for me. To know

BLUE LAKE STUDIOS

Reagan, Julie, Collin (at top), Karagan and Michigan Lt. Gov. Brian Calley. Calley has committed his career to helping people with autism and other neurological challenges. that if my son came home with that report card, I would have seen 12 (but) because my daughter had autism, on the report card, I saw something different.

So Reagan is off-the-charts smart, despite the fact that she is wired differently. Or because she is wired differently.

Yes, probably because she is (autistic). She is like any other kid, where she has strengths and weaknesses.

Writing and reading are both major strengths.

But there is the inflexibility.

Yes, exactly. I look at it now like, who knows what the future will be?

It’s easy to fall into the mindset that you don’t expect that she is going to have a relationship with somebody and get married and have her own family.

(Calley recalls Reagan rocking a doll during a behavior therapy session.)

The behavior tech that was working with her said to her, “Reagan, what do you think about holding the baby?” And (Reagan) said, “I like it!

Someday I am going to have a baby of

my own.”

That was another thing — like so she is not ruling that out, but it did not even occur to me that maybe she would have a baby herself someday, and so it’s constantly this thing: As someone who is loving her and supporting her and believing in her and talking about advocacy, I am still having to constantly be reminding myself not to (place) limitations on her before she has an opportunity to go out there and explore what she wants.

If I struggle with this, then everybody struggles with it, because I live it. I am tied for first place (as) Reagan’s biggest advocate in the world. I believe in her, and I want her to have whatever kind of life she wants to have. So if I still have trouble with setting expectations, when it’s a future employer or other people in the community, or teachers, this is something we really need to be working on.

You have an opportunity here to talk to the influential folks who read Crain’s publications. What would you say to a businessperson to convince them that hiring people with different brain wiring SEE CALLEY,PAGE 7

Southeast Michigan is a better place because of Barbara McQuade. She has toiled endlessly for the citizens of our community, and if you have a chance to read her report card on herself, it is an impressive document.

Certainly her office is best known for being responsible for convicting Kwame Kilpatrick, the former mayor of Detroit, but her office has a long list of accomplishments of which the community can be very proud.

My guess is that she has had enough, but it would be a great thing if she and the new administration decided that she still has work to be done and would continue as U.S. Attorney for Southeastern Michigan. We’ve been lucky to have her working on our behalf these many years.

If she chooses to go into private practice, she will be in high demand and no doubt worth every penny. But keep our fingers crossed and she just might stick around for a bit longer.

Meanwhile another Michigan citizen is being pilloried in Congress during her Senate confirmation hearings for Secretary of Education. It is an obvious example of why anyone wouldn’t ever be interested in running or accepting an appointment for office.

Betsy DeVos surely does not need this appointment. She has been involved with education for years. To say it is her passion would be an understatement.

She has also worked tirelessly for school choice, which has created many supporters. At the same time, her support of charter schools has also created foes who want to see her rejected.

Those opponents include the teachers unions, who see school choice as a real threat.

McQuade and DeVos are probably at opposite ends of the political spectrum. But that certainly does not detract from their individual skills and abilities.

McQuade has put more bad educators in jail for corruption than anyone. DeVos has been supporting school choice for a very long time, without fear or favor.

It could be the beginning and the end for two very talented citizens of Michigan. Let us hope that they both get a chance to serve for a long time.

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LETTER TO THE EDITOR

DMC isn’t paying Wayne State doctors too much To the Editor: We were disappointed in your Jan. 19 article, “Mullany’s departure from DMC linked to resistance to further cost-cutting,” and wish to correct the record regarding the agreement between Wayne State University Physician Group (WSUPG) and Tenet/Detroit Medical Center. The article cited anonymous sources within DMC leadership stating that among the reasons for Joe Mullany’s replacement as chief executive officer was “a contract with Wayne State University

Send your letters: Crain’s Detroit Business will consider for publication all signed letters to the editor that do not defame individuals or organizations. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.

Email: rfournier@crain.com medical school that paid doctors too much for administration.” We feel we must set the record straight.

Under the new contract, not only is DMC paying WSUPG significantly

less for medical administration than under the previous agreement, but the payment is well below our base costs to provide these services.

Mr. Mullany joined the DMC as CEO in April 2012. During his tenure, WSUPG has experienced a 35 percent funding cut from the DMC in our combined teaching agreements, clinical service agreements and medical administration agreements. This enormous cut severely challenges Wayne State University School of Medicine’s and WSUPG’s educational, administrative, re-

search and clinical service missions. Tenet Healthcare Inc. likely had many reasons for Mr. Mullany’s departure. However, paying faculty physicians “too much” is clearly not one of those reasons and is contrary to the financial record and the fiscal facts.

Despite the significant and consequential funding cuts to WSUPG under Mr. Mullany, our faculty consistently strive to fulfill the primary missions of our medical school, including the education and training of our future physicians, conduct-

ing research that leads to cutting-edge treatments and improving the health of our community.

We thank our faculty, physicians and medical staff for their exceptional service under these very trying times.

David S. Hefner, MPA Vice President of Health Affairs Wayne State University Editor’s Note: A passage in the online version of the story has been clarified to specify that the DMC’s parent company was said to hold these views of the WSUPG contract.

CALLEY FROM PAGE 6

isn’t just a nice thing to do, but there’s actually a return on investment?

I am very careful to reject the notion that this is … charity, because that is not at all what I’m talking about. This is an effort to treat people who have a neurological difference the same way we would anyone else. You hire people that are well-suited for the job.

Ford’s recent experience with … a pilot (program) is now being expanded, because they had difficulty in certain high-tech positions — in finding the right people to fill those jobs and there are people with autism filling those jobs today. There are examples across the different forms of employment, from the type of jobs that are entry-level all the way through to complicated jobs. People are excelling (at their jobs) because they have mostly been given a chance to prove what they were able to do.

“People are excelling because they have mostly been given a chance to prove what they were able to do ... ” Lt. Gov. Brian Calley

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It can be more difficult. I would suggest, though … it’s not that more different than … the difficulty of making other types of changes or accommodations. As an example, this next generation coming into the workforce, what we do to employ the next generation is going to require big changes in the ways businesses operate. If you want to get at that talent … it is going to require a change in how we operate.

Ron Fournier is the author of a book about autism, “Love That Boy: What Two Presidents, Eight Road Trips and My Son Taught Me About a Parent’s Expectations.” He serves on the board of directors for the Autism Alliance of Michigan.

Dr. Barbara Ciaramitaro is the only full-time information technology professor named to Crain’s Business Detroit’s list “50 People to Know in IT”

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Moore among possible investors in Summit Place plan

By Kirk Pinho kpinho@crain.com

Former Detroit Lions wide receiver Herman Moore is in talks to invest with a group weighing a purchase and redevelopment of the dilapidated and shuttered Summit Place Mall site in Waterford Township, according to sources familiar with the tentative deal speaking on the condition of anonymity.

In addition, Herman Moore: former UniversiFormer Lion in ty of Michigan talks to invest. basketball player and current Oakland Community College men’s basketball coach Antoine Joubert has committed to investing, sources said.

The sources said the group is planning a sports and entertainment complex on the approximately 75-acre mall site on the Waterford Township-Pontiac border at North

Telegraph and Elizabeth Lake roads.

A message sent to Moore —who after retiring from the National Football League started Simple One Media LLC in 2004 — via direct message on Twitter was not answered.

Specifics of the plan are not known, nor are the other investors or possible investors or anticipated purchase price, if a deal moves forward.

There is a tentative purchase agreement, which has a six-month due diligence period that expires in March, to buy the mall from Santa Monica, Calif.-based owner SD Capital LLC. The Oakland Press reported on the purchase agreement in September.

Township Supervisor Gary Wall said that under the tentative agreement, part of the mall is expected to be demolished while the rest would be redeveloped.

The timetable is “before we would consider moving forward with our dangerous-building process," Rob Merinsky, director of development services for Waterford, said in a re-

Summit Place Mall in Waterford Township has fallen into disrepair since it closed in 2009. cent interview with Crain’s. That process could end in township-ordered demolition of the mall.

The past decade or more has not been friendly to Summit Place, which opened in 1963 and was developed by what is now Farmington Ramco-Gershenson Hills-based Properties Trust (NYSE:RPT).

First known as the Pontiac Mall, it began declining in the 1990s and 2000s as nearby Great Lakes Crossing Outlets in Auburn Hills, developed

by Bloomfield Hills-based Taubman Centers Inc., siphoned shoppers to the northeast with its opening in 1998.

After the enclosed portion of the mall closed in 2009 following years of decline, anchor stores Macy’s and J.C. Penney closed in 2010 and Sears closed in December 2014.

The site has been deteriorating for years, and has been the target of scrappers. A demolition order was

issued in June but SD Capital was able to stave that off for the time being. Township Clerk Sue Camilleri told Crain’s at the time that razing the mall was estimated to cost $4.1 million.

Redevelopment and reuse proposals for the property have been plentiful in the past. Uses ranging from baseball stadiums to water parks to multifamily housing have been pitched for the site in the past.

An effort to build a $9.5 million, 3,900-seat stadium for the Ypsilanti-based Midwest Sliders baseball team in the Frontier League failed because of lack of financing.

In 2013, a plan to build housing on the site for about 100 veterans and their families fell apart.

Moore, who played 145 games in 11 seasons with the Lions from 1991 to 2001, caught 670 passes for 9,174 yards during his NFL career with 62 touchdowns. He played one game

KIRK PINHO/CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS

in his 12th and final season in 2002 with the New York Giants.

Moore was a Crain’s 40 Under 40 honoree in 2003. At that time, he was president and CEO of HJM Enterprises LLC, which owned 17 Cinnabon locations in Michigan and Florida plus three coffee shops in Oakland County and Detroit. It’s not known if Moore still owns them.

Joubert was the state’s Mr. Basketball at Detroit Southwestern High School in 1983 and, after his UM career, was picked in the sixth round of the National Basketball Association draft by the Detroit Pistons in 1987. He never played in the NBA but played professional basketball overseas.

He told the Ann Arbor News in 2010 that he retired from basketball in 2001 and then went to work for Chrysler and Ford Motor Co. Kirk Pinho: (313) 446-0412 Twitter: @kirkpinhoCDB

Detroit DDA adopts transparency measures on committee meetings

By Kirk Pinho kpinho@crain.com

The Detroit Downtown Development Authority board has voted

Progress.

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unanimously to increase transparency measures to require committee meetings be public and mandate disclosure of meeting agendas in advance.

The issue was in the limelight due to a recent lawsuit by an activist seeking to rescind the DDA’s approval of a tentative agreement that allows the Detroit Pistons to move from The Palace of Auburn Hills to the under-construction Little Caesars Arena for the 2017-18 season.

A resolution adopted unanimously by the full DDA board last week said the measure comes in anticipation of legislation introduced in the last state legislative session that would require more disclosure.

The resolution requires that “except where permitted under Section 8 of (the Open Meetings Act)” meeting agendas be posted “as soon as practicable” after release to the board but no later than five business days after such release.

Section 8 of the OMA generally provides secrecy provisions related

to personnel matters, collective bargaining agreements and other matters. But it does also include a clause that allows for closed-door sessions on the purchase or lease of property.

The DDA is staffed by the Detroit Economic Growth Corp., which also staffs other city economic development agencies.

“DEGC strongly supports economic development that opens up opportunities for more people, engages citizens in projects that affect their communities, and is governed in an open, transparent process,” Rodrick Miller, president and CEO of the DEGC, said in a statement Thursday. “We support today’s changes as natural outgrowths of these principles that guide our work.”

Full DDA board meetings are open to the public, but the DDA has contended that its committee meetings are not required to be open to the public.

The DEGC has long been criticized for a lack of transparency. The issue was revived in November, when the finance committee met in secret before the full DDA board voting on a memorandum of understanding that helps set in motion the

Pistons move next season. A month later, a legal challenge was filed.

According to the Detroit Free Press, activist Robert Davis filed a lawsuit on Dec. 22 claiming that the DDA violated the state’s Open Meetings Act by meeting in private.

Earlier this month, Circuit Judge John Gillis Jr. ordered that the DDA produce “notes and audio recordings” from the finance committee meeting for a hearing, the Free Press reported. Last week, Gillis adjourned that hearing, meaning that the finance committee doesn’t have to produce those materials at any specific time.

Davis’ attorney Andrew Paterson said last week that Davis agreed to pay a $1,000 bond to let the lawsuit move forward. The bond payment is required any time Davis files a lawsuit in Wayne County Circuit Court, Paterson said, under an order issued by a former judge.

In addition, as part of last week’s proceedings, the DDA agreed to make its finance committee meetings public for the duration of the lawsuit.

Kirk Pinho: (313) 446-0412 Twitter: @kirkpinhoCDB

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SPECIAL REPORT: BUSINESS EDUCATION

Show your work GETTY IMAGES

Earning an MBA by demonstrating competency gains popularity, but here’s how to avoid ‘bad actors’

By Rachelle Damico

Special to Crain’s Detroit Business

Business professionals looking to gain an MBA don’t have to sit through lectures and work toward credit hours.

Competency-based degree programs measure a student’s success by learning rather than how many hours a student spends in the classroom. Degrees are earned by demonstrating skills and knowledge through presentations, papers and tests related to required subject areas, without sitting in a classroom.

Students are therefore rewarded for prior experience if they can prove they’ve mastered the knowledge and skills required for the competency.

“It provides someone with the learning and the opportunity to show what they can do,” said Dorothy Wax, associate vice president of operations for Council for Adult and Experiential Learning.

The nonprofit is an advocate for competency-based learning, and has worked with institutions to help get programs in place for adult learners.

Competency-based learning isn’t

new, but it’s becoming more prominent, Wax said.

For years, institutions like Capella University and Western Governors University have offered online degrees that allow business professionals to obtain an MBA at their own pace and time.

More institutions are adding such programs. Two years ago, Grand Rapids-based Davenport University announced it would offer a competency-based MBA for experienced business professionals as an alternative to the traditional MBA program.

When vetting universities, students should consider a school’s track record to ensure the degree is coming from a viable institution. Diploma mills, which grant a piece of paper that is mostly valueless, are still around.

“There are good actors and bad actors, and some schools are going to be stronger than others,” said Barbara Gellman-Danley, president of the Higher Learning Commission.

Crain’s talked to experts for advice and tips on how to ensure businesses professionals earn a valid degree.

Step 1: Make sure the university is accredited.

The first step to finding a reliable institution is to make sure it’s regionally accredited. Michigan’s accreditor, the Chicago-based Higher Learning Commission, has a directory of accredited institutions in good standing on its website at www. hlcommission.org.

“It will give information about its level of accreditation and if there’s any issues, like if they’re on a sanction such as probation,” Gellman-Danley said.

Business professionals may also want to ensure an institution has a specialized accreditation for business programs.

“It validates above and beyond the regional accreditation,” said Steven Parscale, chief accreditation officer for the Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs. “It’s a focus on the business degree and the faculty teaching the programs, and if they’re qualified to teach.”

Competency-Based Education Network, a group of regionally accredit-

“There are a lot of schools that bring in students for financial aid and don’t care whether they graduate or not.

They bring them in, get their financial aid and they wash out, fail out or drop out.”

Steven Parscale, chief accreditation officer for the Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs

ed colleges and universities, offers a list of accredited institutions on its website, cbenetwork.org. The list features participating C-BEN institutions that offer competency-based degree programs with well-defined learning outcomes and rigorous assessment, or are on their way to cre-

ating them.

“Out of those that applied, we took (institutions) that we thought were furthest along in the development of their programs,” said Charla Long, executive director of C-BEN.

Step 2: Investigate its track record.

Do some digging to ensure an institution has a good reputation.

The National Center for Education Statistics has a “College Navigator” link on its website that offers information about institutions, including retention and graduate rates.

“There are a lot of schools that bring in students for financial aid and don’t care whether they graduate or not,” Parscale said. “They bring them in, get their financial aid and they wash out, fail out or drop out.”

Viewing retention and graduate rates will help students form conclusions about the likelihood of their success.

“You want to know that faculty members and administrations are SEE SKILLS, PAGE 10

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SKILLS

gine, a good chance is you won’t find it,” he said.

FROM PAGE 9

counseling and advising students in a way that they can be successful in earning their degree,” Parscale said.

Step 3: Watch out for red flags.

Avoid institutions that offer false promises or statements that sound too good to be true.

Advertisements that promise discounted tuition or free books if you sign up today are likely not credible.

“This is not car sales,” Gellman-Danley said. “All of these things are not education best practices by a long shot.”

When visiting websites, take steps to make sure the website is legit. Diploma mills — phony universities that sell college diplomas and transcripts rather than educational experience — provide illegitimate diplomas for anyone who pays the requested tuition.

“There’s a lot of diploma mills that copy good college and university websites, but if you read through you’ll find typos or the alignment is out of place,” Parscale said. “That’s a red flag.”

Parscale said scammers may also include a link to a phony accreditation website.

“If you copy and type that accreditor’s name into a search en-

Step 4: Reach out to faculty and graduates.

Network with graduates and reach out to faculty to ask specific questions about the program.

“You should be able to find emails and contact information for faculty members,” Parscale said. “Reach out to and ask how long they’ve been teaching, and ask specific questions about the competency-based programs.”

It’s important to also find out how long the competency-based program has been in existence.

Larry Gruppen, a professor of learning health sciences at the University of Michigan, directs the university’s competency-based master’s program in health professions education.

He said he knows of schools that hire faculty members who are not experienced with teaching competency-based programs.

“Many (competency-based programs) are new, and many of the faculty have no idea how to go about building or operating a program like this,” he said.

Gellman-Danley said students shouldn’t be afraid to ask institutions specific questions about the qualifications of their faculty.

“At the core of what makes quality education are the faculty and what goes on in the classroom,” she said.

These are times of epic change: an economic transition atop a technological revolution amid a new demography that is transforming the face of our nation. This confluence of transformative events creates a particular challenge for leaders.

Detroit business leaders chosen for workforce leadership academy

By Kurt Nagl knagl@crain.com

J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. is putting $200,000 toward a new program aimed at helping Detroit business leaders solve workforce issues in the city.

The Detroit Workforce System Leadership Development Academy consists of 22 business leaders in a 12-month program to collaborate on solutions and nationwide best practices to better engage employers, understand industry workforce needs and develop successful career pathway strategies in Detroit, Chase said.

The academy is part of New York City-based Chase’s $100 million investment in Detroit that was committed to the city for its economic revival.

Nonprofit groups Corporation for a Skilled Workforce, based in Ann Arbor, and Washington, D.C-based The Aspen Institute worked to select academy fellows in mid- to senior-level management positions who are positioned to implement organizational changes.

The program includes retreats in January and November, five full-day sessions from March to September and a capstone presentation in December.

“As a result of this program, this exciting group of local leaders will be able to come up with innovative and practical solutions that connect Detroiters to open jobs in a way they’ve

never done before,” Chauncy Lennon, head of Chase’s Workforce Initiatives, said in the release.

The following were chosen for the academy: n Kristen Barnes-Holiday, director of program outcomes for Reading Works. n Sister Janice Brown, executive director for Dominican Literacy Center. n Jacqueline Burau, senior program officer for Detroit Local Initiative

Support Corp.

n Devon Buskin, director of workforce development for The Greening of Detroit. n Emily Dieppa, executive director for CarePath Career Center. n Brittany Foley, program manager for Michigan Community Services. n Shawna Forbes, vice chancellor of the School of Continuing Education and workforce development for the Wayne County Community College District. nMary Freeman, director of workforce development for Southwest Solutions. n Naheed Huq, manager of talent and economic development for the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments. n Marcus Jones, director for the Detroit Training Center.

n Tammie Jones, vice president of

College and Career Pathways, and CEO

for Linked Learning Alliance for United Way for Southeastern Michigan. n Ann Leen, assistant vice president of youth services for SER Metro-Detroit, Jobs for Progress Inc.

n Ricardo Marble, director of youth services for the city of Detroit. n Teresa McFadden, director of operations of Vehicles for Change Detroit. n Chioke Mose-Telesford, deputy director of workforce development office for the city of Detroit. n Stephanie Nixon, director of program and service innovation for Detroit

Employment Solutions Corp.

n Hachem Ossarian, operations manager for ACCESS. n Veronica Sanchez Peavy, senior assistant vice president of adult programs and regional director for SER

Metro-Detroit, Jobs for Progress Inc.

n Sarah Sebaly, senior program manager of the workforce intelligence network at Southeast Michigan Community Alliance. n Robert Shimkoski, director of policy planning and resource development for the Detroit Employment Solu-

tions Corp.

n Edward Steinberger, director of Detroit career center for Goodwill Industries. n Rashida Thomas, director of workforce development and education for Focus: Hope.

Crain’s Michigan Change Makers celebrates the state’s most innovative leaders who are helping their

companies and communities navigate the currents of change.

These men and women don’t just react to change; they embrace and exploit it.

This special section will be published in the June 5 edition of Crain’s Detroit Business.

Do you know an agent of change? Tell us about them.

Submit your nomination by Tuesday, Feb. 14 at CrainsDetroit.com/nominate.

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Restructuring Experience

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An investment group purchased the 489,000-square-foot technical center at 3000 University Drive in Auburn Hills currently occupied by Delphi Automotive plc.

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Joint venture buys Delphi building in Auburn Hills

By Kirk Pinho kpinho@crain.com

An investment group has bought a 489,000-square-foot technical center currently occupied by Troybased Delphi Automotive plc.

The buyers, a joint venture between Oak Park-based Edge Realty LLC and Vancouver-based Gibralt Capital Corp., did not disclose the purchase price for the deal that closed earlier this month.

The building had at one point been listed for $25.5 million by Southfield-based Signature Associates Inc., according to CoStar Group Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based real estate information service.

The building at 3000 University Drive between I-75 and North Squirrel Road will have about 275,000 square feet of office space available, said Sal Delisi and Tarik Dinha, owners of Edge Capital, which will move into the Auburn Hills building.

They said they are most actively looking at deals of 75,000 square feet or more, but would be willing to consider leases of 10,000 square feet or more depending on the tenants’ creditworthiness.

Brose North America Inc. has taken about 32,000 square feet and Delphi will occupy only the lab space effective May 1.

In 2007, Valeo Electrical Systems Inc. sold the building to the California-based Metcalf Family Living Trust for $33 million, Crain’s reported at the time. The building was sold in 2011 to an ownership entity called Shamrock University Drive LLC, which is affiliated with Los Angeles-based Shamrock Capital Advisors LLC. Signature Associates represented Shamrock on the deal, Delisi and Dinha said.

They said the Auburn Hills deal brings their real estate portfolio to more than 1 million square feet of office and industrial and land under ownership and management.

The company is also the owner of the 265,000-square-foot Crown Pointe office property in Oak Park, which it bought two years ago for $3.2 million, according to CoStar.

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C R A I N ’ S D E T R O I T B U S I N E S S // J A N U A R Y 3 0 , 2 0 1 7

CALENDAR

UPCOMING EVENTS

Car industry briefing: Driving Regional Competitiveness in Advanced Mobility. 9 a.m.-noon. Feb. 8. Center

for Automotive Research. Event will provide a forum for organizations leading the way to next-generation automotive and mobility technologies to present their latest developments and shed light on transportation of the future. VisTaTech Center, Schoolcraft College, Livonia. $95. Contact: Shaun Whitehouse, phone: (734) 929-0493; email: swhitehouse@cargroup.org; website: cargroup.org.

2017 Technology Industry Outlook.

8-11 a.m. Feb. 13. Automation Alley.

The 2017 Technology Industry Report will be unveiled from Automation Alley’s survey of technology and manufacturing executives from Southeast Michigan and across the country to determine their knowledge of Industry 4.0, or the fourth industrial revolution, and whether they are ready for coming changes in the manufacturing industry. Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit. $25 members; $45 nonmembers. Email: events@automationalley.com ; phone: (800) 427-5100.

Giving Up the Wheel: The Future of Mobility and Its Impact on Michigan.

11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Feb. 14. Detroit Economic Club. David Dauch, chairman and CEO, American Axle & Manufacturing Holdings; Matt Simoncini, president and CEO, Lear Corp.; and James Verrier, president and CEO, BorgWarner Inc., will dissect current

mobility efforts and share insights on the rapidly evolving road ahead.

Westin Book Cadillac, Detroit. $45 members; $55 guests of members; $75 nonmembers. Website: econclub.org.

Digital Marketing Boot Camp. 8-11 a.m. Feb. 15. Detroit Regional Chamber. Learn the latest innovations in social media, how to digitally tell a brand’s story, and trends and tips to improve digital marketing strategy.

College for Creative Studies, Detroit. $55 members; $95 nonmembers.

Contact: Marianne Alabastro,

phone: (313) 596-0479; email: malabast@detroitchamber.com; website: d e t r o i t c h a m b e r. c o m / d i g i t a l marketing-boot-camp.

Mobility — Its Disruption to the Auto Industry and Beyond. 5-8 p.m. Feb. 16.

Marketing and Sales Executives of Detroit. John McElroy, host of Autoline Daily and president of John McElroy

Blue Sky Productions, will dis-

cuss the ins and outs of the auto industry. MSU Management Education Center, Troy. $45 members; $60 nonmembers. Website: msedetroit. org.

Young Professionals Panel — The Changing Face of Leadership. 7:30-9 a.m. Feb. 21. Leadership Oakland.

Moderator: Jennifer Korman, Mercedes-Benz Financial Services. Panelists: Talisa Norton, co-owner/COO, All Pro Color; Sara Stoddard, chief of

emergency management, Oakland County Homeland Security Division; Jordan Twardy, community and economic development director, city of Ferndale. MSU Management Education Center, Troy. $32 members; $36 nonmembers. Website: leadershipoakland.com.

The State of Manufacturing 2017: A New Way Forward. 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Feb. 24. Detroit Economic Club.

Jay Timmons, president and CEO, National Association of Manufacturers, on today’s industry, the latest on

the Trump administration, the new Congress and manufacturing in America. Westin Book Cadillac, Detroit. $45 members; $55 guests of members; $75 nonmembers. Website: econclub.org.

2017 Detroit Policy Conference: Reigniting an Innovative Spirit. 7:30 a.m.

March 2. Detroit Regional Chamber.

Toni Griffin, founder of Urban Planning for the American City, will deliv-

Charter School Capital, Portland,

Ore., a provider of growth capital and financing to charter schools, announced its facilities arm, American Education Properties, acquired the building occupied by Detroit Public Safety Academy, Detroit. This secures the academy a long-term facility in which to operate. Website: charterschoolcapital.org.

BNP Media, Troy, a publishing company, has acquired the publication Hotel F&B, Austin, Texas, a publication that serves lodging and food and beverage professionals in ho-

How Trump Economics Will Fail The Middle Class. 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m.

March 7. Detroit Economic Club.

Speaker: Neera Tanden, president, Center for American Progress.

Townsend Hotel, Birmingham. $45 members; $55 guests of members; $75 nonmembers. Website: econclub.org.

Asian Pacific American Chamber of Commerce 14th Annual East-West Business Connection. 9:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m. March 8. Global business net-

working event, comprised of Asian and U.S. businesses and minority business enterprises throughout the Midwest. Edward Village, Dearborn. APACC $70 members; $95 nonmembers; $100 walk-ins. Contact: Leonie Teichman, phone: (248) 430-5855; email: leonie@apacc.net.

Economic Prospects for the U.S. and Regional Economy in 2017-2018.

11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. March 16. Detroit Economic Club. Stuart Hoffman, senior vice president and chief economist at PNC Financial Services Group., will share his insights on

Trump policy impacts and will forecast important indicators such as U.S. energy production, unemployment and interest rates, the stock market and consumer spending.

Westin Book Cadillac, Detroit. $45 members; $55 guests of members; $75 nonmembers. Website: econclub.org.

Calendar guidelines. Visit crainsdetroit.com and click “Events” near the top of the home page.

Then, click “Submit Your Events” from the drop-down menu that will appear. Fill out the submission form, then click “Submit event” at the bottom of the page.

More Calendar items can be found at crainsdetroit.com/events.

er a keynote address and Detroit

DEALS & DETAILS ACQUISITIONS & MERGERS

Mayor Mike Duggan will have a oneon-one conversation with Stephen Henderson, Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial page editor for the Detroit Free Press. MotorCity Casino Hotel, Detroit. $159 chamber members; $235 nonmembers. Contact: Sarah Nagel, phone: (313) 596-0384; email: snagel@detroitchamber.com.

tels, resorts and casinos worldwide.

Website: bnpmedia.com.

EXPANSIONS

Dickey’s Barbecue Restaurants Inc., Dallas, Texas, has opened a Dickey’s Barbecue Pit franchise at 48975

Grand River Ave., Suite 300, Novi.

Telephone (248) 923-1227. Website: dickeys.com.

MOVES

Pogoda Companies, owner and

manager of self-storage facilities, has moved its corporate office from 30301 Northwestern Highway, Suite 400, Farmington Hills to 30500 Northwestern Highway, Suite 525,

Farmington Hills. Telephone (248) 855-9676. Website: pogodaco.com.

NEW PRODUCTS

Integrated Sensing Systems Inc.,

Ypsilanti, a microelectromechanical systems fluidic technology company, has introduced MassSense liquid and gas density meters and liquid flow meters to its ISS Fluidis group.

Website: metersolution.com.

Deals & Details guidelines. Email cdbdepartments@crain.com. Use any Deals & Details item as a model for your release, and look for the appropriate category. Without complete information, your item will not run. Photos are welcome, but we cannot guarantee they will be used.

“We want to be a collective space to connect our communities through simple food and drink in a rustic but comfortable setting.”

Katie Kutscher, The Berkley Common

The Berkley Common to open in former Berkley Front bar

By Rachelle Damico

Special to Crain’s Detroit Business

A new restaurant and bar, The Berkley Common, began construction in November and is pushing efforts to open this spring in the former Berkley Front LTD bar and restaurant.

Katie Kutscher, owner and operator of The Berkley Common, said the 5,000-square-foot restaurant on 12 Mile Road in its namesake city will feature “fresh food with a twist,” describing the cuisine as “American transitional.”

“We want to be a collective space to connect our communities through simple food and drink in a rustic but comfortable setting,” Kutscher said.

The menu will feature both small plates — such as trios of tacos and lobster rolls — to unique full-size menu options that include burgers with Asian steamed buns and Kim Chi Fried Cauliflower. The menu will also feature gluten-free and vegan options.

Kutscher said The Berkley Common plans to have a flat-top roof design that will be home to an herb garden used for the restaurant’s craft cocktail garnishes.

The restaurant and bar also plan to use local purveyors and source meat from Eastern Market.

“It’s important to keep as much business local for (the) economy and quality,” Kutscher said.

She is designing the space in collaboration with Royal Oakbased Christopher Thomas Construction LLC — the company that’s renovating the building.

The two-story space can seat up to 160 people. The bar area will feature rustic wood tables, some of which will be communal. Banquette seating will stretch across the Griffith Avenue side of the building, facing four oversize windows. Two garage doors will open to West 12 Mile Road.

“We’re trying to bring the outdoor in as much as we can,” Kutscher said.

Kutscher said the restaurant and bar will still incorporate elements from Berkley Front. For instance, the restaurant will still be beer-centric. More than 30 taps will be poured, from brewers both locally and around the globe. A growler program will also be explored.

“We’re definitely going to host beer nights featuring distinct beer

that probably nobody has in the area,” Kutscher said. “They’ll be something for every beer (enthusiast).”

The original jukebox is also being restored, and the owners are working to preserve the restaurant’s tin ceiling.

“There’s a nostalgia here we don’t want to stomp on,” Kutscher said. “There are a lot of people that loved the place and have fond memories of it.”

Kutscher, who grew up in Grosse Pointe, purchased the building in July 2016 along with her sister, owner and CPA Christine Gross.

This isn’t Kutscher’s first restaurant venture — she formerly owned two bars that served limited food in New York City, but decided to move back to Michigan in part because she became attracted to opening a restaurant during Detroit’s revitalization.

“A lot of people I know from Brooklyn and New York are actually moving to Detroit to open places now,” Kutscher said. “I feel that it’s going to be one of the more competitive food culinary places in the next couple years, if not already.”

She searched for a space in the Corktown and Eastern Market area for more than two years, but ran into difficulties closing on restaurants in Detroit.

“I bid on a couple of spaces, and unfortunately didn’t get them,” she said.

Kutscher saw a listing online for the space in Berkley, which was under contract, but Kutscher had a feeling the deal would fall through.

“It seemed like it was never closing, so I kept up with the broker who was showing the space,” she said. “The deal fell through, and he let me view the space.”

Kutscher said the building may have never closed because of the scope of the project is daunting — much of the building, Kutscher said, is not up to code.

“I have to fix almost every square inch of the place,” Kutscher said. “The building needs a lot of work, but it’s a great, historic building that has great bones.”

In addition to the space itself, Kutscher said she was attracted to the surrounding community.

“I think Berkley has a wonderful community,” Kutscher said. “I feel we can be just as competitive in Berkley as we could have been in Detroit.”

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Blue Cross taking 380 employees to Southfield Town Center

By Kirk Pinho kpinho@crain.com

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan

is bringing about 380 employees to the Southfield Town Center to work in its growing Medicare Advantage consulting business line, the state’s largest health insurer has confirmed.

Detroit-based Blue Cross will lease about 65,000 square feet across three floors in the 1000 Town Center skyscraper with a planned opening in late April or early May, said Helen Stojic, director of corporate affairs for BCBSM. The employees will be a mixture of new hires and current employees working out of the Detroit headquarters, Southfield and Lansing.

Blue Cross’ footprint in its 21-story headquarters at 600 E. Lafayette Blvd. in downtown Detroit will remain the same as it repurposes the space being vacated for other business units, Stojic said.

The employees are from departments in the insurer’s Emerging Markets Division, which Crain’s reported on in March.

Among those taking space in Southfield are divisions within Tessellate, which is a business unit offering other health plans with Medicare risk adjustment and quality programs, Stojic said.

Blue Cross has more than 6,000 employees in downtown Detroit.

Last May, the board of the Michigan Blues approved a plan to create an emerging markets division that would coordinate new and enhanced business lines like Medicare Advantage. Besides helping fellow Blues plans, the idea is to boost revenue and profits to help the Michigan Blues subsidize other operations.

As part of that new plan, Blue Cross now is managing claims and offering various support services to two smaller Midwest Blues’ plans for their Medicare Advantage products, Elizabeth Haar, Blue Cross’ new president of emerging markets division, said in June.

The emerging markets division now includes the Accident Fund, Medicare Advantage, Medigap (Medicare supplemental insurance) and two unnamed departments that will offer business outprocessing and quality improvement services for Medicare products.

Nationally, there are 36 Blues plans with 107 million members.

Medicare Advantage is a health insurance business line that has been especially profitable for insurers the past several years, including the Michigan Blues.

On the quality improvement consulting services the Michigan Blues are now offering, Blue Cross officials said they will help other plans achieve quality measures, review portfolio of insurance services, support pharmacy benefits and offer general consulting services.

Haar said she believes the Michi-

gan Blues can help other Blues plans earn a 2-to-1 return on investment.

Transwestern has the management and leasing contract for the Southfield Town Center, a 2.2 million-square-foot office complex that was purchased in 2014 by New York City-based 601W Cos. for $177.5 million.

The 1000 tower is 28 floors with 598,000 square feet and was built in 1989, according to CoStar Group Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based real es-

The 1000 Town Center building in Southfield has about 598,000 square feet.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan is leasing 65,000 square feet.

tate information service.

CoStar says the building is 80 percent occupied.

The deal marks a win for the Southfield Town Center complex, which is expected to lose Microsoft Corp. as a 50,000-square-foot tenant under an expected deal with Dan Gilbert to bring the software company to downtown Detroit.

Crain's senior reporter Jay Greene contributed to this report.

Kirk Pinho: (313) 446-0412 Twitter: @kirkpinhoCDB

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C R A I N ’ S D E T R O I T B U S I N E S S // J A N U A R Y 3 0 , 2 0 1 7

PEOPLE: SPOTLIGHT

CBRE’s Latessa takes new post in Chicago

Longtime Detroit area real estate executive John Latessa is taking a new position in Chicago with Los Angeles-based CBRE Inc.

UNITED SHORE FINANCIAL SERVICES

United Shore Financial Services built a new welcome center as part of a $250,000 office upgrade.

ADVERTISEMENT SECTION

United Shore Financial Services expands operations, to hire 600

By Tyler Clifford tclifford@crain.com

ACCOUNTING Paul Roush Principal

WSR Certified Public Accountants WSR Certified Public Accountants, a leading Michigan firm based in Ann Arbor, has announced that Paul Roush, CPA has been promoted to Principal. Possessing over 18 years of public accounting experience, specializing in corporate, partnership, multi-state taxation and tax audit defense.

Paul looks forward to continuing to assist individuals and business owners achieve their goals and implement strategic plans, while assuming a role in the overall management and planning for the firm.

FINANCIAL SERVICES Kathleen Kasperek Commercial Relationship Manager Flagstar Bank Kathleen Kasperek joined Flagstar Bank as first vice president and commercial relationship manager for middle market lending.

Previously, she was a commercial lender with Comerica, most recently specializing in healthcare and education, as well as middle market and large corporate lending. She has 27 years’ banking experience. At Flagstar, she is responsible for building lending relationships as well as cross-selling bank products, including treasury, derivative products and merchant services.

United Shore Financial Services LLC has expanded its operations by 20,000 square feet as the Troybased mortgage lender plans to hire 600 people in 2017, the company said last week.

The $250,000 expansion includes a new welcome center, a multi-room training center and more workspace in the 275,000-square-foot headquarters that founder and Chairman Jeffrey Ishbia purchased for $3 million in 2013. United Shore now occupies the entire five-story building after the recent departure of the

“Our goal is to hit $30 billion in loan volume this year, despite predictions of a slowing market.”

Latessa, 49, becomes Midwest division president, replacing Chris John Latessa Connelly. He will oversee 11 offices, including the regional hub in Chicago.

He has been senior managing director based in the Southfield office since 2008, while taking on the responsibility of overseeing CBRE’s offices in Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus, Indianapolis, Louisville, St. Louis and Kansas City between 2012 and 2014. He will continue to oversee the Southfield office until his replacement is found.

Before joining CBRE, Latessa was an executive with JFK Investment Company LLC and worked for Hines Interests and the former Grubb & Ellis Co., the predecessor to Newmark Grubb Knight Frank. He was one of the Crain’s 50 Names to Know in real estate last year.

University Musical Society names head New York Philharmonic President Matthew VanBesien will step down

to become president of the University

Musical Society

Art Institute of Michigan, which

of the Universi-

occupied the entire first floor.

The expansion is expected to be completed by mid-sumMat Ishbia, President and CEO, mer.

United Shore Financial Services LLC United Shore is looking to fill 600 jobs in IT, sales and underwriting. More than half of the company’s 2,000 staff members are millennials, spokesman Brad Pettiford said. Since 2014, United Shore has doubled its workforce with 1,000 new hires in 2016 alone.

Pettiford said the office’s services cater to employee needs, including an internal doctor’s office, free dry cleaning, a gourmet cafeteria and an inhouse Starbucks.

“You come here and it’s kind of like a one-stop shop,” he said.

Last year, United Shore registered more than $23 billion in loan volume, a 78 percent increase from 2015. United Wholesale Mortgage, the company’s primary business unit, has been the nation’s largest wholesale lender for two years in a row.

President and CEO Mat Ishbia said in a statement that this was the company’s best year of production, which is expecting 50 percent growth in 2017.

“Our goal is to hit $30 billion in loan volume this year, despite predictions of a slowing market,” he said. “Bringing in top local talent is the key to our growth.”

United Shore posted $857 million in total revenue in 2016.

in July.

He will succeed Ken Fischer, 72, who is VanBesien retiring at the end of June after leading the Ann Arbor organization for 30 years.

VanBesien, 47, joined the New York Philharmonic in 2012 as executive director and was named president two years later. He spent two years as managing director of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra in Australia and rose to executive director and CEO of the Houston Symphony during seven years there. A former French horn player, he performed for eight years with the Louisiana Philharmonic.

UMS is a UM-affiliated independent nonprofit that presents music, theater and dance performances by professional touring artists and free educational activities.

ty of Michigan

Health services firm CST picks first COO Critical Signal Technologies, a Novi-based health services company, named a new chief operating officer, Jim Kopczynski, who will

lead CST business operations in a new position for the company.

Kopczynski spent five years as CFO at Continental Energy Services.

He co-founded the private equity firm Waypoint Capital.

Chicago chef to move to new Detroit hotel Thomas Lents, who earned two Michelin stars for the Trump Tower fine-dining restaurant Sixteen in Chicago, is leaving to run the food program for a new hotel in downtown Detroit.

The move to Thomas Lents Detroit’s forthcoming Foundation Hotel marks a bit of a homecoming for the Battle Creek native, whose parents and grandparents were raised in Detroit. Lents, 43, said he’ll be in charge of multiple food outlets inside the hotel, including a large ground-floor restaurant and a fine-dining venue.

The hotel, owned and managed

by Chicago-based Aparium Group, is expected to open this spring in the former Detroit Fire Department headquarters across from Cobo Center.

Ed publication names 2 to Detroit bureau Chalkbeat, an independent news organization that covers local education, has launched a Detroit bureau, its fifth.

Erin Einhorn

and Julie Topping, currently the only staff members, will lead the new Erin Einhorn operations in Detroit, Chalkbeat co-founder, CEO and Chief Editor Elizabeth Green announced.

Einhorn, who grew up in metro Detroit, Julie Topping is senior Detroit correspondent and will report on Detroit schools, including those in the Education Achievement Authority district. She was formerly deputy managing editor for politics at the New York Daily News.

Topping retired in October after a 30-year career with the Detroit Free Press. She most recently was senior director of content strategy in charge of daily operations for numerous assignments including education.

Einhorn had been editor of Chalkbeat Indiana. Topping is now editor of both Chalkbeat Indiana and Detroit.

January 30, 2017

Page15 15

SD C R A I N ’ S D E T R O I TCRAIN B U’S I ETROIT N E S BSUSINESS // J A N U A R Y 3 0 , 2 0 1 7

LTU

FROM PAGE 3

Lawrence Tech will sell naming rights for the field, stadium, scoreboard and other aspects of the stadium and program to help defray costs, Finn said. No student-paid money, such as tuition or activity fees, will be used for the stadium, he said.

“We can build as we can afford,” Finn said. “We feel confident we can meet those fund-raising goals.”

Lawrence Tech ended a universitywide capital campaign in June that raised more than $125 million for expanded scholarships, new academic facilities and growth of the university’s endowment.

Once the football program has launched, its annual operating costs are forecast at nearly $1 million, Finn said, which is what the athletic department spends now on its 24 varsity sports for male and female athletes. By contrast, at the top of the college football pyramid, the University of Michigan budgets more than $32 million for its football program.

Tuition from the football players is expected to offset some of the football costs, Finn said. The team will have 120 to 140 players, and average yearly tuition at LTU is $40,000.

Student activity fees already cover some athletic department costs, and will help fund football, too. The other revenue sources to pay for football will come from naming rights, corporate sponsorships, alumni donations, ticket and concession sales, and shares of tournament cash pools, Finn said.

LTU’s plan is for the football team to compete as an independent in 2018, and then in 2019 to compete in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics’ Mid-States Football Association. The 13-team conference includes the only two other Michigan colleges playing NAIA football: Concordia University in Ann Arbor and Siena Heights University in Adrian.

The defending NAIA football champion is Fort Wayne, Ind.-based University of Saint Francis, who beat Kansas-based Baker University 38-17 in front of 2,500 fans at Municipal Stadium in Daytona Beach, Fla. The title game aired on ESPN3.

Grand Rapids-based Davenport University was an NAIA school, but moved up to NCAA Div. II this month and will play in the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. The state has 21 colleges playing NCAA football ( five NCAA Div. I, nine Div. II schools, and seven Div. III).

The NAIA permits schools like Lawrence Tech to make 24 scholarships available for football, and those scholarships can be given to cover full tuition for one player or divided to cover multiple athletes.

Having more than a hundred football players will help Lawrence Tech build an alumni base that returns to the campus for events — i.e. games — and potentially donates to the school, Finn said. The administration is seeking to increase the number of residential students from 700 now to 1,000 in coming years, and boost the current enrollment to 5,000 from the current 4,100. It has three residential buildings on its 102-acre campus.

The university, which reported

LAWRENCE TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY

Last year, an anonymous donor gave Lawrence Tech $1 million to cover the cost of an 88,000-square-foot synthetic grass field. It is lined for football, soccer and lacrosse, and has a sand and rubber in-fill base. $80.8 million in revenue last year, said its strategic plan adopted last year intends to make LTU a more traditional residential college rather than a commuter school.

“As a result, we need to provide more opportunities for an active student life and recreation,” Lawrence Tech President Virinder Moudgil said in a statement.

Adding sports teams and facilities, especially football and marching bands, can fuel an enrollment boost, according to a 2015 study of five small universities published in the magazine College Planning & Management by Virginia Wesleyan College President Scott Miller and former Carlow University President Marylouise Fennell.

“Each institution saw a six-year increase of at least 26 percent, with one institution doubling its enrollment during that period. An accompanying focus on student opportunity, fitness and fun is a more qualitative, but equally compelling, outcome,” they wrote.

To offset any fears that football would dumb down a university long known for its technical education, Moudgil said LTU athletes academically outperform regular students.

“We anticipate that we will continue to attract strong scholars to our new football program,” he said. “Indeed, when we examine the GPAs earned by our current student athletes, they are consistently higher than the GPAs of our overall student population.”

Lawrence Tech’s four primary academic areas are engineering, architecture, design and management.

There is another business case for football: The university discovered it was losing potential students because of a lack of traditional campus life, Finn said. So the decision was made several years ago to create a residential atmosphere that can fuel lifelong school loyalty.

“You can’t offer residential experience on a commuter campus,” Finn said.

Building a donor base can be especially lucrative: Among LTU’s alumni are billionaire Los Angeles Clippers owner and former Microsoft Inc. CEO Steve Ballmer, who attend-

ed LTU as a high school student and for one year, and he gave the school $20 million for a new building that opened last year.

Lawrence Tech relaunched its athletics programs, dormant since the 1950s, in 2011. Its 24 teams include basketball, soccer, lacrosse, hockey, golf, tennis, bowling, baseball, softball, volleyball and cross country. Plans are in the works to add women’s ice hockey, dance/ spirit squads and a marching band.

LTU has an on-campus fieldhouse for basketball and volleyball, but baseball and softball play off campus.

Lawrence Tech athletics since 2012 have competed in the NAIA’s 12-school Wolverine-Hoosier Athletic Conference, a Division II league that includes mostly Michigan-based colleges. Its hockey team is part of the Michigan Collegiate Hockey Conference.

The university was founded in Detroit in 1932 as an engineering college, and it moved to Southfield in 1955. Lawrence Tech said it offered football from when the school opened until World War II began.

There was a team briefly after the war, but football was discontinued because of a lack of interest, the school said.

Talks to relaunch football began three years ago, Finn said, and the university created a committee to study the possibility. It assembled data and reports, and visited similar schools that launched such programs.

“We got more confident and realized there was a possibility to do football, we did our homework,” Finn said.

The school addressed the ongoing public concern about brain injuries in football and costs in a statement. “The NAIA members are much more diligent in containing costs and stressing scholarship,” Finn said in a news release. “And it is our intention to meet or exceed all applicable safety and conditioning procedures to insure the health and well-being of our players.”

Chief at overseeing that well-being will be the head coach.

Duvendeck, 39, coached Cul-

ver-Stockton for six seasons and complied a 13-53 record at the Missouri-based NAIA school in the Heart of America Athletic Conference. He resigned on Nov. 30 after a

1-10 season. His 2015 team went 0-11.

He was Northern Michigan University’s offensive coordinator and offensive line coach from 2006-09. He also was offensive coordinator and offensive line coach at Michigan Technological University from 200305, and was a graduate assistant at Grand Valley State University in 2002 and graduate assistant at Tiffin University in Ohio in 2001.

As a player, Duvendeck was a running back at Central Michigan University. The Flushing native earned a bachelor’s degree in health promotion and rehabilitation from CMU in 2001 and a master’s degree in kinesiology from Michigan State University in 2016.

Lawrence Tech has budgeted funds for him to add full-time offensive and defensive coordinators, and a special teams coach or strength-and-conditioning coach, Finn said. There also will be three or four graduate assistants.

Bill Shea: (313) 446-1626 Twitter: @Bill_Shea19

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C R A I N ’ S D E T R O I T B U S I N E S S // J A N U A R Y 3 0 , 2 0 1 7

ART VAN

create the Van Elslander Family Cancer Center, and in 2006, $6.5 million to fund the Van Elslander Pavilion at

FROM PAGE 1

The company will largely focus on Michigan investments and acquisitions, but it could easily expand its efforts regionally or nationally, she said, declining to provide specifics on its focus areas just yet.

But one thing is clear.

“I can tell you that Mr. Van Elslander has no plans to remain in the furniture business,” Wells said.

Aside from pursuing new investment opportunities, the chairman and founder of Art Van Furniture is interested in finding a way to teach Detroit youth how to sell, beginning with marketing themselves.

“Perhaps it’s a dream, but if I could teach young boys and girls that you don’t have to be a celebrity, a musician or actor or actress, if you learn to sell, and I’m not talking about furniture.”

The opportunities are endless when you know how to sell, he said.

Art Van Furniture in 2015 piloted the trademarked Art Van Selling Institute, an online sales course for high school and college students, at two high schools in the Detroit Public Schools. But Van Elslander discontinued the program because it was not developing in the direction he wanted, Wells said, without giving specifics.

“We will continue to look for the right opportunities to achieve his goal of teaching the art of selling,” she said.

Van Elslander said he plans to fund his new personal foundation both with money he has on hand and cash from the sale of his company. It will give him the ability to make donations separate from those made through the Van Elslander Family Foundation.

The family foundation is about legacy; the new foundation “is about future philanthropy, which may take a different direction than the Family Foundation, Wells said.

The late Ralph Wilson Jr. is someone Van Elslander said he’s admired, going back years ago when the two were neighbors in Grosse Pointe.

The late owner of the Buffalo Bills and Grosse Pointe Park-based in-

LIVENGOOD FROM PAGE 1

The chamber’s Forward Detroit initiative sets a goal of 58 percent third-grade reading proficiency.

That sets the bar pathetically low. We shouldn’t stop until all third-graders are reading.

Business leaders can take the lead here, funding literacy initiatives, deploying employees to volunteer in schools to read to children, and pressing state leaders to focus on reading proficiency.

You want to see return on investment? Open the spigots of corporate C-suites to lobby and finance state politicians willing to support programs that directly contribute to higher reading scores. You want a healthier bottom line for Michigan schools?

Attack illiteracy as fiercely as you fought for a flat 6 percent corporate tax rate and other measures to make Michigan more business-friendly.

St. John Hospital and Medical Center

Art Van Elslander (center) is pictured at his company’s Downers Grove, Ill., store.

COURTESY ART VAN FURNITURE

vestment firm Ralph Wilson Equity Fund LLC left a bequest of more than $1 billion to fund the Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Foundation in January 2015.

Though gaining in popularity nationally, the Wilson Foundation’s spend-down model, which gives it just 20 years to give away its assets, is

still unique in Michigan.

Van Elslander said he isn’t yet sure yet what model his personal foundation will follow, whether spenddown like Wilson’s, permanently endowed to fund causes in perpetuity or a pass-through vehicle with annual infusions and distributions.

The foundation plans to launch a website soon, Wells said. It will primarily continue to support needs that have always been important to Van Elslander within his home state of Michigan and related to children, health and human services.

Through personal gifts and the family foundation, Van Elslander is St. John Providence Health System’s largest donor, with donations in excess of $10 million since 1989, said spokesman Brian Taylor, in an email.

Taylor declined to give the amounts of four major gifts made to the health system, in addition to many smaller gifts. But the largest donation in 2009 created the Van Elslander Neuroscience Center of Excellence at St. John Providence and the Van Elslander Surgical Innovation Center at Providence-Providence Park Hospital in Novi.

In 2000, Van Elslander donated $3 million to the health system to

Last fall, Gov. Rick Snyder signed a bill allowing third-grade students to be held back a year if they’re not proficient in reading. But lawmakers did not provide any funding for schools to hire the army of literacy coaches that are needed to help students catch up.

“It’s really tempting to say, ‘Well, we passed the bill and we’ve dealt with declining literacy levels.’ But bills and policies don’t improve schools,” said Amber Arellano, executive director of Education Trust-Midwest, a Royal Oak-based research and advocacy group.

Arellano argues Michigan faces a “deepening education crisis” that needs the attention of anyone with an interest in having an educated and high-skilled workforce.

Michigan ranked 41st in fourthgrade reading achievement in 2015, down from 28th in 2003, according to test scores compiled by Education Trust.

The rankings are worse when you break down students by different demographic areas: Fourth-graders from low-income families ranked 45th and white children from higher-income families were dead last.

“Only 9 percent of Michigan African American students are proficient in fourth-grade reading compared with 32 percent of white students,” Education Trust-Midwest wrote in a 2016 report.

That report, which should be required reading for state lawmakers and business leaders, is titled: “Michigan’s Talent Crisis: The Economic Case for Rebuilding Michigan’s Broken Public Education System.”

Despite mounting evidence on illiteracy, education reform is one the slowest-moving topics in the Legislature. The third-grade reading bill was debated for nearly four years before finally landing on the governor’s desk.

At the Detroit Regional Cham-

ber’s State of the Region luncheon Wednesday, the panel discussion centered on how to keep up the momentum of Detroit’s revitalization.

The panelists seemed lost as to what should be done next to improve educational outcomes in Detroit’s fractured system of public education.

“We’ve gotta figure out some way to put the kids first, and I frankly don’t know how to do that,” said Rip Rapson, president and CEO of The Kresge Foundation.

Everyone seems to agree reversing Detroit’s decades of population decline and suburban flight hinges on having stable neighborhoods where middle-class families want to live and vibrant commercial corridors where they want to spend their money.

That starts with schools. And the educational testing scores won’t go up until the business community wakes up to recognize that poor

COURTESY SAROKI ARCHITECTURE

A rendering of the building Art Van Elslander has planned in Birmingham to house his investment company and foundation.

in Detroit, which included the patient tower with 144 rooms and a new heart and circulatory center, according to Crain’s reports at the time.

A 2012 gift supported and named a neonatal intensive care unit at the Detroit campus.

Aside from those causes, Van Elslander said he’s very concerned with women’s heart health, given the interest a close, cardiologist friend has in it as the leading cause of death in women in the U.S. Van Elslander and Art Van Furniture have also contributed millions of dollars to The Parade Co. in support of the city’s Thanksgiving parade, including $200,000 to save the parade when it was set to shut down for lack of funding 26 years ago.

“That was just the beginning,” he said. “They needed organization, money; they were in really bad shape. Today the parade is one of the best things Detroit has going on. And we should never lose it.”

Art Van Furniture renewed its three-year sponsorship of America’s Thanksgiving Parade presented by Art Van last year.

Van Elslander said he isn’t sure if Thomas H. Lee will continue the sponsorship agreement after 2018.

But he told WJR AM 760 host Paul W. Smith late last week that he’ll get involved again, if the new owners of Art Van Furniture don’t continue the sponsorship.

Over the years, he’s also supported construction of the Van Elslander Family Center at the Society of St. Vincent de Paul in Detroit and the Art Van Sports Complex in Rockford, along with other donations made under the radar to organizations like Benjamin’s Hope, a Holland-based community for adults with special needs.

And through the Art Van Charity Challenge, Art Van Furniture has donated more than $8 million to over 350 charities in the cities it operates in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, helping them to leverage another $24 million.

Sherri Welch: (313) 446-1694 Twitter: @SherriWelch

public education is an existential threat to its bottom line.

“Whatever they can do to contribute to third-grade reading will ultimately take care of this,” said Mike Flanagan, who was Michigan’s superintendent of schools from 2005 and 2015 and long advocated for tougher reading standards for third-graders.

The emphasis on schools is especially important in Detroit because at some point in the near future, many of the thousands of young 20-somethings who have flocked to downtown and Midtown for jobs in Dan Gilbert’s business empire are going to want to start families and buy homes in neighborhoods with good schools.

And unless there is a significant change in education in Detroit, it will be back to the suburbs for the Motor City’s new middle class.

Chad Livengood: (313) 446-1654 Twitter: @ChadLivengood

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TRADES FROM PAGE 1

productive career, and now there’s a mismatch with what we do and what we need.”

The result was a drop in students taking vocational education classes statewide. In the 2006-07 school year, more than 136,000 Michigan students were enrolled in at least one vocational class in high school.

That figure dropped to fewer than 108,000 during the 2015-16 school year — leaving a gap between supply and demand, experts said.

Vocational education has become much more than the shop class many remember from high school. Training now focuses on advanced aspects of industry, such as green building standards in construction alongside carpentry; agricultural sciences including hydroponics; robotics and design; and computer networking and development.

Nearly 47,000 jobs requiring less than an associate’s degree were posted on the state’s jobs site, mitalent.org, in the last month. The state is also estimating there is a need for 15,000 new skilled trades workers annually through the next decade with average annual wages of $51,000, according to the Michigan

LARRY PEPLIN

Kyle Lyons, 18, of Oxford, sets up an electromagnetic operation at the Oakland County Schools Technical Campus in Pontiac.

Labor Market Information & Strategic Initiatives.

However, those wages can be much higher, said Adam Bowden, vice president of Hazel Park-based machining and fabricating shop P&G Technologies Inc.

Bowden said his machinists are averaging more than 70 hours per week, with yearly wages as high as $80,000 with overtime.

P&G is currently looking to hire two more machinists and is struggling to fill the jobs.

“We’re really busy right now,” Bowden said. “We need people with a mechanical inclination, and they’re not getting that from a fouryear institution. Whatever we’re doing now is obviously a failure. We need more workers now.”

At the heart of the issues, Aukee said, is that under the Michigan Merit Curriculum, students interested in vocational education are forced to complete the same courses as students destined for a four-year liberal arts education — such as four credits of mathematics, three credits of science and two credits of language — while trying to complete vocational programming.

“We are, in many cases, academic snobs,” Aukee said. “Courses in advanced manufacturing, or even welding, are no less rigorous than studying social studies or philosophy. We should embrace those differences and understand there’s a connection between economic development and education.”

Roger Curtis, the new director of the Michigan Department of Talent and Economic Development, said Snyder’s administration agrees there is a problem with the vocational education system and desperately wants to change it.

“Our infrastructure isn’t set up statewide to do this yet,” said Curtis, the former president of Michigan In-

LARRY PEPLIN

Student welder Sara Dobson, 17, of Lake Orion, practices test welds at the Oakland County Schools Technical Campus in Pontiac. ternational Speedway.

“Programs vary widely across the state, so this has become a very, very complicated issue. There’s not a ‘break glass and pull’ solution.”

Curtis said despite universal education requirements under the Michigan Merit Curriculum, vocational education is fractured, with different types of credit requirements, different credit hours between different intermediate school districts with some vocational campuses tied to millages. Some programs receive upward of $950 per student down to $100 per student, he said.

The Oakland Schools Technical Campuses, for instance, are primarily funded by a countywide millage that relies on revenue based on property values, which plummeted during the Great Recession. Between

2004 and 2011, more than 200 OSTC staff members were eliminated alongside furloughs and pay reductions.

The millage is also structured so that students can’t begin vocational education until their junior year.

Comparatively, students at Macomb Intermediate Schools can begin vocational training as freshmen.

Aukee said the difference is in delivery, where students in Oakland County travel to the campus for 2.5 hours per day, compared with under an hour each day at the home school of students in Macomb County.

Beau Everitt, a machine tool technology faculty member at Oakland Community College and former vocational teacher at OSTC, said pushing students toward universities and colleges eroded funding from voca-

tional programs, especially for certificate programs.

He said he’s only had one student entering his program at OCC with a certificate the college accepts toward credits.

“You can be 15 years old and take certification tests,” Everitt said.

“We’re not seeing that anymore because the funding went away, so we’re not offering these kids proper training.”

The ultimate goal for the state may be to find a new solution that alters the tenets of the Michigan Merit Curriculum to make it easier for vocational students, and a recommendation from the Snyder administration to state legislators is expected in as early as 45 days, Curtis said. He declined to comment further on the details.

But the Snyder administration may see opposition on any proposed changes to the curriculum. In 2014, two house bills were signed into law that allowed for credits in vocational education courses to count toward the Algebra II requirement, expanded the foreign language requirement to include credits earned as early as kindergarten and other modifications that permitted flexibility in learning.

The Department of Education opposed the bill, along with some legislators. Opponents claimed the bills watered down the state’s education system, making Michigan students less competitive than in other countries, MLive reported.

Then in May 2016, House Bill 5463 was introduced to replace the requirement of at least two foreign language credits and one credit in visual arts, performing or applied arts with three credits in a computer science, coding or vocational programs.

The Michigan House passed the bill weeks later, but it died in the Michigan Senate education committee

during the lame-duck session at the end of last year.

“We do have a lot of bipartisan support right now,” Curtis said. “Everyone understands we have a need to update our system to get our students training for the jobs that are out there now.”

The 21st Century Education Commission is expected to recommend a focus on individualized learning alongside competency-based education that sets up multiple pathways for graduation, Curtis said.

“We’ve benchmarked a lot of different programs, including those in Massachusetts, Ontario, Singapore and the Scandinavian countries,” he said. “They don’t have this factory-style approach to education.”

Aukee welcomes a change, but wishes education would go further to address immediate needs of industry.

“We have to stop offering everything under the sun to students until we get this system fixed and back on track,” she said. “We can’t keep telling kids if they go into marketing, they’ll have a job. Let’s tell them what jobs are in demand and find a way to give them those options. Let’s focus on programs that help our economy first, then get to the niceto-haves.”

Some of the most in-demand skilled labor jobs in Michigan are traditional, such as carpenters, pipefitters, machinists and electricians, with median hourly wages ranging from $18.39 to $28.07. However the new, growing industries are creating need for new skilled laborers, such as computer-user specialists, advanced manufacturing machine operators, web developers and more.

But even if the state is able to solve the very real logistical problems of vocational education, it must overcome the stigma of skilled labor as a “dirty job,” David Cole, chairman emeritus of the Ann Arbor-based Center for Automotive Research and chairman of the nonprofit Build for America’s Tomorrow, said in an email.

The nonprofit is working toward designing a nationwide coalition of industry leaders, government officials, educators, school administrators and businesses to market skilled trades.

Cole said the organization and partners needs to“communicate the idea that there are a huge number of great jobs if you get the right education and all jobs are very important. ... It isn’t a sin to get your hands dirty.”

The state recently launched its Going Pro With Skilled Trades marketing campaign with plans to expand its outreach this year, Curtis said. The program started with a few billboards on Michigan highways last fall.

“We’re going to double down on trying to change the perception to students and their parents and high school guidance counselors,” Curtis said. “They need to know what the potential earnings are for these jobs, that they can make a great living.

This, above all else right now, is our biggest challenge.”

Dustin Walsh: (313) 446-6042 Twitter: @dustinpwalsh

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DRONES FROM PAGE 3 www.crainsdetroit.com Editor-in-Chief Keith E. Crain Executive Vice President KC Crain Publisher/Editor Ron Fournier, (313) 446-1674 or rfournier@crain.com Group Publisher Mary Kramer, (313) 446-0399 or mkramer@crain.com Director, Digital Strategy, Audience Development Nancy Hanus, (313) 446-1621 or nhanus@crain.com Managing Editor Michael Lee, (313) 446-1630 or malee@crain.com Managing Editor/Custom and Special Projects Kristin Bull, (313) 446-1608 or kbull@crain.com Digital Editor Carlos Portocarrero (313) 446-6056 or cportocarrero@crain.com News Editor Beth Reeber Valone, (313) 446-5875 or bvalone@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

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eyes, looking at the walls and touching what’s there.”

A.J. Weiner, managing director in the Royal Oak office of JLL (formerly Jones Lang LaSalle), incorporated drone footage in a marketing package for the first time with his listing on the two-story building at 44 Michigan Ave. downtown owned by Roger Basmajian.

“You take a building that’s been sitting there from 30 years that you’ve only seen from street level, (and) you can make it more appealing because you can get a different angle of the architecture. It certainly looks cool,” he said. “The good part is, it’s become economically doable.”

Whitney Eichinger, director of communciations for Dan Gilbert's Bedrock LLC real estate development and management company, said drones are "a cost effective way to get a close up view of taller buildings to investigate the conditions of things like the façade and the roof."

Bedrock, which owns more than 95 properties in and around downtown Detroit, has used them on projects like the 28Grand micro-apartment development under construction in Capitol Park, she said.

REPORT FROM PAGE 3

The dispute between the public mental health system and the Medicaid HMOs began early last year. Gov. Rick Snyder's proposed 2017 state budget included a provision that could have allowed the state’s managed care organizations to manage the $2.4 billion Medicaid behavioral health funding. Currently, 10 prepaid inpatient health plans, which are operated by the public mental health system, manage the funding and contract with providers.

Mental health advocates strenuously objected to HMOs taking over the entire system, and the issue has been contentious all last year between the two sides and the state. After meeting for nine months with facilitating consultants and the state Department of Health and Human Services, a 91-page interim report was

completed and submitted to the Legislature. A final report is due March 15.

But Dominick Pallone, MAHP’s executive director, told Crain’s that the HMO community felt the report did not adequately explain the position of the managed care organizations. The minority report document was intended to present additional information for legislators to mull over.

“My membership did ask us to assist in documenting our industry’s opposition to some of the (MDHHS interim) report’s points, and while they appreciate all the hard work that has gone into this process thus far, they are disappointed that the concept of fully integrating (at the financial and service system levels) the Medicaid program has not been more widely accepted,” Pallone said.

Lt. Gov. Brian Calley, who has become closely involved in the mental health reform efforts, issued the fol-

COLLIERS INTERNATIONAL

A drone shot of Royal Oak used by Colliers International to market property.

And it is far more than just a clever marketing gimmick, according to Daniel Stone, who works in research and development for Southfield-based contractor Barton Malow Co., which owns eight to 10 DJI Phantom drones.

The company uses them to track progress of construction, mapping terrains and creating three-dimensional models from photographs taken by the drones, he said.

Jared Friedman, director of acquisitions for Farmington Hills-based Friedman Integrated Real Estate Solutions LLC, said his company started

using drone footage and photographs of properties two or three years ago and that it has proved a lowing statement Thursday evening about the dispute: “Achieving the successful integration of physical and behavioral health care will require hard work and perseverance. Still, it is necessary and the effort is important. The 298 work group includes a diverse set of stakeholders, who will differ on these complex issues at times, and I appreciate the involvement and perspectives of all who are involved in this process.

“Although the interim report was released, the work is far from complete. I remain committed to the inclusive process we have established and encourage everyone to continue to work together and not lose sight of the main goal, which is to improve the coordination, effectiveness and outcomes of health care services for Michiganders.”

But Mark Reinstein, CEO of the Mental Health Association in Michigan, has a different view about the ultimate goals of MAHP. “The Medicaid HMOs have failed dramatically in all 298 deliberations that have occurred since last February.

So now they want to complain that things haven’t been done satisfactorily,” Reinstein said in a statement. “That is their right, but it is our obligation to point out that they are simply trying to do an end run on the tremendous amount of work that has taken place on this — work that they participated in and oftentimes supported.”

Reinstein said Snyder’s original proposal to “move all community mental health Medicaid money and clients to the MHPs has been thoroughly discussed and assessed three times in the last year” and “that proposal has gone down every time.”

Pallone told Crain’s that the main reason MAHP issued its minority report was that the MDHSS report process did not allow for dissenting opinions to be adequately documented in

successful marketing tool.

“Real estate is one of those things where you have to see it. With Google Earth and drones coming into play, you can get a really good feeling of an area,” he said, adding that Friedman has used drones to market a property in Brush Park that was auctioned off last year as well as some of its suburban office buildings.

The Roxbury Group, a Detroit-based developer, has used drones for marketing purposes for the David Whitney Building as well as The Griswold, a five-story apartment development under construction on top of a 10-story parking garage at Michigan and Cass avenues, said David Di Rita, principal of the company. it.

“The makeup of the work group is dominated by behavioral health advocates, prepaid inpatient health plan representatives and community mental health representatives — leaving our opinions in the vast minority,” Pallone said. “This was our way to document those opinions, so that it could not be said that since we participated in the work group that we agreed with all of its recommendations.”

Pallone also softly criticized MDHHS for not fully completing its report

by Jan. 15, as the state Legislature originally required.

“While the interim report notes that there is additional work to be done by compiling financing model pilot suggestions and establishing annual benchmarks to measure progress in implementing new financing models, our minority report simply notes that we wanted this concluded by the statutory due date,” Pallone said.

“The delay ... effectively means that (Snyder’s) fiscal-year 2018 executive budget recommendations will not be able to explicitly recommend specific alternative financing model pilots,” Pallone said.

It is expected that the MDHHS will

“As they get more sophisticated, we’ll use them more,” Di Rita said of drones. “Sometimes they are really the best way to get at certain conditions on the building short of being on the buildings themselves.”

The Southfield office of Colliers International Inc. has used drone footage in its marketing of a property in Royal Oak at 400 E. Third St. for a build-to-suit project up to 70,000 square feet.

Although the Southfield and Farmington Hills office of Newmark Grubb Knight Frank has not yet used drone technology to market buildings for lease or sale, Fred Liesveld, the local managing director, said New York City-based NGKF has used them in Chicago.

But drones are just one part of the equation, he said. For brokers, mobile phone apps that can provide 360-degree tours of spaces provide greater efficiency for brokers.

“If a space is undesirable, you’re not wasting your tenant’s time or your time taking them to the spaces,” he said. “You’ve expedited the process probably by two weeks just by having good videography of your space, and we are starting to see this with brokers using this technology.”

Kirk Pinho: (313) 446-0412 Twitter: @kirkpinhoCDB

submit a full report to the state Legislature by March 15. It will include additional language that suggests a variety of pilot models by which integration of behavioral health and physical health care be accomplished.

However, the six behavioral health organizations contend that the interim report prohibits HMOs from submitting pilot studies or models in which they manage the dual streams of funding.

Pallone said the health plan interpretation is that any organization could be selected by MDHHS to manage a pilot demonstration.

“Pilot proposals for health care integration/coordination (should) be ... considered, as long as the lead entities for those proposals are public entities, which the state’s Medicaid health plans, or HMOs, are not,” said the statement by the behavioral health groups.

The six behavioral health organizations also include the Association for Children’s Mental Health, Michigan Disability Rights Coalition, Michigan Protection & Advocacy Service and National Alliance on Mental Illness-Michigan.

Jay Greene: (313) 446-0325 Twitter: @jaybgreene

INDEX TO COMPANIES These companies have significant mention in this week’s Crain’s Detroit Business: A.A. Van Elslander Foundation

1

Lawrence Technological University

3

Art Van Furniture

1

Michigan Association of Health Plans

3

Barton Malow

18

Michigan Dept. of Health & Human Services 18

Bedrock LLC

18

Mich. Dept. of Talent & Econ. Development 17

The Berkley Common

12

Newmark Grubb Knight Frank

18

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan

13

Oakland Community College

17

Detroit Downtown Development Authority 8

P&G Technologies

17

Farbman Group

Roxbury Group

18

3

Friedman Integrated Real Estate Solutions 18

Sachse Construction

JLL

18

United Shore Financial Services

J.P. Morgan Chase

10

Van Elslander Capital LLC

3 14 1

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THE WEEK ON THE WEB

RUMBLINGS

JANUARY 21-27 Historic buildings to be renovated for new housing

T

wo historic buildings in Detroit are set to be renovated with the help of $900,000 in federal Low-Income Housing Tax Credits from the Michigan State Housing Development Authority. Detroit-based American Community Developers was awarded tax credits totaling $385,504 annually to rehabilitate the 100-year-old Himelhoch Apartments, at 1545 Woodward Ave., and Detroit-based Central City Integrated Health was awarded $510,488 in annual tax credits to transform the historic Saint Rita Apartments building at 35 Owen St.

COMPANY NEWS

Dan Gilbert’s Bedrock LLC confirmed its purchase of the long-vacant Detroit Free Press building at 321 W. Lafayette Blvd. and plans a mixed-use development while maintaining many of the building’s historic and architectural elements.

The building, constructed in 1925 and vacated by the newspaper in 1998, was put up for sale in September 2015 by the Royal Oak office of JLL for $16 million.

J Detroit-based Meridian Health Plan of Michigan, the state’s largest Medicaid health plan, signed an agreement with Together Health Network allowing about 60,000 Meridian members to access care with Together’s providers via a new value-based contract that pays for quality. Contract details were not immediately available.

J New York City-based luxury menswear firm Bonobos will open its first “guideshop” in Michigan on Woodward Avenue in downtown Detroit, where attendants will work with shoppers one-on-one to find attire to fit their taste. Detroit real estate development and management company Bedrock LLC leased out the space for the guideshop, scheduled to open before the end of the year.

J Farmington Hills-based H.W. Kaufman Financial Group acquired Essential Insurance Services Inc., a premium audit services provider based in Colorado, and will make it part of Kaufman’s national US-Reports Inc. J Lake Michigan Insurance Agency, a division of Grand Rapids-based Lake Michigan Credit Union, announced it is acquiring Walled Lake-based Goddard-Talmay Insurance.

J The Henry Ford in Dearborn changed its museum’s name to the J

Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation, with the new name better re-

flecting the museum’s focus on highlighting innovation, officials said.

J President Donald Trump told chief executives of metro Detroit’s Ford Motor Co., Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV and General Motors Co. in a White House meeting that environmental regulations are “out of control” and promised to remove obstacles for manufacturers and oil companies,

Snyder on CNN: Congress willing to listen on Medicaid expansion

Detroit Digits A numbers-focused look at last week’s headlines:

900

The number of new jobs expected to be filled in 2017 by The Kroger Co. of Michigan, mainly in the chain’s largest marketplace locations in the state. Cincinnatibased Kroger Co. said it plans to fill about 10,000 positions nationally this year.

806,554

The total attendance at the 2017 North American Auto Show, which wrapped up Jan. 22 at Cobo Center. The 2016 show drew 815,575; the event record was 838,066 in 2003.

$32 million

The expected cost of a new Spirit Airlines hangar expected to open in the spring at Detroit Metropolitan Airport. The hangar

will have repair operations, training and other options, and will create a few hundred jobs for the region.

Bloomberg reported.

OTHER NEWS

J Personal income growth for workers in Southeast Michigan outpaced most peer regions in recent years, but metro Detroit and surrounding counties continue to lag in educational achievement, according to the Detroit Regional Chamber’s State of the Region Report, released at a chamber luncheon.

J Dan Gilbert bought a 500-space parking deck at First Street and Michigan Avenue in downtown Detroit for an undisclosed amount. An official of Gilbert’s Bedrock LLC real estate development and leasing firm, confirmed the sale. The seller was Peter Conkey of Chicago-based HDC Partners, said a source familiar with the deal. The purchasing entity is Michigan Parking Co. LLC, according to land records.

J Royal Oak city officials voted in favor of building a new stand-alone city hall near the farmers market, rejecting a proposal to locate in a developer’s nine-story office building as part of a $100 million development of the downtown property.

J Wayne State University opened its new cybersecurity training center, the Michigan Cyber Range Hub at WSU’s Advance Technology Education Center in Warren. The Michigan Cyber Range is operated by Ann Arbor nonprofit Merit Network Inc. J Detroit is set to become home to only the second indoor cycling velodrome in the U.S. as part of a new multisport complex plan announced by the Detroit Fitness Foundation.

The complex will be part of the city’s planned improvements to Tolan Playfield at I-75 and Mack Avenue.

HALO BURGER

Detroit Pistons center Andre Drummond has signed on as Halo Burger’s first official spokesman. He’ll appear at charity events and in ads for the chain, owned by Troy-based Halo Country LLC. Details of the three-year contract were not disclosed, but Drummond will step into the kitchen to create his own menu item, temporarily dubbed the “Dre Burger.”

The $4 million complex, funded by nonprofit DFF, will feature an air dome structure to be built by velodrome developer Dale Hughes.

J Detroit Garment Group expanded its TechTown fashion incubator, which develops talent in the city’s up-and-coming industry. The Detroit-based nonprofit now houses resources for photographers, bloggers and fashion reps, in addition to fashion professionals.

J E.T. MacKenzie Co. of Grand Ledge started demolishing the former Detroit House of Corrections facility in Plymouth Township. The Michigan Land Bank, under the state Department of Talent and Economic Development, owns the 45-acre property at 5

Mile Road and Beck Road. The land bank, which is spending $1.87 million for the project, has not released any future plans for the site.

J Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan did not deny a report that he’ll formally announce his plans to seek a second term on Feb. 4. The Detroit News reported that Duggan held a meeting with community leaders in which the mayor made it clear he will run for re-election this year.

J President Donald Trump’s internal list of 50 top national infrastructure projects includes the M-1 Rail streetcar line in Detroit, constructing the Gordie Howe International Bridge over the Detroit River and building a new shipping channel at the Soo Locks, according to a published report by McClatchy Newspapers.

J Amy Andrews is stepping into a “Fox 2 News Morning” TV co-anchor role from 6-9 a.m., Detroit TV station WJBK-Channel 2 announced. Andrews previously anchored “The Nine” and 11 a.m. newscast and hosted the weekly “Amy’s Angels” show.

J Patricia Terry-Ross, principal harpist at the Michigan Opera Theatre and a vocalist and longtime music educator, won the 2017 Kresge Eminent Artist award, the Troy-based Kresge Foundation announced. The prize, which recognizes professional achievements in the art landscape, comes with a gift of $50,000 and the creation of an artist monograph.

LANSING — Gov. Rick Snyder is holding up Michigan’s Medicaid expansion program as a national model as he lobbies Congress to preserve that portion of former President Barack Obama’s signature health care law, which GOP lawmakers have vowed to dismantle.

In a package aired on CNN last week, Snyder said he was optimistic after recent meetings in Washington that lawmakers are willing to consider the issue. The Republican-controlled Congress, along with the Trump administration, want to repeal Obama’s Affordable Care Act, which has Rick Snyder: Use e x t e n d e d Michigan model. health insurance to millions of Americans.

“This is the best case I’ve ever seen in terms of Congress wanting to listen and actually have a positive dialogue with the states,” Snyder told a CNN reporter. The interview featured a Flint resident who has received coverage under the plan.

Snyder in 2013 signed legislation creating the Healthy Michigan Plan, the state’s name for Medicaid expansion. After winning federal approval, the program began to accept applications the following year. The Healthy Michigan Plan is open to Michigan residents between ages 19 and 64 with incomes

at or below 133 percent of the federal poverty level.

The program exceeded expectations from the beginning. Organizers anticipated enrollment of roughly 470,000 people. As of Jan. 23, the Healthy Michigan Plan had 646,745 people enrolled, with the largest share between ages 25 and 34. That is important, since health insurers want younger — and presumably healthier — people in the pool in order to lower the cost of insurance premiums.

Snyder and other governors met with members of the Senate finance committee and the House energy and commerce committee while in Washington for President Donald Trump’s inauguration. A spokeswoman for Snyder said he talked about “how we tailored our Medicaid program to boost coverage while simultaneously achieving taxpayer savings.”

“It wasn’t the generic expansion,” Snyder told CNN. “We actually added requirements for personal responsibility and wellness on the front end,” including required cost-sharing. He cited a drop in uncompensated care in hospitals across the state, which spokeswoman Anna Heaton said has saved Michigan’s health care system millions of dollars.

“The program has been a great success and a model for other states to follow, and he will continue to share that message, which he says was received very well in his meetings,” Heaton said of Snyder.

For the sixth year in a row on Valentine’s Day, Detroit Zoo patrons will get a look at how our animal friends pitch woo. Zoo officials estimate the “Love Gone Wild” event will net more than $3,500.

GOOGLE

Zoo’s ‘Wild’ night continues lovefest Sex sells.

Just ask the Detroit Zoo. It’s bringing its “Love Gone Wild” event back for the sixth year in a row on Valentine’s Day. The 21-and-older event lets guests get a look at how animals “make woo at the zoo,” through passionate and tawdry stories and pictures of May-December romances, unrequited love, mate swapping and “positions not found in the Kama Sutra,” the zoo said.

Last year, the event drew a total of 302 people for two seatings,

netting just under $5,000 after costs to help fund the zoo’s operation.

This year, there will be only one seating, given that the holiday celebrating lovers falls on a Tuesday. But the zoo is still projecting it will net about $3,600.

The steamy event will take place in the zoo’s Ford Education Center from 6-7:30 p.m. and includes strolling hors d’oeuvres, two drinks and a commemorative gift.

Tickets are $40 per member or $50 per nonmember and must be purchased in advance. For more information, visit detroitzoo.org.

THE PISTONS ARE HEADED BACK TO DETROIT Come hear from the man that made it happen – DETROIT PISTONS STONS OWNER

BE

Tak e

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T adv ant HE a end ge of BUZ s Tu earl y b ZE es., Jan ird p R! rici . 31 ng:

TOM GORES

FEB. 28

12:30 – 3 p.m.

Sound Board – MotorCity Casino Hotel Register today at Crainsdetroit.com/events or call (313) 446-0300

This high-powered networking event will also honor all top newsmakers of 2016:

Andy Appleby, United Shore Professional Baseball League

Ronna Romney McDaniel, Michigan Republican Party

Mona Hanna-Attisha,

Mina Sooch, Gemphire Therapeutics Inc.

MSU-Hurley Children’s Hospital Pediatric Public Health Initiative

Barbara McQuade, U.S. Attorney, Eastern District of Michigan Joseph Mullany, formerly of Detroit Medical Center

Kirk Steudle, Michigan Department of Transportation Sam Valenti III, V5 Partners LLC M. Roy Wilson, Wayne State University

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Contact Lisa Rudy for sponsorship opportunities: (313) 446-6032, advertisingcdb@crainsdetroit.com

NOMINATIONS NOW OPEN

For Crain’s Twenty in their 20s celebrates young professionals who are making waves within their company, have shown success or originality as an entrepreneur or have made a positive and noteworthy impact in their community.

ENTRY DUE:

FEB. 28

This year’s Class 0f Twenty in their 20s will be featured in the May 1 issue of Crain’s Detroit Business.

roit.com/nominate Find the details for this recognition program at CrainsDet