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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 // N O V E M B E R 7 , 2 0 1 6
THE WEEK ON THE WEB
RUMBLINGS
Chrysler museum to close Dec. 18
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OCT. 29-NOV. 4
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he Walter P. Chrysler Museum in Auburn Hills will close on Dec. 18 and be converted into office space for Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, the automaker said Friday. The 55,000-square-foot museum, which opened in 1999, houses 65 classic and historic vehicles.
COMPANY NEWS
Farmington Hills-based Friedman
Integrated Real Estate Solutions LLC
about a month ago purchased out of foreclosure the Raleigh Officentre, a 297,000-square-foot pair of interconnected six-story buildings, the company said. The center had been owned by an entity called 25300 Telegraph Road Holdings LLC. The purchase price was not disclosed. Basil Bacall, the developer of three hotels operating at Great Lakes Crossing Outlets in Auburn Hills, has a fourth in the works for the outlet center. Construction of a 96-room Hilton Garden Inn is set to begin in the spring and wrap up in late 2017, said a plan filed with the city. The $8.2 million project is being developed by Bacall’s Truss Hospitality Development and Management LLC. The Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit raised more than $750,000 this year at its various 23rd annual Partners fundraising events, slightly lower than last year and in some previous years. Karmanos executives said the decline had noth-
ing to do with the departure of chief fundraiser Nick Karmanos last month. With two months left in the year, the Detroit Zoo set a new yearly attendance record. Bolstered by the April opening of the Polk Penguin Conservation Center, it has attracted more than 1,478,760 visitors in 2016. The Michigan Agency for Energy awarded St. Vincent de Paul-Detroit a $5 million energy assistance program grant to continue assisting families in danger of having electric and heat utilities disconnected.
OTHER NEWS
Forty-five ideas will share more than $2.24 million in the 2016 Knight Arts Challenge. A full list of the grantees, announced by the Miami-based John S. and James L. Knight Foundation at an awards event in Detroit, is at knightfoundation.org. Jacoby’s German Biergarten, the downtown Detroit watering hole and restaurant, has a new owner . It sold in September for $790,000 to LVT Properties LLC. The new 28 Grand micro apartment building in Detroit’s Capitol Park is expected to start getting its first residents in June, developers said. The development is by Bedrock Real Estate Services LLC. Horse racing fans will be able to watch 39 weeks of live racing next year at two Detroit-area tracks. The 2017 schedule, issued by the Michigan Gaming Control Board, includes 54 days of standardbred racing at Northville Downs and 36 days of thoroughbred racing at Hazel Park Raceway. The Edsel & Eleanor Ford House in Grosse Pointe Shores was designated as a historic landmark by the Na-
tional Park Service.
A $20,000 grant from the Detroit Auto Dealers Association Charitable Foundation Fund will go to the Downtown Boxing Gym Youth Program to
launch an after-school computer coding program for students in seventh through 12th grades. The federal government is recommending that former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s restitution in his corruption case be reduced from $4.5 million to $1.6 million, AP reported. Charles Busse, a Birmingham attorney and former member of the Warren City Council, pleaded guilty to bribery in a case involving a federal agent. Busse is accused of paying bribes to get deferrals of deportation and other benefits for his clients. Clinton Township trustee Dean Reynolds was indicted on eight bribery charges as part of a corruption investigation, AP reported. Mary Engelman, former executive director of the Greater Farmington Area Chamber of Commerce, was named executive director of the Michigan Women’s Commission. She has been government affairs and public relations director for Troy professional services firm OpTech LLC. 160 Fox 2 Detroit anAnqunette chor Jamison Sarfoh an150 nounced plans to retire from TV. Sarfoh, who has multi140 ple sclerosis, said she is taking a 130 leadership role with MILegalize to help legalize mari120 juana in Michigan. 110
The lowdown on Detroit’s high-rises Dan Gilbert’s team has two months to submit its plans for a new high-rise building on the former J.L. Hudson’s department store site in Detroit. Last week, Crain’s reporter Kirk Pinho learned from his sources that it’s possible the building, which would sit on the vacant 2-acre site on Woodward, could come in at 60 stories.
100 90
Here, we put that in perspective with the tallest buildings in the city — and beyond. Note: Buildings here are measured by number of stories, though some buildings’ stories are taller than others. For instance, Ally Detroit Center has 43 stories, but is about 55 feet taller than the Penobscot Building, which has 47 stories.
80 70
Sources: Jones Lang Lasalle Detroit Skyline Summer 2016 report; Crain’s research
60 50 40 30 20 10
Guardian Ally Detroit Penobscot Building Center Building
Potential Hudson’s site project
Renaissance Center
One World Burj Trade Center, Khalifa, New York City Dubai
DeVos family has a piece of historic Cubs championship
ichigan’s wealthy DeVos family is among those celebrating the Chicago Cubs’ first World Series championship in more than a century. It emerged in 2015 that the family, owners of Ada-based multilevel marketing company Amway and the NBA’s Orlando Magic, became a Cubs minority owner. They have a noncontrolling stake in the team, whose controlling owners, the Ricketts family, had sold minority interests in Cubs business entity Chicago Baseball Holdings to help finance the $375 million renovation of Wrigley Field, Crain’s Chicago Business reported. The size of the DeVos stake wasn’t disclosed. “We are pleased to have a very small piece of the Cubs and to be in partnership with the Ricketts, who have done a remarkable job with
the team, and are really committed to frankly making history,” Dick DeVos said in a March 2015 radio interview with Michael Patrick Shiels on “Michigan’s Big Show.” The DeVoses were among six minority owners who bought into the team, initially anonymously. ESPN confirmed their involvement. The entire minority ownership group holds less than 10 percent of the franchise and has no voting rights but serves in an advisory role to the Ricketts family. The DeVos family’s wealth stems from Dick DeVos’ 90-year-old father, Richard DeVos, who in 1959 co-founded Amway, which last year reported $9.5 billion in sales. He broke into major sports ownership in 1991 when, for $85 million, he bought the Magic, a franchise now worth $900 million, according to Forbes.
This new stadium isn’t a keeper Detroit is getting a new stadium, Crain’s has learned. But it’s not what you think. A building permit issued last week for Detroit-based Rossetti Associates Inc., the architecture firm for Dan Gilbert and Tom Gores’ plan to build a new Major League Soccer stadium downtown, allows the company to build “a temporary stadium mock-up on the roof” of the former Federal Reserve Building at 160 W. Fort St., where Rossetti has its offices. But it’s not in any way tied to the $1 billion Gilbert-Gores plan, said Denise Drach, director of business development and marketing. It’s for an out-of-state client, although
she wouldn’t say who. The mock-up will be about 12 feet long, 12 feet wide and about 15 feet high, Drach said. A review of the permit and associated plans Friday said it will take about a month building, reviewing and making adjustments to the mock-up, then taking it apart and storing it in place until the spring, and then reconstructing for a client presentation and then removing it from the property. It will be the first time the company, renowned for its stadium and arena work, has done anything like it, Drach said. Rossetti designed the Palace of Auburn Hills, among other places.
Program helps Detroit high school journalists find their voices Student journalists at 11 Detroit high schools are once again taking notes and tracking down sources for a collaborative news publication that aims to be, as its Page One tagline describes, “the student voice of Detroit’s high schools.” Dialogue is produced by Crain Communications Inc. and Michigan State University to highlight the work of student journalists in the city. This is the second year of the Crain MSU Detroit High School Journalism Program. Crain employees mentor the students, brainstorming story ideas and editing final copy; MSU faculty members and students produce the print edition and website. The first issue, published Oct. 26, features stories about mock elections at the schools, updates on sports teams and these stories: An interview by Martin Luther King Jr. Senior High School students of Alycia Meriweather, Detroit Public Schools Community District interim superintendent.
The first issue of Dialogue, a student newspaper in Detroit. The success of a 1-year-old paid internship program with Ilitch Holdings Inc., which placed 24 Cass Technical High School students in positions with the Detroit Tigers, Little Caesars pizza chain and other areas. A partnership between the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office and Com-
munication & Media Arts High School
that simulates a juvenile courtroom in the school’s Basic Law class. Dialogue will be published four times this school year. It’s online at DetroitDialogue.com.