Crain's Grand Rapids Business, August 5, 2024

Pine Rest nears $98M target for pediatric health project

Behavioral health provider is now within $10M of full funding for statewide facility

By Mark Sanchez

e $12.5 million in additional public funding that state lawmakers earmarked for Pine Rest Christian Mental Health Services’ pediatric center brings the capital campaign to support the project close to its goal.

After securing the funding through an earmark in the $61.6 billion general fund budget that Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed July 24 for the state’s 2025 scal year, Pine Rest has now raised $89 million in public and private money toward the $98 million project.

About two-thirds of the fundraising total to date has come from the state. Lawmakers previously provided $48 million — $38 million three years ago and $10 million two years ago — for the Pine Rest Pediatric Center for Behavioral Health through two separate budget appropriations.

e additional $12.5 million from the state will support a new

See PINE REST on Page 24

“We’ve heard a very clear message from the Legislature in supporting this project that this has to serve the entire state of Michigan. So, just about every service other than our inpatient service has to have a telehealth component to it so it’s available across the entire state.”

Bob Nykamp, Pine Rest Chief Operating Of cer

Bosch appears to drop bid to acquire Whirlpool — for now

Conglomerate instead deals for HVAC division of Johnson Controls

By Mark Sanchez

Executives at global appliance manufacturer Whirlpool Inc. remain mum on whether the company would consider an acquisition bid from German industrial conglomerate Robert Bosch Gmbh.

In a July 25 call with brokerage analysts to discuss second quarter earnings, Whirlpool Chairman and CEO Marc Bitzer declined when asked to discuss a June Reuters report that Bosch was weighing a bid for the Benton Harbor-based appliance company.

“We’re not going to comment on any speculation and rumor,” Bitzer said. “We’ve never done it

and we will not do that going forward.”

Last month, Reuters reported that Bosch was talking to potential advisers about the possibility of making an o er for Whirlpool. However, the prospects for a deal appear to have cooled down, at least for now.

at’s because on July 23, Bosch inked an all-cash $8.1

Acrisure hires NYSE exec to newly created C-Suite position

Michigan native John Tuttle will return to Grand Rapids as president beginning next month

By Rachel Watson

Global insurance brokerage and ntech company

Acrisure LLC has tapped the vice chair of the New York Stock Exchange to serve as its president as the rm continues to explore a public o ering. Grand Rapids-based Acrisure said in a July 24 statement that it hired John Tuttle as president, e ective Sept. 1.

Tuttle, a Michigan native, will

HOSPITALITY

West Michigan nurse acquires Up North hotel company

relocate to Grand Rapids and report to Acrisure co-founder, chair and CEO Greg Williams. He comes to the role after a 17-year career at the NYSE and its parent, Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE: ICE), where he served in a variety of leadership roles including COO and chief commercial o cer. In that time, Tuttle also developed

MANUFACTURING

GRCC wants to train thousands more manufacturing students

Whirlpool Corp.’s Benton Harbor headquarters.

COURTESY OF WHIRLPOOL

This aerial photo shows work progressing on Pine Rest’s pediatric behavioral health center in Cutlerville. | COURTESY OF EV CONSTRUCTION

Renee Tabben President, Bank of

Rapids

Metro Detroit developer proposes Grand Haven hotel

Elite Hospitality group also has a hotel in neighboring spring Lake

By Mark Sanchez

A suburban Detroit hotel operator wants to develop a new facility along the Grand River at the northern entrance to Grand Haven.

Sylvan Lake-based Elite Hospitality Group LLC proposes to develop the four-story, 131-room hotel along southbound U.S. 31. The hotel would feature extended-stay suites for travelers who come to town for a week or more at the lakeshore.

Previously, Elite Hospitality Group acquired a 123-room Holiday Inn across the Grand River in neighboring Spring Lake and now wants to add to its properties in the market.

“We’ve grown to love the market, love the area. We fully believe in Grand Haven. We’ve seen just from when we purchased the property the growth of Grand Haven. It continues to be a growing area for tourism in Michigan, specifically in West Michigan,” Blake Bacall, a partner and principal at

Elite Hospitality Group, told the Grand Haven Planning Commission on July 23. “I believe Grand Haven has the best beach in Michigan, so we fully believe in the future of Grand Haven, which is why we want to invest our money here into this project,” he said.

The city planning commission held a preliminary review of plans for the project. If approved, the hotel would rise on vacant land just north of a mixed-use development known as Grand Landing, which

Florida family continues string of acquisitions in MI

topping the list are the ferr y lines serving Mackinac Island

By Rachel Watson

A love affair with Northern Michigan that started two years ago with the acquisition of a family-owned Mackinac Island ferry service has steadily expanded into other sectors, and could inspire a Florida family to pursue more Michigan deals soon.

The Naples, Fla.-based Hoffmann Family of Companies started its journey here in 2022 with the acquisition of Shepler’s Ferry, which was the family’s first deal in Michi-

gan. In May of this year, the Hoffmans acquired Mackinac Island-based Sip N’ Sail Cruises and its two boats.

Most recently, the company earlier this month announced its acquisition of Mackinac Island Ferry Company and a move to consolidate ownership of all of the passenger ferries traveling between the island, Mackinaw City and St. Ignace. Following the three Michigan deals, the company’s marine division now has 46 vessels across seven states.

“With Shepler’s Ferry, we found that opportunity and really fell in love with the business, and then subsequently fell in love with the area that they operate in.”

Hoffmann Family of Companies

Greg Hoffmann, the second-generation co-CEO with his brother, Geoff Hoffmann, told Crain’s Grand Rapids Business that the Shepler’s deal was purely “opportunistic-based,” a typical pattern for the multi-vertical family conglomerate.

However, the Hoffmann family’s business pursuits led to a more cultural interest in Michigan.

“With Shepler’s Ferry, we found that opportunity and really fell in love with the business, and then subsequently fell in love with the area that they operate in,” Hoffmann said. “We really enjoy everything — the community, the natural beauty of Mackinac Island and its surrounding area — and we wanted to invest more. And that’s typically what we do when we buy something: We always look to scale.”

was approved in 2006 and developed on a former industrial site that had been designated as a brownfield. The project site also sits just

Cherry retailers are booming as growers struggle to hold on

For the first time in its 35-year history, Cherry Republic weighs expansions into other states

By Abby Poirier

Glen Arbor-based retailer Cherry Republic has built a successful business around a fruit that company President Bob Sutherland calls a “ruby red morsel of joy.”

For Cherry Republic, the tart cherry is much more than a crop, it’s a key piece of the Up North lifestyle that the company sells through its chain of six stores throughout Michigan, including locations in Holland, Traverse City, Charlevoix, Ann Arbor, and Frankenmuth. The stores offer more than 200 products ranging from chocolate-covered dried cherries and cherry candy to cherry summer sausage and cherry-based barbeque sauce. The company, which has 140 fulltime employees, also distributes to around 700 stores nationwide.

For the first time in its 35-year history, Cherry Republic is weighing possible expansions into other states, citing the strength of growing popularity of cherries and a market opportunity in other regions of the country.

“You can just feel how big this market is that we’re only a small

percent of,” Sutherland told Crain’s Grand Rapids Business. However, while tart cherries have been good for Cherry Republic and other niche retailers and wholesalers, cherry growers have been in the pits in recent years. As Crain’s Grand Rapids Business recently reported, many cherry growers in Michigan are calling it quits as their costs continue to soar, making for an unprofitable business where many struggle even to recoup their

east of an apartment complex that was part of Grand Landing.

The Hoffmann Family of Companies acquired Shepler’s Ferry in 2022. COuRtEsY PHOtO

Greg Hoffmann, co-CEO

Cherry Republic sells more than 200 cherry-based products at its stores in Michigan and the 700 retailers it distributes to across the country.

| COuRtEsY OF CHERRY REPuBLIC

See CHERRY on Page 25

Elite Hospitality Group LLC proposes to develop the four-story, 131-room hotel along the south channel of the Grand River and southbound U.S. 31 at the north entrance to Grand Haven. | RENDERINgs BY ARCHItECtuRAL gROuP III

See HOTEL on Page 23

West Michigan nurse acquires Up North hotel company

By Rachel Watson

A nurse by trade, Michelle Beukema for decades has played an informal but key role in her family’s hospitality companies. Now, she’s taking the reins of a similar business Up North.

Beukema acquired a 67% stake in Cheboygan-based American Hospitality Management Inc. on July 1 from previous majority owner, co-founder and CEO Don Schappacher. The deal creates one of the few majority women-owned companies in hospitality, which remains a male-dominated industry.

Beukema will transition away from her nursing career, where she has gained a form of hospitality experience in addition to her voluntary role with her family’s hotel management companies over two decades.

18 corporate staff members and manages 650 to 700 employees at the hotels in its portfolio.

AHM’s Michigan portfolio includes a Staybridge Suites in Kalamazoo, a Fairfield Inn & Suites and Holiday Inn Express & Suites in New Buffalo, a Courtyard by Marriott and a Staybridge Suites in Okemos, a Holiday Inn Express & Suites in Acme, and a Courtyard by Marriott at the Victories Square mixed-use project in Petoskey.

“I was living it every day, but I’m just excited to finally be a part of (hotel management) officially, and just to learn and grow,” Beukema said. “It’s very different from my nursing career, but all of those things that I’ve been doing — the critical thinking, all those things in

As an approved third-party manager for Marriott, most of AHM’s properties are affiliated with that brand, though the company also manages brands affiliated with Hilton and InterContinental Hotel Group (IHG). Beukema joins the company’s other partners, including CFO Kari Kortz, who holds a 5% stake in AHM. Senior Vice President Chris Godfrey and Vice Presidents Chris Norman and Lurry Lacour each hold the remaining stakes and will continue on with the company.

Schappacher, who co-founded AHM with Fred Kindell in 1999, will serve in an advisory capacity to Beukema during a yearlong transition period.

“It’s very different from my nursing career, but all of those things that I’ve been doing — the critical thinking, all those things in the medical field — are like ‘hospital hospitality,’ right? They cross over. And so I’m just excited to use those skills in the hospitality world.”

the medical field — are like ‘hospital hospitality,’ right? They cross over. And so I’m just excited to use those skills in the hospitality world.”

AHM’s corporate headquarters will remain in Cheboygan, along with its offices in Indiana and Florida. Beukema will be based in Zeeland.

AHM manages 23 hotels in 11 states, including seven in Michigan. The others are in Arizona, Colorado, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Ohio, Oklahoma and Texas. The company has

Schappacher told Crain’s Grand Rapids Business that he sold primarily because of his age and the fact that he had no children who were interested in entering the business. He said he has known Beukema and her husband’s family, who are originally from the St. Ignace area, for many years.

“I’ve been approached by other people to buy the management company, but what they wanted to do is they were larger companies, and they would consolidate it and close down the offices here in Cheboygan, so the people that helped build this company would lose their jobs,” he said. “It’s a small town and we employ approximately 15 people there, so it would make it tough to close down that office.”

He said he is confident that Beukema’s “young blood and energy” will put AHM in a good position moving forward.

“I’m excited for the future and for my partners that stayed in,” he said.

Schappacher holds and will re-

tain equity stakes in 19 of the 23 hotels in AHM’s portfolio, but AHM itself does not own any hotels.

Huntington Bank provided financing for Beukema in the deal, and attorney Nicholas Dekker of Cunningham Dalman PC served as her legal adviser. Schappacher was advised by St. Ignace-based Evashevski Law Office. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

For Beukema, who plans to transition out of her position as a practicing registered nurse at University of Michigan Health-West, the deal for AHM marks the start of a formal career change. However, she’s been closely involved with the industry for years.

Beukema is married to Peter Beukema, who is founder and CEO of Zeeland-based 6PM Hospitality

Partners LLC and minority owner and former CEO of his family’s company, Hudsonville-based Suburban Inns. Most recently, 6PM Hospitality Partners opened a five-story Hampton Inn & Suites in Manistee along the Lake Michigan shoreline.

Peter Beukema will serve as an informal adviser for his wife as she shifts into the role of owner and CEO at AHM. Neither he nor his other businesses will hold an ownership stake in AHM.

Throughout the couple’s 20-year relationship, Michelle Beukema has worked in voluntary support roles in the family businesses. These included assisting with strategy, operations, restaurants, merchandising, marketing, design and service training.

Peter Beukema said his wife’s connection to 6PM Hospitality Partners could potentially help AHM take advantage of new business.

“For example, a friend of ours picked up six distressed properties throughout mid-America, ranging from the Carolinas to St. Louis, and the 6PM bench just wouldn’t be big enough to be able to help him with that acquisition, whereas American Hospitality Management absolutely could and is able to do so,” he said. “This acquisition really gives Michelle the (chance) to take advantage of those types of larger opportunities.”

The Beukemas also said that with AHM’s third-party Marriott certification, the company can tackle management of distressed Marriott hotels without putting its own equity into the properties.

Michelle Beukema said it’s too early to forecast AHM expansion locations, but she plans to hire a business development lead to help AHM secure new management contracts across the country.

“Everyone’s excited,” she said. “They’re just ready … to increase the amount of properties that we manage.”

As well, Peter Beukema said he is proud to watch his wife take a leading role in an industry with C-Suites that remain largely male-dominated.

The sixth annual Women in Hospitality benchmarking report published in 2023 by Penn State University found that there are still 11.4 men at the level of partner or principal for every woman at that level in hotel companies, though women have made gains since 2019, when the report found 15.3 men for every woman who was a partner or principal.

The report also found that women now hold one in four of all C-Suite positions at hotel companies, though their chief-level gains are skewed heavily toward roles in HR and sales and marketing.

“In the hospitality industry, less than 10% of the hotel owners and operators out there are female, and so I think there’s a lot of opportunity for her and (CFO) Kari (Kortz) … to stand out,” Peter Beukema said.

Michelle Beukema, majority owner, American Hospitality Management

AHM’s office in Cheboygan. AMERICAN HOSPItALItY MANAGEMENt INC.

A Fairfield Inn & Suites in New Buffalo is part of AHM’s portfolio. AMERICAN HOSPItALItY MANAGEMENt INC.

AHM manages the Courtyard by Marriott Petoskey at Victories Square. | COURtESY OF AMERICAN HOSPItALItY MANAGEMENt INC.

Michelle Beukema

Whitmer vetoes $3M budget earmark for Shaw Walker project

By Kate Carlson Rep. Will Synder, D-Muskegon, to support

The proposed redevelopment of a former furniture factory near Muskegon Lake will not receive a second state budget earmark in as many years.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on July 24 vetoed $3 million in state funding for Parkland Properties’ plan to redevelop the former Shaw Walker Furniture Co. building that calls for 538 housing units along with retail space.

The line-item veto comes a year after Whitmer approved an $18 million earmark sponsored by State

Gentex trims revenue outlook

By Mark Sanchez

Gentex Corp. trimmed its sales expectations for 2024, citing softer vehicle sales in June that cut into quarterly revenue and an industry forecast for small declines in global auto production throughout the year.

The Zeeland-based Gentex (Nasdaq: GNTX) now projects full-year sales of $2.4 billion to $2.5 billion for 2024, or $50 million lower than what executives’ previous guidance projected. Gentex also pulled back expectations for capital expenditures in 2024 to $175 million to $200 million, from the earlier $225 million to $250 million.

Gentex altered guidance after a “significant change” in June affected sales at several large automotive customers and led to a 3% quarterly decline in global vehicle production. That left the company “well below” projections for the quarter, said President and CEO Steve Downing.

Light vehicle production “weakened in most of our primary markets” in June, Downing said. The second quarter ended with light vehicle production in North America, Europe and Japan Korea declining 3% from the second quarter last year.

An S&P Global Mobility forecast also projects weakness in North America, European and Asian vehicle sales in the second half of 2024 compared a year ago, with a 2% decline. S&P Global projects a 5% decline in light vehicle production in Europe, and Japan and Korea, while North America production is projected to grow 1% this year.

Despite the lower guidance and industry softness, Gentex still expects to generate record revenues for 2024 and to outperform the market in the second half of the year. July is “off to what we expected,” Downing told brokerage analysts last month.

the $220 million project.

The Muskegon City Commission on July 23 approved the Shaw Walker project site plan, which calls for transforming 730,000 square feet of industrial buildings around 930 Washington Ave.

Parkland Properties President Jon Rooks hopes to break ground this fall, and construction could take three to five years.

Contacted after Whitmer signed the budget bills on July 24, Rooks said the Shaw Walker plan is a “large project and there are many moving pieces.”

“We have great relationships with our local and state partners,” Rooks said in an emailed statement. “We will continue our conversations as we collectively pursue this transformative project for West Michigan.”

The proposed $3 million earmark for Shaw Walker was among just five line-item vetoes totaling $9.2 million that Whitmer made last month, Crain’s Detroit Business reported. The $61.6 billion general fund budget includes hundreds of millions of dollars in project-specific earmarks, or “pork,” for the fiscal year that starts in October.

At a bill-signing ceremony in Detroit on July 24, Whitmer said lawmakers added the vetoed earmarks without her sign-off.

Seamless All-In-One Solutions

“When we don’t negotiate things, I don’t think anyone should be surprised that they’re taken out of the budget,” she said. “I’m comfortable with that. If the colleagues who put those items in want to have a conversation, I’m open to it. But that was the rationale.”

Other vetoes involved $3 million for rebates for gas stations that sell E15 gasoline blended with ethanol, $3 million for a competitive affordable housing grant program, $425,000 for a private gun club near Saginaw, and $250,000 for a proposed property rehabilitation in Detroit.

The former Shaw Walker Furniture Co. facility has sat mostly vacant for decades. |

Plan for prison could put farmers in whiskey business

By Abby Poirier

The owner of Mammoth Distilling has crafted a multifaceted plan to repurpose a shuttered state prison into a contract whiskey distillery that in the long term would help drive agritourism to farms across Northern Michigan.

Chad Munger’s ambitious idea involves buying the former Pugsley Correctional Facility property, located about 25 miles southeast of Traverse City in Fife Lake Township. Munger would base Consolidated Rye and Whiskey on the 105acre property that he’s currently under contract to buy from the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians for an undisclosed sum. The tribe listed the property for $3.95 million in 2022 after its plans for a space command and control center at the facility failed to gain traction.

He expects the deal to close Sept. 15, with construction and renovation of the property’s 136,000 square feet of building space slated to begin as soon as Oct. 1.

Consolidated Rye and Whiskey will operate as a rye whiskey-focused contract distillery, creating spirits for other brands using a historic grain that Munger hopes to convince farmers across Northern Michigan to grow for the first time in decades. In the long term, the distillery would work with the growers to set up farm-based tasting rooms that highlight the Rosen

rye grown on their estates, creating Michigan’s answer to Kentucky’s bourbon trail.

“I’m sure there’s a healthy skepticism about whether it can be done,” Munger said in an interview with Crain’s Grand Rapids Business.

Munger anticipates investing around $10 million to get the Consolidated Rye and Whiskey distillery up and running, including the property acquisition, buildout and initial distilling costs. If all goes to plan, Consolidated Rye and Whiskey would start distilling by mid-June 2025 and produce 6,000 barrels of spirits in the first year the new distillery is up and running.

of producing 50,000 barrels of whiskey per year.

“We’re very profitable at 6,000 (barrels) in this model,” he said.

One key backer for the project so far: The state of Michigan.

The 2025 fiscal year state budget includes a $2 million earmark for Consolidated Rye and Whiskey. The state budget describes the appropriation as support for an “agricultural tourism attraction” at the former Grand Traverse County prison.

Munger said he worked with several lawmakers who supported and helped him refine his vision for the distillery.

tou Island, where they could avoid the risk of cross-pollination, but those had stopped growing the grain as of 1950. Then, in the 1970s, the National Park Service acquired the island as part of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

“That’s the scale we know we have the grain (planted) for, the waste handling capacity for, the in-

“There’s a tradition and a history of growing rye at scale in Michigan.”

Chad Munger

frastructure to handle and we know how to do it,” Munger said.

The 6,000-barrel mark would be a big leap for Munger, whose other company, Central Lake-based Mammoth Distilling, currently produces around 200 barrels annually. But the target is only a steppingstone in his long-term vision

The idea behind Consolidated Rye and Whiskey hinges on reviving Rosen rye. The hybrid grain originated at the predecessor to Michigan State University and became highly prized by distillers for the flavor it imparted in rye whiskeys popular in the early 20th century. Farmers in Michigan and other states began using Rosen rye as a winter crop in place of wheat. By the 1910s, farmers grew nearly 3 million acres of Rosen rye, but the grain eventually fell out of favor because it was easily cross-pollinated, which resulted in a loss of its favorable flavor and other attributes.

The last holdouts in Michigan were family farms on South Mani-

In the grain’s heyday, Michigan growers regularly swept awards against other farmers nationally for the quality of certified pure Rosen rye.

“There’s a tradition and a history of growing rye at scale in Michigan,” Munger said.

Munger intends Consolidated Rye and Whiskey to be the next step in the history of Rosen rye.

Working with MSU and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Munger helped spearhead a pilot project to once again grow heirloom Rosen rye on South Manitou Island in 2020.

The project has proven successful to date, and now Munger is taking Rosen rye on a road show to Up North farmers in a bid to convince them to give it a try so that he can buy the crop and use it in the distilling process at Consolidated Rye and Whiskey.

provide farmers with another way to be sustainable.”

Chris Gartman, an attorney in Grand Rapids with experience in the craft beverage industry at Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone PLC, said Munger’s idea could present a lucrative opportunity for farmers with a relatively low barrier to entry, potentially only a few hundred dollars of up-front cost for licensing.

As well, Consolidated Rye and Whiskey also would be eligible to open up to five off-premises tasting room licenses, which could then be hosted at the farm locations.

Gartman thinks Munger’s idea, if successful, could be a game-changer for Michigan’s whiskey industry while also creating revenue for farmers.

“I think farmers should jump on this,” he said.

“If we were focusing on buying Michigan-grown grains, and specifically Michigan-grown grains that have a lot of history, we could create enough demand that we could convince farmers to grow all we wanted to grow,” he said. “So you take some of the risk out of growing something that isn’t corn or soybeans.”

To start Consolidated Rye and Whiskey, Munger will need 1,600 acres of planted rye grain. For the scale that he intends the distillery to reach, he will need 13,000 acres.

If Munger proves successful in creating a network of Rosen rye growers in Northern Michigan, his ambition is to create Michigan’s “Rye Trail,” a homegrown spin on Kentucky’s popular Bourbon Trail.

As Consolidated Rye and Whiskey grows, the distillery could serve as the hub of that network. The contract distillery would produce rye whiskey and then sell it to the farmers who grew the grain for them to sell in on-farm tasting rooms.

“We’re going to turn our growers into the nodes on the trail, so you’re going to visit the farms where our grain is growing, visit their agritourism concession and try the whiskey made from their estate,” Munger said. “They’d have something to sell on their farm as part of an agritourism concession. A barrel of whiskey made from this grain is a lot more valuable than that grain by the pound. We’re helping

Chris Ratajczak, owner of C&K Ratajczak Family Farms southeast of Bay City, told Crain’s he plans to plant his first rye crop for Munger this fall, and will grow his first Rosen rye next year with a goal of expanding to 300 acres. Eventually, he also plans to add a tasting room on his property. The opportunity to plant and grow a crop for a dedicated buyer would be huge for his farm, he said, offering stability through guaranteed sales and a steady demand that corn and soybeans fail to provide.

Meanwhile, the ability to sell whiskey on his farm would help bring in people who would otherwise have no reason to take interest in his operation and show them the nuts and bolts of agriculture. Ratajczak also anticipates that opening a tasting room would help keep his children invested in the farm operations by giving them a new way to be involved while offering a reliable revenue stream for C&K Ratajczak Family Farms.

“I have a daughter who is super excited about this project,” he said. The former Pugsley facility also plays into Munger’s plans for creating and fostering an agritourism hub. Munger intends the space to be “a hub of activity related to Michigan value-added agriculture,” that will be home to other businesses and activities that will complement the distillery and its products.

When finished, the development might include a small hotel, spa, corn maze and hiking trails that could add “tens of millions of dollars” to the initial costs, Munger said. Other possible additions could include a wedding venue and space for outdoor concerts.

Conceptual plans for Consolidated Rye and Whiskey, a contract distillery that would make product for other brands using Michigan-grown rye. | COURtESY IMAGE

Chad Munger

GRCC to start $46M upgrades at two downtown buildings

By Kate Carlson

Grand Rapids Community College plans to start construction soon on about $46 million in renovations to two aging buildings at its downtown campus that officials say will make recreational and learning spaces more user friendly and inviting for students.

Renovating the two 1970s-era Brutalist-style buildings on GRCC’s campus will take care of deferred maintenance and make “long overdue” upgrades, said Jim Van Dokkumburg, GRCC’s executive director of facilities.

Both projects are included in GRCC’s Campus Master Plan the college created at the end of 2020, and both are expected to be completed by fall 2026. The projects also mark the latest of several investments the college has made to its campus in recent years.

Van Dokkumburg said addressing the school’s deferred maintenance backlog has been a key priority in recent years.

“The spaces being created today are far more open and inviting and engaging to students and we found as we improved them, the behaviors (of students) are congruent to that and the spaces are respected and utilized,” Van Dokkumburg said. “We are a commuter campus, so we don’t have resi-

dential housing and we want to be able to keep them on or near campus and have them want to be here.”

Upgrades to the Ford Fieldhouse downtown were completed before the pandemic, except for the natatorium, or pool space, which is being converted into the Gerald R. Ford Rec Center. The fieldhouse was constructed in 1976 and runs along Ransom Avenue between Lyon and Crescent Streets.

GRCC recently closed the pool and vacated the natatorium portion of the Ford Fieldhouse to start demolition work inside the building, Van Dokkumburg said.

“We no longer have a swim team, and local high schools don’t use (the pool), and there are diminished uses in the health club membership,” Van Dokkumburg said. “We’re improving student programming spaces for student studying and recreation, and there will be a new health club in the upper two levels of the building.”

Renovation plans call for filling in the pool and transforming the pool deck into a turf field gym that can be used by GRCC’s baseball, softball, soccer and golf teams. The bleachers in the building will be removed and replaced with student study areas with a variety of open and closed spaces, Van

Dokkumburg said.

The new health club, which will be open to GRCC and members from the public, will include free weights, weight machines, aerobic machines and a stretching area.

“We’re also going to introduce more lighting into the concrete structure by opening it up more to daylight,” Van Dokkumburg said.

The rec center renovations will make the facility accessible to students who want to use it when the college is open, said Victoria Janowiak, executive director of operational planning at GRCC. The facility now is shared with open rec time, athlete practice and training, as well as academic coursework.

“One of the critical design elements was we stayed student-centric so that the rec center is a place that students know they have a place for health and wellness activities for any time that works for them,” Janowiak said.

Costs for the project are still being finalized, but original estimates were at roughly $12.5 million. The project is set to be bid out this month and completed next fall in time for the fall 2025 student cohort, Van Dokkumburg said.

The Christman Co. is building out the project, and Grand Rapids-based GMB Architecture + Engineering is designing the building.

Planned changes to GRCC’s

Learning Resource Center include bringing in more departments to the library building, and incorporating “diverse learning environments,” Janowiak said.

“One of the things we learned post-COVID is that students don’t just take in-person or online classes, they take a combination of the two,” Janowiak said. “So it’s very possible they could have an in-person class and 15 to 20 minutes later be in a Zoom class and need a quiet space or Zoom room.”

The updated Learning Resource Center will cater to the hybrid way that most students take GRCC classes by having a mix of individual spaces with Zoom rooms and

collaborative spaces for group work, as well as private or quiet study areas, Janowiak said.

In addition to library operations, the Learning Resource Center will also house GRCC’s counseling services, disability support services and the Woodrick Center for Inclusion and Multicultural Affairs. GRCC’s IT Media Technologies, which is currently located in the building, will move to a new space within the facility.

The $33.6 million project is set to go out for bid in 2025 and be completed in fall 2026. Progressive Companies and Pioneer Construction are both working on the project.

A student lounge planned at the Gerald R. Ford Rec Center on Grand Rapids Community College’s downtown campus. COuRtEsY OF gRAND RAPIDs COMMuNItY COLLEgE

Bar closing as developer eyes housing for Wyoming ‘city center’

By Kate Carlson

A commercial real estate investment firm has acquired Frankie V’s Sicilian Pizza and Grill, which will close in the coming weeks to make way for more development that ties into the city of Wyoming’s broader plan for the 28th Street corridor.

Magnus Capital Partners LLC, which recently developed a 386unit apartment project immediately south of Frankie V’s on the former Studio 28 movie theater property, acquired the sports bar and 2-acre property at 1420 28th St. SW for $3 million on July 1.

As well, Magnus Capital Partners is under contract to purchase

three surrounding parcels that are owned by the Wyoming Brownfield Redevelopment Authority. Those properties total nearly 6 acres and are located at 1345 and 1410 28 West Place SW, and 1440 28th St. SW.

The real estate firm is now exploring plans with the city of Wyoming to build a “workforce housing-oriented” project at the properties, though detailed plans have not yet been finalized, said Magnus Capital Partners founder and CEO Vishal Arora.

The future development would tie into Wyoming’s broader “City Center” plan that aims to bring more residential, commercial and pedestrian-friendly activity to the

area around 28th Street SW. In decades past, the corridor was a hub for commercial and retail activity, and once housed Loeks Theater Inc.’s Studio 28, a large movie theater complex that closed in 2008 and was demolished in 2014. Magnus Capital Partners went on to develop the HoM Flats at 28 West project at the former theater property.

Arora said he expects to submit plans to the city for the properties in the near future. He “expects it to be majority workforce housing-oriented,” similar to the first two phases of HoM Flats at 28 West.

“Whatever we’re proposing should go along with the city’s vi-

sion for the area,” Arora said. “From a developer’s standpoint, the city has done a great job documenting their vision for downtown Wyoming.

firm is also in the process of developing another project on 24th Street in Holland.

The city has been targeting the area for the past two decades as part of what became the larger Wyoming City Center plan to encourage more housing and commercial development. The vision is referenced in the city’s master plan that was adopted in 2021.

The public-private City Center plan loosely includes property off 28th Street SW between Clyde Park Avenue to the east and Burlingame Avenue to the west. The city has secured $16 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act funding, as well as $20 million in state public infrastructure grants, in support of the City Center plan.

One of the main public investments the city plans is a pedestri-

Restaurateurs Frank and Wanda Vitale opened Frankie V’s, where they currently employ about 30 people, in 2001. The Vitales plan to stay open through the end of August and then pivot to opening a takeout and catering restaurant in the area, Frank Vitale told Crain’s Grand Rapids Business.

“A smaller place would work a little better for us versus a big restaurant, which right now we just can’t seem to get enough employees here,” Vitale said.

Vitale described the future development eyed for his restaurant as “a good step for Wyoming’s future” to bring new businesses and housing to the area.

Vitale previously acquired the restaurant property in 2019 for $450,000 from Loeks Theatres Inc.

“Whatever we’re proposing should go along with the city’s vision for the area.”

CEO

an bridge over 28th Street on property just east of Frankie V’s to Pinery Park. The pedestrian bridge was designed with the Michigan Department of Transportation and could be completed in June 2025, said Nicole Hofert, Wyoming’s director of community and economic development.

The city also plans to add about 4.6 miles of new trails and a public plaza, as well as relocating utility wires underground.

“If you look at Wyoming in the 1960s, 70s, and the 80s, 28th Street was a commercial mecca,” Hofert said. “It was where you did your shopping and went to do things.

Unfortunately, as the 2000s rolled around, we saw vacancies rise, the department store closed down, Studio 28 eventually closed down, and the building was later demolished.”

Magnus Capital Partners’ 28 West project helped to re-energize the space, and the real estate firm’s latest investment “is a really positive step,” Hofert said.

Magnus Capital Partners has two other housing projects under the Hom Flats brand located in Holland and Grand Rapids. The

The Vitales were first approached about potential development plans on the restaurant property a couple of years ago. As HoM Flats at 28 West progressed, they proposed that Magnus Capital Partners buy their property, Vitale said.

“It was the thought of slowing down just a little bit,” he said. “Me and my wife put in quite a few hours and we have 10 grandchildren and want to spend time with them.”

Vitale said he sees Magnus Capital Partners’ development partnership with the city as a positive step for Wyoming.

“I think Vishal will do a good job developing the area. I just know he cares about his projects,” Vitale said. “Hopefully they continue to grow and bring new businesses in the area. I’m just one of those people who put their time in like Studio 28 and we move forward to the future, and this is what Wyoming needs.”

Still, the choice to sell their 23-year-old bar and restaurant was not made lightly, Vitale said.

“I can’t say enough about the patrons of Frankie V’s, and I can’t even call them patrons or customers, they are basically extended family and have supported us through the good and the bad,” he said. “I’m also going to miss our employees just as much.”

Frankie V’s at 1420 28th St. SW will stay open through this month. | COURTESY OF FRANKIE V’S

Vishal Arora, Magnus Capital Partners founder and

ChoiceOne Bank to expand with Southeast Michigan deal

By Mark Sanchez

Sparta-based ChoiceOne Bank plans to extend further across the Lower Peninsula with the acquisition of a community bank in southeast Michigan.

Parent corporation ChoiceOne Financial Services Inc. (Nasdaq: COFS) and Fenton-based Fentura Financial Inc. (OTCQX: FETM), located about 60 miles northwest of Detroit, said July 25 it signed a definitive merger agreement for a $180.4 million all-stock deal that could close in the first quarter of 2025.

Fentura Financial is the parent company of the more than 125-year-old The State Bank, which has 21 offices in Bay, Genesee, Ingham, Oakland, Saginaw and Shiawassee counties with about $1.8 billion in assets. The bank will take on the ChoiceOne name after the merger closes.

“Fentura is a well-run institution and a natural geographical extension for ChoiceOne,” ChoiceOne CEO Kelly Potes said in an announcement on the deal. “This transaction will allow ChoiceOne to strengthen its presence in the suburbs of Detroit while adding the markets of Flint and Saginaw. We remain committed to our local Michigan communities, and this transaction will enhance that commitment.”

The merger will create a bank with 56 offices across the Lower Peninsula with about $4.3 billion in combined assets.

In emails to employees and customers, Potes wrote that the merger “is a natural geographical and cultural fit for ChoiceOne” that allows the bank to extend its footprint across the state.

“We just see this combination as elevating the visibility of ChoiceOne in the state,” Potes said in an interview with Crain’s Grand Rapids Business.

Under the deal, which is subject to approval by regulators and shareholders at both banks, Fentura Financial shareholders could convert their shares into 1.35 shares of ChoiceOne common stock.

ChoiceOne would add two members of Fentura Financial’s board to its corporate and bank boards of directors.

“Identifying the right partner with a compatible culture was crucial when we evaluated this proposed transaction,” Ronald Justice, president and CEO of Fentura Financial, said in a statement. “Fentura and ChoiceOne share remarkably similar cultures and values. Both are robust, growing institutions deeply dedicated to customer service and community engagement. By harnessing these strengths in our proposed combination, along with our complementary products and prominent market positions, we believe we will establish ourselves as one of Michigan’s premier community banks.”

Janney Montgomery Scott LLC served as the financial adviser and Warner Norcross + Judd LLP acted as legal counsel to ChoiceOne. Ho-

vde Group LLC served as financial adviser to Fentura Financial, which was represented by Dickinson Wright PLLC.

The deal came together as executives at both banks who know each other through professional networks and associations “began a conversation,” Potes said.

“We from time to time meet and talk with our peers and sometimes the discussion of partnering comes up and this one did, and it just took hold,” he said. “The more we found out about each other, our strengths and weaknesses, our similarities, it was all lining up. That just contin-

ued the conversation until we got to where we are today.”

ChoiceOne Bank currently operates 35 offices in Kent, Lapeer, Macomb, Muskegon, Newaygo, Ottawa, and St. Clair counties with $2.6 billion in total assets and $2.1 billion in deposits. The corporation last month also reported higher second quarter net income of $6.5 million, or 87 cents per diluted share.

The deal for Fentura Financial comes more than four years after ChoiceOne acquired the former Community Shores Bank Corp. in Muskegon in a $21.9 million deal.

In 2019, ChoiceOne acquired Lapeer-based County Bank Corp., the parent company of Lakestone Bank & Trust, in a stock transaction valued at $89 million.

ChoiceOne remains interested

in acquisitions, if the right opportunity arises, Potes said. “We’re not out of the market,” he said. “If something were to come up that kind of makes sense, we would take a look at it.”

Today, a healthy workplace means more. For your employees, it means physical health, mental health and everything in between. And for you, it means a healthy business that attracts and retains the right talent. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan and Blue Care Network are ready to help with comprehensive benefits your employees can count on — maternity needs, menopause support, care management, cancer support, virtual care, therapy and more.

the kind of coverage your current employees want and what your

ChoiceOne Bank’s headquarters in Sparta. JOE BOOMgAARD

Craft spirits CEO bets on whiskey

By Abby Poirier

“The road to success is always under construction”

distribution channel.

The Windquest Group-owned craft beverage platform company has tapped its longtime sales director to lead the organization following the departure of its founding CEO.

CraftCo. said it hired Ali Anderson as its new CEO in June. Anderson has worked with the company since 2019, most recently as national sales director. Prior to that, she worked for more than four years with CraftCo. whiskey brand Jos. A. Magnus & Co., which she helped grow from a startup.

Owned by the family office for Dick and Betsy DeVos, CraftCo. includes five spirits brands, including Jos. A. Magnus Co., Coppercraft Distillery, Thatcher’s Organic Artisan Spirits, Fox & Oden and Flying Ace Spirits.

Anderson said she plans to lean into whiskey development and co-packing opportunities to drive CraftCo.’s brands forward. CraftCo.’s Jos. A. Magnus Co., Fox & Oden and Flying Ace Spirits are whiskey-focused and should continue to provide growth opportunities for the company, she said.

“What I’m seeing with our consumers is that they want to see new innovation,” she said. “For us, that means expert blends, expertly curated whiskey barrels, really interesting finishes. They want to see us taking our time. And, to some extent, I think they expect to pay a premium for that. So where I see us innovating has been (in) really interesting finishing, really interesting blends, and of course, using our talent to do that.”

During her three years as national sales director, Anderson grew Holland-based Coppercraft from a Michigan brand to a national one, expanding into over 20 states. Anderson also helped to expand CraftCo.’s reach from 400 accounts in 2019 to more than 12,000 today, according to the company.

“We’ve been growing very, very steadily since 2018 and we got to a point where it became clear that for us to take on some new innovations and explore new areas, we needed someone who’s been with the brand since the very beginning, that knows that sales and marketing side and really has a vision to propel us forward,” Anderson said. “So I absolutely raised my hand.”

Anderson takes over for founding CEO Brian Mucci, who left the company to pursue other opportunities, according to a statement.

Windquest Group acquired Coppercraft Distilling in late 2016, the year after it was among a group of investors who backed the relaunch of premium whiskey brand Jos. A Magnus & Co. in Washington, D.C. Windquest later consolidated production of the two brands at Coppercraft’s Holland Township facility in 2020. At the same time, the company closed its Washington, D.C., cocktail bar and raised capital to invest in building out its sales and

The U.S. whiskey market has been on an upward trend for years. In 2023, American whiskey sales reached $5.3 billion and topped 31 million cases, up 132% from 2003, according to the most recent data from the Distillers Spirits Council of the United States, which noted the most market growth among “high-end, premium and super-premium brands.”

CraftCo. has “a lot of really nicely aged inventory” that offers opportunities for the brand, Anderson said, noting that the company also aims to move into co-packing for other producers.

CraftCo. has the “equipment and capability for younger, newer, startup brands, or even mature brands, that want to come in and use our facilities and our talent to get that product to market,” she said.

As Anderson seeks out ways to continue to grow CraftCo.’s brands in “a smart, intelligent, well-paced way,” the new CEO indicated the export market may play a role in the company’s future strategy.

“I think back to when I first started with Joseph Magnus and I was literally selling cases out of the back of my car,” Anderson said. “To be able to have that (experience) was super fun, but it’s even more fun now to be able to take this nationally and garner the awards that we’ve had and to be able to think about exports.”

A bottle of Coppercraft straight bourbon produced near Holland. | COURtESY PHOtO

Ali Anderson

State’s health care leaders focus on lowering drug prices, improving health outcomes

By Clare Pfeiffer for Crain’s Content Studio

Elevating care and improving health outcomes for Michiganders topped off the packed agenda at the Michigan Association of Health Plans (MAHP) 2024 Annual Conference.

A few key takeaways at the annual gathering of leaders in the health care industry included:

• Policymakers are calling for a focus at the state and federal level on reducing pharmaceutical costs and increased transparency.

• Skyrocketing prices for certain weight loss drugs are impacting health care access and the bottom lines of individuals and businesses.

• Changes to the behavioral health system and polices around maternal care aim to improve patient outcomes.

The annual event celebrates achievements among the state’s health care insurance providers and industry advocates and looks ahead to what legislative and policy changes could bring to the industry. MAHP is a nonprofit established to promote the interests of member health plans and to provide leadership for the promotion and advocacy of high quality, affordable, accessible and equitable health care for Michigan residents.

This year, topics relating to the costs and access to necessary medical care and prescription drugs were a common thread throughout the conference.

Addressing attendees, Michigan Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist II said access to health care and insurance coverage is imperative for the state. “One person being uninsured is one person too many,” Gilchrist said. “Nobody should have to max out their credit cards or empty their bank accounts to get care.”

Pharmaceutical prices

During the event, much of the discussion focused on GLP-1 medications like Ozempic and Wegovy, which can be used for weight loss as well as other chronic health issues like diabetes or even smoking cessation. While there’s no doubt of their popularity, the cost of these drugs has skyrocketed, experts told the conference.

“You have this captive population that would love to have these drugs. Fifty percent of the U.S. is obese, and another 25 percent is overweight, and another 25 percent wants a beach body. Everybody wants this drug,” said James Gelfand, president and CEO of The ERISA Industry Committee, which focuses on programs that shape federal and state health and retirement benefit policies.

With costs of these drugs rising exponentially in the U.S., Gelfand said, “that is such a high amount of money, paying that amount of money for all the patients who want or need that drug would put us out of business. It would put Medicare out of business. It would put Medicaid out of business.”

Gelfand said this is one example of why Washington is likely to take action to fix the system for drug pricing. “Some of the things that are broken in the system, the private sector cannot fix. We are going to have to change the laws,” he said.

Avik S. A. Roy, president of The Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, called the drugs a “public health revolution” in the industry and said that “if anything, we should be looking at ways to increase utilization of GLP-1s.”

“Government payers are the ones who end up with the cost of obesity more than commercial payers do,” Roy said.

“(Congress is) looking into the big pharmacy companies‚ product hopping, pay for delay, patent evergreening, orphan drug claims, terminal disclaimers and several others. Product life-cycle bills are popular because they could save money,” he said. “Some of that is going to happen, but it’s just a matter of how much or how big are they going to go,” Gelfand said.

Gelfand said that, ultimately, there needs to be cooperation among a variety of stakeholders to make sense of the pricing. “You have to work together between payees, employers and PBMs to be a united front on this; otherwise the drug manufacturers are going to win.”

Legislative take on pricing

A bipartisan panel of Michigan state legislators also echoed the call to find a fix for the high drug costs, including greater transparency when it comes to pricing. The panel was moderated by Mark Sanchez of Crain’s Grand Rapids Business, and panelists included seven state lawmakers with leading roles and relevant experience with health care policy in the Michigan Legislature: Sen. Winnie Brinks, D-Grand Rapids; Sen. Kevin Hertel, D-St. Clair Shores; Sen. Michael Webber, R-Rochester Hills; Rep. Brenda Carter, D-Pontiac; Rep. John Fitzgerald, D-Wyoming; Rep. Julie Rogers, D-Kalamazoo; and Rep. Curt VanderWall, R-Ludington.

“We need to make sure we are doing everything we can to be responsible and to use taxpayer dollars well to make sure people are getting the prescription medications they need,” said Sen. Brinks.

Sen. Hertel agreed, adding that the state has limited authority in

this matter, and called on federal lawmakers to take up the issue. “We need to see change in Congress to make real change in affordability in the cost of prescription drugs,” he said. “Unfortunately, Congress hasn’t been able to do much of anything.”

Rep. Carter called for more transparency in how drugmakers are coming up with pricing.

“Transparency would help lower costs of health insurance,” she said. “Why should an industry be shrouded in secrecy?”

Rep. Rogers said that Michigan House Bill 4409 passed that chamber and is now in the senate, and it would address the lack of transparency.

“You have a bipartisan group up here. There’s a lot of agreement. I think there is a lot of bipartisan support on the transparency topic.”

Rep. VanderWall said “the transparency bill is a good start,” but the state needs to look deeper at options to truly offset the costs. “We need to look at the bottom line and we need to make sure we can turn those dollars back to every one of us in this room. … I do believe we have to be willing to get into the nitty gritty — and unfortunately, nationally, it’s just a football that both sides are willing to punt.”

Addressing disparities in health care

Director of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services

Elizabeth Hertel said the state is working to solve inequities in health care, especially improvements to pregnancy care, behavioral health access and community health care.

“We know that we have higher rates of prenatal deaths among Black women in

the state of Michigan. We will continue to bring programs forward to minimize those disparities,” Hertel said.

One change she highlighted was that, since last year, Michigan Medicaid now covers doula services for care provided to birth parents in community-based, prenatal, labor and birth and postpartum settings when recommended by a licensed health care professional. “For us to be able to support those choices with Medicaid is especially important.”

For behavioral health, she noted that the shortage of qualified providers has been a huge issue nationally and in Michigan, and the state has been addressing this.

“The state and labor department has made a lot of investment in talent pipelines and attracting talent to these careers,” she said. “The pandemic we went though was incredibly traumatic, and we were all traumatized one way or another — but I think nobody more than children and adolescents. My focus has always been on: How do we expand access?”

Scan to read more on MAHP’s Annual Conference:

Moderator Matt Salo, Senior Strategist, Salo Health Strategies (center) leads a conversation on prescription drug pricing with panelists Avik S. A. Roy (right), president of The Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, and James Gelfand (left), president and CEO, The ERISA Industry Committee.

State legislators discuss prescription drug pricing policies and other state health care issues at the 2024 MAHP Annual Conference in Traverse City in July. From left: Moderator Mark Sanchez of Crain’s Grand Rapids, Sen. Winnie Brinks, D-Grand Rapids; Sen. Kevin Hertel, D-St. Clair Shores; Sen. Michael Webber, R-Rochester Hills; Rep. Brenda Carter, D-Pontiac; Rep. John Fitzgerald, D-Wyoming; Rep. Julie Rogers, D-Kalamazoo; and Rep. Curt VanderWall, R-Ludington.

Athletes play hands-on role in building Special Olympics facility

By Kate Carlson

It’s been five years since Special Olympics Michigan Inc. athletes and their families gathered at a former high school campus in Byron Township to learn about plans to transform the property into an inclusive sports complex for athletes with intellectual disabilities.

Now, multiple outdoor sports fields and amenities are nearly completed at the former South Christian High School, where the Unified Sports and Inclusion Center will serve as the largest Special Olympics facility in the world.

A constant throughout the process has been involving Special Olympics athletes in the project design and construction, said Tim Hileman, president and CEO of Special Olympics Michigan Inc. (SOMI).

“One of the things we’ve been most proud about is the entire project, from interior to exterior, is really led by impact and feedback from our athletes,” Hileman said. “What they told us is they want a place to compete, come together, train and lead, and be able to socialize.”

The Unified Sports and Inclusion Center includes both outdoor

sports facilities as well as the 127,000-square-foot former school that includes a gymnasium, auditorium, SOMI’s headquarters and office space for several other nonprofits. Renovations of the former school are about halfway completed.

SOMI leaders and executives from Rockford Construction Inc., the construction manager on the outdoor sports complex, hosted the media on July 18 for a site tour of the outdoor facilities. Fishbeck was part of the design team for the

FISHBECK

example of public-private philanthropic support all coming together to put together a really worldclass project.”

The total project budget for the Unified Sports and Inclusion Center, which broke ground a year ago, is about $26 million, Hileman said. SOMI is still fundraising for future phases, and has raised money from a wide range of public and private sources, he said.

“One of the beautiful things about this is that Special Olympics brings the community together.”

Tim Hileman, president and CEO of Special Olympics Michigan Inc.

building renovation and is the architect on the outdoor complex. Officials expect construction on the outdoor sports complex to be finished on Sept. 1.

“One of the beautiful things about this is that Special Olympics brings the community together,” Hileman said. “This is just a perfect

Public funding included two installments from the federal American Rescue Plan Act of $12 million and $5 million that will get the project through all but the final phase of renovating the auditorium inside, Hileman said.

A new artificial turf field with SOMI’s logo in the middle has been installed to host soccer, flag football and bocce ball. The field is surrounded by an eight-lane collegiate track for training and events, as well as spectators. As well, bleachers on the side of the field and track

can seat about 500 people.

Next to the turf field and track, construction continues on natural grass soccer fields, a putting green and chipping area, three pickleball courts and bocce ball courts.

Hands-on experience

SOMI serves about 22,000 athletes and athlete partners across the state. The new center will serve as a training facility for SOMI’s four regions and 36 areas across Michigan.

Athletes are considered anyone with an intellectual disability who participate in Special Olympics

competitions, while partners are people without intellectual disabilities who play alongside athletes, said Jennifer VanSkiver, SOMI’s chief officer of strategic growth.

“We’re growing very fast and doing our best to keep up with demand,” VanSkiver said. “We believe with the polarization of politics and so forth, this is where people come intentionally to be together and it really raises the tide for everybody.”

Max Erhardt is a SOMI athlete who has been working alongside and learning from construction crews on the outdoor sports complex. The 24-year-old has been in-

Lighthouse Group is now Alera Group

We are excited about this next step in our evolution as we continue to build a great company with clients at our center. Through collaboration and teamwork, we will continue to offer clients the resources of a national firm along with the personalized experience of a local partner.

volved with SOMI as an athlete since he was in eighth grade, and plans to work for SOMI to maintain the facilities when they are completed, he said.

The experience working with the construction crews has been “amazing,” Erhardt said. He and his friends look forward to a dedicated facility for hosting competitions.

“For years we had to go to other people’s fields … and finally we get to come here and call this home,” Erhardt said.

Rockford Construction site superintendent Jan Beerthuis said he has worked closely with Erhardt

during the process.

“It’s been great having him on site, and as we’re progressing, he comes out and checks on us,” Beerthuis said.

Jess Stranz, a SOMI athlete and employee, said she is grateful for the opportunity to work with organizations housed inside the renovated former school, where several nonprofits keep offices next to SOMI’s headquarters.

“It’s nice to get everybody into one space,” Stranz said. “I’m really loving how awesome and organized the project is and how magical it is.”

The former school houses gymnasiums where athletes can compete and practice, offices, meeting rooms and health services. The last phase of the project will include renovating the former school’s auditorium, VanSkiver said.

“The auditorium is about 600 seats and it will need a complete overhaul for accessibility, sound and tech design,” VanSkiver said. “We will be marketing this as a conference facility as well, and the auditorium will really be a linchpin to that.”

SOMI plans to use the auditorium for ceremonies and events for its athletes, as well as a conference

space to showcase the inclusive and accessible design of the facility, she said.

“To my knowledge there is not another space in the world that’s gone to the extent that we have to create a process that’s driven by people who are normally spoken for and on behalf of,” VanSkiver said.

“We have major companies who have come in here and said they don’t know of another place they can come in and study all these diverse needs. We’ve got a lot of companies using us as showroom space. When we include everybody, the economy and society wins.”

SOMI entrance. KAtE CARLsON

Seating at the outdoor track will hold about 500 people. KAtE CARLsON

The H.T. Hackney Co. Wyoming, MI

Max Erhardt (left) and Jan Beerthuis.

| KAtE CARLsON

East Hills wine shop plans to rebrand under new ownership

By Abby Poirier

A popular East Hills wine shop is rebranding under new owners, who say they plan to be careful stewards of the store’s customers and mission.

After almost three years working for Leon & Son LLC, General Manager Ben VanderWaal is taking over the operation as owner, alongside his wife Izamar Contreras-Alvarado. The couple plans to close the shop briefly for renovations and reopen it as Ritual Wines this month.

VanderWaal expected to close late last month on the purchase of the business located at 972 Cherry St. SE in Grand Rapids, which he is acquiring from owner and founder Chris Leon and his wife, Cristina Leon. VanderWaal will continue the lease on the store’s 1,000-square-foot space.

The East Hills location was the second for Leon & Son, which started in Brooklyn in 2015. The Grand Rapids store opened in

VanderWaal joined Leon & Son almost four years ago and worked his way into a general manager role, which he’s held for the last year and a half. He’s been working in the hospitality industry his whole career, and formerly held roles at Grand Rapids Downtown Market wine bar Aperitivo and as beverage director at the former Reserve Wine and Food, which is

His transition into an ownership role at Leon & Son has been “a long time in the works,” Van-

“Chris, the current owner, has his other shop in Brooklyn, and that has just really rapidly expanded over the nine years that they’ve been open,” VanderWaal said.

“Chris was looking to take a step back from the shop here and approached me about the idea of possibly taking over the business.”

VanderWaal said he and his wife saw the purchase as an opportunity to go all-in on a business they care about. While the brand will be changing slightly to reflect the new ownership, VanderWaal is being diligent to preserve the company’s place in the community.

“We (didn’t want) the neigh-

borhood to be suddenly without a spot like ours,” he said. “That was a big motivation for us. We wanted to keep the momentum going. And I’ve been here long enough that I’ve cultivated a lot of great relationships in this neighborhood. I really care about the people, our regulars, and I feel like they care a lot about us. And so it just seemed like (an opportunity) that we couldn’t pass up.”

In an online statement, Chris Leon said that opening the Cherry Street store was a “deeply personal journey,” noting that his life started revolving more around the Brooklyn store and travel was becoming more difficult between the two stores.

“Coming to the decision to sell our GR store was difficult, but made miles easier by doing so to Ben and Izamar,” he said. “They adore this shop, its mission and community. They have a vision and passion that brings me so much joy. And it will be a thrill to cheer them on as they make the business their own.”

Going forward, VanderWaal anticipates Ritual Wines preserving much of Leon & Son’s wine selection and offerings, noting he’s served as the wine buyer for the store as general manager and that the current selection is reflective of his taste.

The wine shop will continue to focus on small producers and high-quality farming practices while balancing affordable prices.

“A bottle of wine certainly does not need to break the bank, and there is wine of quality and integrity that is accessible to whomever you are at whatever price point or experience level that you have with wine,” he said.

VanderWaal plans to expand the inventory at Ritual Wines, where he also hopes to add a wine club and develop educational opportunities to engage with the community in East Hills.

“Izamar and I are over the moon excited about taking over this shop,” VanderWaal said. “We feel like truly a part of the community and now are planting our roots a little bit deeper. We’re just really excited about the prospect of making this bigger and better and continuing to grow alongside the community.”

After three years in operation, the Leon & Son wine shop at 972 Cherry St. SE in Grand Rapids is selling to its current general manager, Ben VanderWaal, and his wife, Izamar Contreras-Alvarado. COURtESY PHOtO

MSU, UM form ‘unprecedented’ health care joint venture

By Mark Sanchez

University of Michigan Health and Michigan State University Health Care plan to expand neurological care in the Lansing area and mid-Michigan through a new joint venture.

The two formed the Neuro Care Network to partner on inpatient and outpatient care for patients with neurological diseases such as Parkinson’s and dementia or who have suffered a stroke. The partnership includes inpatient and outpatient neurology, neurosurgery, electrodiagnostic and infusion services.

The partnership took effect immediately and marks “an unprecedented collaboration between the state’s two leading academic institutions,” University of Michigan President Santa Ono told the Board of Regents, which approved formation of the joint venture July 18.

The Neuro Care Network will include practitioners from both institutions to enhance care in the region, Ono said.

“Under this new agreement, a dedicated team of neurosurgeons and neurologists will provide world-class care at University of Michigan Health-Sparrow in Lansing and MSU Health Care in

East Lansing,” Ono said. “Together, they will care for more patients, help recruit more neurology specialists to mid-Michigan and, most importantly, transform more lives.”

The partnership will bring a higher level of care in neurology to the mid-Michigan market at a time when incidence rates are rising. The Neuro Care Network will examine future community needs in the market and recruit specialists to mid-Michigan residents, alleviating the need for patients with complex conditions to travel elsewhere for the care they need.

“Neurological care and neuroscience care, these are two areas where the diseases and the growth will only be higher, and there will only be more disease rates over time,” MSU Health Care CEO Seth Ciabotti said. “For us to come together and offer really world-class neurological care, neurological and neurosurgery care for mid-Michigan, and really the state, is something we’re really excited about. It’s something that was lacking, frankly, within mid-Michigan.”

On top of the clinical improvements, the partnership can increase clinical research in the region for neurological disease,

said Margaret Dimond, president of the University of Michigan Health Regional Network.

“Our top research institutions are aligned on expanding our clinical work and seeking more opportunities for research in the neuroscience area,” Dimond said. “This is a unique and progressive partnership that will set an example for multi-university collaboration on key diagnostic

and treatment breakthroughs. It is just the best thing for mid-Michigan in terms of clinical and research for neurological conditions.”

MSU Health Care and University of Michigan Health have collaborated for 40 years “in a variety of different ways within the neurologic sciences,” said Dr. David Kaufman, a professor of neurology and assistant vice presi-

dent for clinical affairs for the Office of Health Sciences at MSU and medical director of neurology at UM Health-Sparrow.

“We’ve done this at clinical level research education, but never at this level,” Kaufman said. “This joint operating agreement helps unite this state’s top two research-intensive universities for the clinical benefit of people within mid-Michigan.”

University of Michigan Health-Sparrow hospital in Lansing. | COuRtEsY PHOtO

ChoiceOne shares lending platform with other banks

By Mark Sanchez

A digital platform developed five years ago helped ChoiceOne Bank streamline and automate the commercial lending process.

After processing $3.5 billion in commercial loans since 2019 through the Metriciti platform, the Sparta-based ChoiceOne Bank now wants to share it with peers.

ChoiceOne Bank and DPT Solutions Inc., a Cascade Township company that provides process automation solutions to clients across a variety of industries, have been marketing the Metriciti software to other community banks to use for their commercial lending.

“We’re trying to be a force for good in community banking and offer what we’ve developed over five years to other banks,” ChoiceOne Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Adom Greenland said. “We believe strongly that there is a market for this and that this will have a positive impact with other community banks.”

ChoiceOne and DPT Solutions launched their partnership in March to license Metriciti to community banks. ChoiceOne Bank holds the intellectual property and DPT Solutions serves as the software’s reseller to other potential users for a turnkey solution for commercial lending.

DPT Solutions initially focused on Michigan, Ohio and Indiana, starting with a controlled early release and primarily targeting banks from $500 million to $10 billion in assets. DPT Solutions now has “several deals in the opportunity stage of the pipeline,” CEO Dan McGraw said. One bank is “in the contract stages,” he said.

Metriciti offers a “complete end-to-end solution for the commercial lending process” that includes sales management, an online application, data analytics, credit underwriting, managing client relationships and communications, documentation, and monitoring the loan and tracking the company’s performance afterward, said Josh Hucul, ChoiceOne Bank’s vice president of

lending technology who designed the platform.

“The efficient processes allow us and other banks to get funds in the hands of clients as efficiently and quickly as possible,” Hucul said.

DPT Solutions first developed Metriciti in 2019 with ChoiceOne as the bank sought a new commercial lending software platform. The bank at the time “had a solution we weren’t happy with,” Greenland said. “We looked at the market and we weren’t happy with anything.”

ChoiceOne employees knew staff at DPT Solutions, which had previously built some custom software for the bank, he said. The two companies then partnered to develop Metriciti, which ChoiceOne deployed effectively during the depths of the pandemic in 2020 to manage the “madness” and crush of applications for federal Paycheck Protection Program loans from the U.S. Small Business Administration, Greenland said.

“We used this solution to help us with PPP, and that really kind of supercharged the software,” Greenland said. “We liked it so much and we’ve shown it to other banks on a friendly basis just to show them what we’ve done. We’ve had a lot of inquiries about, ‘Hey, can I use that, too?’”

A couple of banks also contacted DPT Solutions, and in explaining what they needed, “basically described exactly what we did for ChoiceOne,” McGraw said. DPT introduced executives at those banks to ChoiceOne and “they loved what they saw, so we started to go through a little bit of a market analysis phase with other banks and said, ‘We’d like to just show you this thing,’” he said.

“All of the banks we showed it to were excited and said, ‘how do I buy that?’” McGraw said. “We kept hearing that and said, ‘there’s a product here, there’s a market here, let’s build this as a product that we can market.’”

Ensuing conversations led to ChoiceOne’s decision to license the software platform to other banks to use with DPT Solutions handling the sales, implementation and support.

From left: Josh Hucul, ChoiceOne Bank’s vice president of lending technology, DPT Solutions CEO Dan McGraw, and Adom Greenland, ChoiceOne’s executive vice president and chief financial officer, introduced the Metricity commercial platform at a spring Michigan Bankers Association conference. | COURtESY PHOtO

124-year-old bar, hefty bourbon collection, up for sale

By Abby Poirier

A pub founded in 1900 and boasting an extensive bourbon and whiskey collection is up for sale as the 17th owner in its storied history aims to move into retirement.

Owner David Burns wants to turn over the keys to the “right person” who would become the 18th proprietor of the 124-yearold Alto Bar, located at 6064 Linfield Ave. SE in the village of Alto in southeastern Kent County. Burns has operated the bar for 16 years.

“My wife and I are at that age where we’re going on to the next step. The bottom line is, I’m just looking for somebody to be the next caretaker,” he said, adding that the decision to sell has been “bittersweet.”

At approximately 2,000 square feet, the restaurant seats around 140 guests for lunch and dinner service.

The business is listed for $645,000 and includes the two-story building, which is 3,830 square feet in total. The top floor has two occupied apartments, which provide an additional revenue stream for the bar.

Burns fully renovated Alto Bar in 2019, a project that included the addition of a covered deck and pa-

tio, which more than doubled the bar’s capacity.

Alto Bar currently is open from Wednesday through Saturday and offers a range of typical bar fare. The bar also is known for its weekly reservation-based steak and seafood specials.

For many patrons, Alto Bar’s appeal lies in its extensive spirits collection, which Burns said numbers more than 400 bourbons and 600 whiskeys.

“I was collecting bottles proba-

bly seven or eight years prior to the big bourbon explosion,” Burns said. “I had acquired a very large collection that was on display, and it was one of those things where it just kind of grew and grew and then obviously bourbon became more popular.”

The collection boasts options at every price point, from glasses for the average drinker to special occasion spirits with hundred-dollar price tags.

“We’ve got it all,” Burns said.

“It’s a discovery thing, people travel a ways for that experience, and it’s just cool,” said Doug Todd, Lacuna Commercial Advisors principal who has the listing and is working with Burns to find a buyer.

However, while the alcohol collection is a draw for the business, a potential buyer would need to purchase the bar’s inventory separately from the bar itself to comply with state liquor laws.

According to Burns, that inventory represents a “significant” six-figure investment if the next owner intends to purchase the collection alongside the business.

Todd noted that the Alto Bar has “easily 10 times” the inventory that he sees from bars of the same scale. He anticipates any prospec-

tive new owner for the bar will purchase the inventory alongside the business.

According to Todd, several parties have expressed interest since the business listed last spring. Burns remains committed to finding a buyer who will prove the right fit for the next chapter of the Alto Bar. He’s looking for a buyer who can “do it all,” from bartending to cooking, cleaning and waiting tables, with the handyman skills needed to fix any issues that might arise. He said he’s “in no hurry” to sell the bar, and is willing to wait for the right person to take over the business.

“I’m not going to just give it away,” Burns said. “I’ve got to identify the right person.”

Promoting senior health in the workplace

Key strategies for businesses to understand SPONSORED CONTENT

PATRICIA FERGUSON

Medical Director, Senior Health Services at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan.

As the workplace evolves, so does the need for businesses to prioritize the health and well-being of their employees, especially senior citizens.

Since the early 1990s, the workplace population of older Americans, ages 65+, has increased from 11 to 19 percent.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, older adults are projected to account for 21

percent of the labor force by 2032.

Understanding the key aspects of senior health – bladder incontinence, fall prevention, exercise and physical activityand how to support senior citizens facing these challenges could result in a safer and more productive work environment.

Bladder incontinence

Bladder incontinence is a prevalent issue among seniors that impacts their daily lives and potentially impacts workplace productivity and morale. With guidance from a health care provider, accommodations such as scheduled bathroom breaks can be made to promote comfort and confidence among senior employees.

Your doctor might recommend adult incontinence products to promote comfort and confidence; additional accommodations can be made through your employer for discreet disposal of these products in public restrooms

within your office. Don’t wait to start the conversation with your health care provider.

Fall prevention

According to the National Council on Aging, over one in four senior citizens fall each year in America, with the cost of treating fall injuries projected to exceed $101 billion by 2030. Discussing your fears of falling and establishing a fall prevention strategy inside and outside of work with your doctor is highly recommended to enhance your safety and well-being. Additionally, employers can proactively create a safer environment by conducting regular safety assessments and addressing common workplace hazards such as stairwell handrails, adequate cubicle lighting, and providing mats to reduce the risk of slips and falls.

Exercise and physical activity

Twenty-eight percent of

Americans aged 50 and older are physically inactive, with the rate even higher for older adults with chronic diseases, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

Physical activity is a preventative measure against cardiovascular disease, stroke, diabetes and some types of cancer; it has also been shown to improve cognitive function and enhance emotional well-being among senior citizens. Before starting a new exercise regimen or changing your current one, always talk with your health care provider first; your doctor can provide recommendations on your current levels of activity and can offer the most guidance in tailoring activities to your needs.

Investing in senior health initiatives can result in significant cost savings for businesses. According to the World Health Organization, depression and anxiety cost the global U.S. economy $1 trillion each year from reduced productivity. To

negate this, promoting physical activity among all employees could result in fewer sick days and lower healthcare costs.

By prioritizing senior health in the workplace, employers can create a sense of inclusivity and support that benefits all employees and their organizations. Aligning with broader societal trends towards age-inclusive policies and practices, businesses that embrace and accommodate the needs of their senior citizens are better positioned to attract talent in the current competitive job market. Plus, businesses should always encourage their employees to have proactive discussions about the above topics with their health care providers to ensure they’re healthy, safe and comfortable.

The Alto Bar boasts more than 400 bourbons and 600 whiskeys. COuRtEsY PHOtO

Community Bankers of Michigan leader to retire

By Anna Fifelski

After eight years, Michael Tierney is retiring from his position as president and CEO of the Community Bankers of Michigan.

Succeeding Tierney is James North, a banking veteran who spent 25 years as president and CEO of First National Bank of St. Ignace before retiring in 2023.

North also previously served as a leader in the St. Ignace Downtown Development Authority, a board member of the local hospital, served on Upper Peninsula-wide community foundation boards, and had a long tenure with the CBM Board of Directors, where he served as chairman from 2019 to 2020, according to a statement.

“I have devoted my entire career to Michigan banking, and I am thrilled to take on the challenge of leading the CBM,” North said in a statement. “Mike and I worked together to deal with the COVID pandemic and the PPP program, and we developed a close bond and mutual respect working through a very difficult time for our state and our country … Community banks face unique regulatory and business issues, and I believe my experience, background, and

personal relationships position me to be an effective leader and spokesperson for Michigan banks in Lansing and in Washington, D.C.”

CBM is a trade association that represents local community banks.

Under Tierney’s leadership, revenue for the CBM more than doubled over the past eight years and support for the CBM PAC tripled during his tenure. The CBM has greatly expanded its programs and offerings with more than 2,000 bankers and associate members attending events and training sessions each year.

While Tierney’s retirement will not be effective until the end of the year, North will begin his role on Oct. 1 in order to best ensure a smooth transition, according to a statement.

Anna Fifelski is a reporter for Crain’s Detroit Business.

Cannabis exec plans dispensary at site of former credit union branch

By Kate Carlson

The co-founder of a statewide vertically integrated cannabis company who sold his firm earlier this year plans to invest about $1 million into a new small-concept dispensary in a former credit union office on Grand Rapids’ northeast side.

John McLeod, who co-founded Cloud Cannabis Co., plans to convert the shuttered West Michigan Credit Union location at 600 Plymouth Ave. NE, just south of I-196, after acquiring the property from the credit union on Feb. 1, 2023. McLeod plans both processing and retail operations at the site, which will operate under The Bloomery brand.

McLeod sold Cloud Cannabis Co.’s 11 retail stores in early 2024 to Mount Pleasant-based Stash Ventures, and he now serves as the director of new markets for The Bloomery cannabis retail brand. As of last year, Cloud Cannabis Co., was among the largest cannabis retailers in Michigan, according to Crain’s research. The Bloomery has two locations in New Buffalo and Mount Clemens.

McLeod said he is unsure how the future Grand Rapids dispensa-

SPONSORED CONTENT

Three strategies for better healthcare design

Achieving success through benchmarking, interdisciplinary engagement and mockups.

What does successful healthcare design mean to you? Often it means meeting the program, project budget and project timeline. This would indeed be successful, but it could be more. What if it was a project with fewer changes during construction or a project that improved patient outcomes, improved staff satisfaction or was easy to maintain? Maybe coming in on budget is not enough anymore. Here are three strategies for better healthcare design.

1. Perform benchmarking studies

Every project has an opportunity to go above and beyond the definition of a good project. One way to achieve this is to brainstorm the project’s goals and critical success factors with the users early in the design process. These could be broad or specific; some may not have obvious or apparent answers. An inpatient unit project might set a goal of fewer patient falls or higher staff retention.

Benchmarking, the practice of researching what others are doing, provides an opportunity to explore possible solutions. Once a project’s critical success factors are identified, the project team can perform benchmarking studies. This may include a peer review of existing literature, white papers or facilities. Using this research, the design team can bring forth some design opportunities to discuss and incorporate. Not all interventions will fit in with a project budget or timeline, but if done early, many will.

2. Interdisciplinary engagement

“The team, the team, the team,” said Bo Schembechler, and it is not just football. The team is equally important to a successful project. The best project outcomes are achieved by engaging an interdisciplinary team. This includes the owner’s facilities and management team, end users, architects, engineers and the construction team. While the architects and engineers you hire are experts in their fields, they are

ry would be formally branded because of the building’s relatively small, 2,500-square-foot space.

“It’s a challenge. We really wouldn’t look at a store this size, but we just feel it’s a unique opportunity in an area not served by cannabis,” McLeod said. “We’ll have to be creative and value-engineer the retail space.”

The dispensary plan previously received special land use approval from the city of Grand Rapids.

Because the property is zoned industrial, the retail portion of the facility has to be an ancillary use, McLeod said. Only 25%, or approximately 625 square feet, of the building could be used for retail, while the majority of the facility would be used for processing, McLeod added.

The dispensary could end up being a “Bloomery Express,” or outlet style dispensary, McLeod said.

The building needs renovations because of its unique layout. A vault also will have to be removed, which will be a “substantial task,” McLeod said. He estimated the build-out will cost around $1 million, which is expected to be completed at the end of this year.

“We love Grand Rapids, the people and the city, so it was important for us to get another store there after we sold the Cloud stores,” McLeod said. “It’s a little outside of what we’ve done previously, but it’s a good way to be excellent at something else, and you never know what the industry will throw at you. It’s good to be able to make changes on the fly.”

not experts in performing surgery; engaging users such as surgeons and nurses is important. By engaging the staff in the project’s design, the people who use the space can communicate what works, what does not and what could be better.

The owner needs to engage more than doctors and nurses, but infection control experts, facilities managers and facilities engineers should also be engaged. Preliminary discussions on a recent project resulted in significantly enlarging the sterile field, leading to increased project costs. After engaging with the infection control expert, the design team developed a concept that optimized the sterile zone to provide the desired flexibility while reducing the overall space demand. By engaging an interdisciplinary project team, we were able to right-size the design and reduce project costs.

3. Mockups

Healthcare projects are some of the most complex construction projects; however, they often have repetitive components. As such, mockups can

significantly accelerate the design phase and reduce costly changes later. A mockup sets up a full-scale example of the design you are trying to test. It could be a headwall in a patient room or an entire operating room. Often, these are simplified versions of the final space.

Tape may be used to demonstrate the position of outlets on a headwall in a patient’s room, while boxes may represent the patient’s bed. End users would be invited to provide feedback until the layout is optimized. This collaborative process allows increased user input before time is invested in drawings. Technology can also be used in various ways to facilitate mockups, from immersive strategies like VR headsets to navigating 3D models instead of a 2D elevation. With an immersive strategy, each room component is modeled accurately in

three-dimensional space. Users then virtually walk through the room. The architect can adjust the model as the users discover aspects of the room they would like to change.

Numerous strategies will impact the successful design of healthcare facilities. These three are scalable and can be implemented to suit the project. They can also be combined with other initiatives, such as lean design and change management. Better design does not mean higher costs. Finding a team that understands healthcare environments and has a well-planned design process that provides opportunities for innovation, prototyping and engagement will directly lead to better outcomes.

CRAIN’S CONTENT STUDIO

Tierney North

Cannabis executive John McLeod plans to convert this former credit union branch office at 600 Plymouth Ave. NE in Grand Rapids into a dispensary. | COURtESY OF

LARGEST ARCHITECTURAL FIRMS IN WEST MICHIGAN CRAIN’S

Park Tower, City of Grand Rapids Kendall fire station, GVSU Lubbers

renovation, Holland Home Campus planning, Cherry Health building renovation, Sullivan Field, and more

Care Resources, Lowell; Hope College Economics + Business Building, Holland; St. Robert Parish Activity Center + School and Parish addition, Ada; Benjamin’s Hope master planning, Holland; South Christian High School classroom addition, Byron Center; and MVP Crahen pickleball facility, Grand Rapids

Versiti Cord Blood Lab expansion, Godwin Heights Public Schools, Schmidt Heritage Park Sports Complex, King Milling Company, Grand Rapids LaGrave fire station improvements, City of Belding wastewater treatment plant, GVSUCalder Art Center renovation

Shaw Walker Apartments, Muskegon; River North Apartments, Grand Rapids; Hotel Rose, Rockford; LG Energy Solutions Michigan, Holland; American Seating Co., Grand Rapids; Tribune Lofts, Grand Haven; Harmony Lake Apartments, Fruitport

sq. ft. contemporary infill home, East Grand Rapids; 5,863 sq. ft. contemporary waterfront home, Holland; 6,782 sq. ft. transitional residence and barn, Caledonia; 3,906 sq. ft. traditional riverfront farmhouse, Grand Rapids

Olympics Michigan, Muskegon Museum of Art, Walker KDL, Muskegon State Park Beach Pavilion (DNR), Eastern Kille, Vervint, The Back Lot, Montcalm Community College, Kellogg Community College, Kent Intermediate School District

Muskegon Surgery Center addition,

GRCC joins national manufacturing training program

By Andy Balaskovitz

Grand Rapids Community College has joined 24 other community or technical colleges across the country in a workforce training program that aims to enroll 75,000 students into manufacturing in the coming years to divert a widening skills gap.

The Manufacturing Imperative-Workforce Pipeline Challenge, led by the Southfield-based nonprofit Society of Manufacturing Engineers, has tasked the participating schools with bringing in 1,000 new manufacturing students a year until 2027. If successful, the program would result in 75,000 students who would become certified or earn a degree in manufacturing.

GRCC and Livonia-based Schoolcraft College are the two Michigan colleges participating in the program, which spans 25 total schools in 17 states. The program officially started on Jan. 1, and program officials held a formal launch event at GRCC on July 23. The program will track newly enrolled students, who may go on to various levels of degrees or certifications.

gree-seeking students in manufacturing captures a lot of my goals as dean … and drastically increases the number of students in our pipeline,” Moorer said. However, the road to 75,000 people won’t be easy. A progress report the Society of Manufacturing Engineers published on July 10 identified several key challenges that will need to be overcome to hit the program’s target. Those include a need to get more students interested in manufacturing as a career.

Moorer said GRCC will focus on “strategic enrollment management” to recruit students for high-demand jobs and boost marketing in K-12 schools and area trade and advocacy groups to build awareness of its programs.

Deb Volzer, government and workforce partnerships director for the Society of Manufacturing Engineers, said a key element to attracting future students is communicating which “roles are available to them and their communities or at large. It’s understanding clearly what pathways lead to the skill development required for those.”

Another challenge that has emerged so far is a need to better connect with employers, particularly small and mid-sized companies, to identify their needs from newly certified workers.

Cleamon Moorer, dean of GRCC’s School of Business and Industry, said the pipeline challenge has the potential to “catapult” the school’s existing efforts around manufacturing talent development.

As well, the program could attract new local employers and philanthropy groups to boost GRCC’s manufacturing training, and comes during a time of greater industry focus on reshoring, Moorer said.

“As we stretch out those partnerships, we definitely want to be able to engage the philanthropic community as well as federal funding and grant support,” Moorer said. “We want to make sure our labs are cutting edge and in alignment with expectations of our employer partnerships. This partnership helps take the lamp shade off the work we’ve been doing at GRCC for many years.”

The 1,000 new manufacturing students would be on top of GRCC’s existing manufacturing cohort. In the fall 2023 semester, GRCC had 154 students on a manufacturing pathway and 334 manufacturing apprentices, totaling 488 students. An enrollment report showed that 2,598 credits were enrolled in manufacturing in the fall 2023 semester, a steady increase from 1,904 credits enrolled in fall 2020.

The Society of Manufacturing Engineers’ pipeline program presents an opportunity for “exponential” growth in manufacturing job training at GRCC, Moorer said.

“Increasing that pipeline of de-

For example, GRCC has advisory boards with area employers to ensure their curriculum is up to date and in alignment with accreditation programs. Moorer cited Gentex Corp., Amway Corp. and “other key organizations” that serve in advisory roles to the school.

Volzer said the pipeline program overall is focused on those small and medium-sized companies, “manufacturers who often their voice is not at the table.”

Program officials say the pipeline program comes as the U.S. manufacturing sector faces multiple headwinds. That includes a need to “remain globally competitive,” a decline in 18 to 24 year olds pursuing trades while an aging population plans to exit the workforce, and hundreds of thousands of U.S. manufacturing jobs that are going unfilled, Volzer said.

In April, business consulting firm Deloitte along with The Manufacturing Institute released a report showing that the U.S. manufacturing industry could see a net need of up to 3.8 million jobs by 2033. Without “significant changes” to workforce trends, about half, or 1.9 million, of those jobs could go unfilled, according to the report, which was based on an online survey of more than 200 U.S. manufacturers, interviews with executives and an analysis of labor data.

Thai restaurant is scaling up at Downtown Market

By Abby Poirier

After a decade as a vendor in the Grand Rapids Downtown Market food hall, Rák Thai is expanding in the building with a 5,000-squarefoot restaurant serving authentic dishes and Asian fusion cuisine.

The full-service restaurant, to be called Rák: Modern Thai & Cocktails, will seat 150 guests indoors and on an outdoor patio. It will be located on the ground floor of the Downtown Market, directly to the left of the main entrance to the food hall.

Rák will serve all the authentic Thai dishes that owners Blon and Christine Hang have offered during their 10 years at the Downtown Market, but the menu will expand with more entrees, Asian fusion dishes and a full cocktail bar.

The Thai restaurant’s new space was formerly occupied by Social Kitchen, which closed in 2020 after four years in business. Since then, the space has remained empty.

“We looked at it every day, but we never really thought until now (that) maybe it would work,” said Blon Hang. “(With any business) there’s never going to be the right time or the right place (to expand). It’s just what you make from it, and we’ve been in the restaurant industry for so long that we felt like there was a need to grow.”

Hang said Rák: Modern Thai & Cocktails will be a new iteration of the original Rák Thai Bistro he opened in 2009, which offered Thai fusion.

Originally, the Hangs operated three restaurants under the Rák Thai name, two of which were full-service restaurants that closed in 2016 and 2017 and focused on Thai fusion dishes.

The third and most recent restaurant was one of the Downtown Market’s original vendors when it opened in 2013.

Hang chalks up the fate of his earlier iterations of Rák Thai to a lack of awareness about Thai food in Grand Rapids, which he believes has improved over time.

“Now there’s quite a lot of Thai restaurants in town, so the palate has shifted, and people are aware of it now,” Hang told Crain’s Grand

Rapids Business.

According to the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau, Grand Rapids’ Asian immigrant population grew by 56% between 2010 and 2020. In the Kentwood area, the number of Asian immigrants expanded by a 90% increase, which now puts Asian Americans at 11% of the area population.

Grand Rapids metro also is experiencing an uptick in the availability of Asian cuisine. This summer, Thai couple Pennapa (Mimi) Wichian and her husband, Eakkasak Koasa-Ard, plan to open Thai Table restaurant on Wealthy Street. The couple moved to the U.S. from Thailand last year to open the restaurant and will bring a chef from there to create authentic dishes.

Other recent additions include King Pot, an all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ and hot pot buffet, and the national chain KPot Korean BBQ & Hot Pot, both of which are in Kentwood.

At Rák: Modern Thai & Cocktails, the owners plan to bring back some of their original fusion dishes, while maintaining the business’ authentic Thai cuisine.

The cocktail bar, which will also be new territory for the Hangs, will focus on flavorful, fun iterations of classics.

“We’re looking to add a lot of different concepts, stuff that you don’t really see in your typical West Michigan Thai restaurants,” Hang said. “We want to give you that fun experience.”

The Hangs planned to start renovating the new restaurant space last week. While the bar currently located in the space will remain the same, the plan is to change the rest of the space before the targeted restaurant opening on Oct. 1.

“The seating, the layout, the lighting, the decorations, everything will be totally different,” he said. “It will not look the same. It shouldn’t feel the same. I firmly believe that it has such potential with such a big space to do more.

The (dining) experience is the key and I want to have a lot of wow factors for everybody that comes in.”

While the Hangs will be moving the majority of their operation into the former Social Kitchen space,

they plan to retain their vendor space to sell their boba tea and signature mochi donuts. They plan to rebrand the vendor space, Hang said, noting that it will be its own entity and business that will include a retail component.

“We’ve got a lot of surprises coming up, so that will be really fun as well,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Hangs’ focus is to give the new Rák “a different experience from any other Thai cuisine in Grand Rapids or West Michigan.”

“A lot of our Thai cuisine in West Michigan is more that older momand-pop shop style, and I think that West Michigan is ready for fun Asian cuisine with a great ambiance and a good dining experience along with it,” he said.

“Our business community thrives because we have strategic and visionary companies like Legacy Trust serving our residents.

We’re grateful to have Legacy Trust based in Grand Rapids for the past 20 years, and we wish them continued success in the decades ahead.”

Rick Baker President & CEO

Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce

Rák Thai is taking over a 5,000-square-foot space inside Grand Rapids Downtown Market to open Rák: Modern Thai & Cocktails, a full-service restaurant serving authentic dishes and Asian fusion cuisine. | COuRtEsY PHOtO

Blon and Christine Hang, Rák Thai.

COMMENTARY

Coverage at the intersection of politics and business

As I write this, the Republican National Convention is on the TV, just as it’ll be tuned to the Democratic National Convention later this month. While I lead newsrooms of business publications, politics permeate many aspects of our lives, like it or not. As a journalist, it’s my job to pay attention to the world around me.

The truth is, I enjoy this stuff. Not as a partisan, but as a spectator and as an informed, independent citizen.

Mickey Ciokajlo is executive editor of Crain’s Detroit Business and Crain’s Grand Rapids Business.

I consider myself fortunate to have grown up in a household with parents who were engaged in the civic process.

I have a memory as a child of hanging signs with my mom in advance of a National Organization for Women march in Jackson. I also remember my dad going to the Republican National Convention in Detroit in 1980 when Ronald Reagan was first nominated. Ten years later, he and I drove to our polling place together to vote in a local school board election, my first time casting a ballot.

In today’s hyper-partisan times, I know it may sound quaint to talk about engaging in politics with an independent approach. But that’s how I was raised, both at home and in 30 years of covering local news professionally.

At Crain’s Grand Rapids Business and Crain’s Detroit Business, we absolutely take an independent approach to covering politics. We also use a more focused lens than most other local news outlets, striving to bring you the political information that we believe will help you as a business leader.

This means, for starters, focusing on policies and politics that have a direct effect on businesses in Grand Rapids, Southeast Michigan and across the state. Our veteran Lansing reporter, David Eggert, keeps a close eye on legislation and follows the budget process, along with the other reporters at the state capital, but with a sharp eye on issues most relevant to business.

Unemployment benefits, the prevailing wage law, and the state’s approach to tax incentives and economic development are just a few of the topics Eggert has reported on in recent weeks.

As a news organization focused on the region and state, we are compelled to keep you informed on the issues that affect you and your business. This could also include adjacent issues such as education. As many in the business community well understand, Michigan’s success at educating its next generation is inextricably tied to our ability to grow the state’s economy. We do periodically report on pure political stories, when the race or the issue reaches a threshold that it will clearly be of interest to business leaders. As we move into the fall, you can expect more reporting on the leading candidates’ positions,

particularly as they relate to business and economic issues.

What you won’t find is a lot of reporting on national “culture war” issues that swirl in much of today’s political rhetoric, but largely only serve to fire up partisans. In short, we focus our reporting on pragmatic issues over ideological ones. Plenty of other outlets offer reporting and commentary on ideological issues, which is fine. We’ll stay focused on the practical policies, and politics, that intersect with business to keep you informed and, we hope, help you make decisions as you navigate today’s economy.

The ‘Promise’ of free tuition at community college

If Grand Rapids desires to be known as an “education-first” community, it just received a big shot in the arm. That’s because the Michigan Legislature has approved funding to make the first two years of community college in Michigan tuition-free for every high school graduate.

In dollars and cents, the state of Michigan expects this to impact 18,000 high school graduates seeking an associate degree or skills certificate, by covering approximately $4,800 annually in tuition savings per pupil. But the real icing on the cake is how this financial support expands on what the Grand Rapids Promise Zone scholarship

program started nearly five years ago. Specifically, more than 1,500 eligible Grand Rapids students have received support through the program. In fact, the 2024-2025 school year is on track to have the highest enrollment ever of Promise Zone scholars at Grand Rapids Community College.

The Grand Rapids Promise Zone Scholarship covers the cost of tuition, fees and textbooks at GRCC. Whether a student plans to transfer to a fouryear university or join the workforce, GRCC’s degree and job training certificate programs offer something for every student, every interest, every future. What’s more, one of the

many benefits is that students can be enrolled part-time and still be eligible; the new statewide initiative requires fulltime student status.

With the rising cost of tuition, these efforts make higher education possible and more affordable to a greater number of people while also reducing debt. The Grand Rapids Promise Zone is a good and affordable option for students who continue their education at a four-year institution or for those who would like to earn a career credential and join the workforce.

tion which will only provide today’s families with more options than ever before to make college dreams a reality.

So how can a family get into the game?

There are three simple steps. First, confirm eligibility in the Grand Rapids Promise Zone. Next, apply for enrollment to

The Grand Rapids Promise Zone Scholarship covers the cost of tuition, fees and textbooks at GRCC.

As chair of the board of directors for the Grand Rapids Promise Zone and retired superintendent of Grand Rapids Christian Schools, I couldn’t be more thrilled with the timing and scope of this legisla-

Grand Rapids Community College. Finally, complete a FAFSA, the form for Free Application for Federal Student Aid.

I challenge all Grand Rapidians to share this opportunity far and wide — it’s truly a game-changer for our community and state.

Tom DeJonge is board chair for the Grand Rapids Promise Zone and retired superintendent of Grand Rapids Christian Schools.

Transformed hotel tower changes downtown Battle Creek

By Rachel Watson

A massive group project underway for more than four years in downtown Battle Creek is expected to wrap up in the next few weeks, adding nearly 250 hotel rooms and convention and meeting space to the city center.

Battle Creek-based 50 Capital Avenue Development Group, the real estate development arm of Battle Creek Unlimited, the city’s nonprofit economic development organization, and management firm 6PM Hospitality Partners LLC are preparing to open the renovated DoubleTree by Hilton at the end of August.

The partners plan to host a grand opening ceremony after Labor Day and begin booking reservations later in September for the 247-room hotel, located at 50 Capital Ave. SW in downtown Battle Creek.

They’ve already started booking conventions and meetings, according to Peter Beukema, CEO of Zeeland-based 6PM Hospitality.

6PM has hired Vivek Trivedi as general manager and is about halfway through hiring the remaining 150 to 200 employees.

The opening represents the culmination of a more than four-year project with multiple partners to transform the 15-story McCamly Plaza Hotel into a fresh new convention hotel attached to the 6,500seat Kellogg Arena. McCamly Plaza Hotel was built in 1981, but has been closed since 2019.

A former developer, Neil Freeman, had failed to meet a 2018 deadline to convert the hotel to a DoubleTree by Hilton after BCU lent him $3.5 million to get it done, prompting BCU to sue to retrieve the funding in early 2020. A subsequent legal agreement stipulated that BCU would take ownership of the property, which it did by November 2020.

The agreement kicked off a multi-year process to secure project partners, raise funding and push through pandemic-related supply chain snags and construction delays to get to this point. At last estimate, the renovations will have a final price tag of about $61 million.

To redevelop the hotel, BCU secured about $30 million in grants from a variety of sources. Among

HOTEL

From Page 3

The planning commission would have to approve an amendment to the zoning approval of the Grand Landing development to accommodate the hotel project, a process that would require public hearings by both city planners and the Grand Haven City Council.

Occupancy data for the Holiday Inn in Spring Lake “fully supports this project,” although Elite Hospitality Group still intends to conduct a market feasibility study, Bacall said.

them: The W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Miller Foundation, the state of Michigan, the city of Battle Creek via its American Rescue Plan Act allocation, Calhoun County’s ARPA funding, the former Kellogg Co., the Calhoun County Visitors Bureau, the Consumers Energy Foundation and Bronson Healthcare Battle Creek’s community investment fund.

Joe Sobieralski, president and CEO of Battle Creek Unlimited and head of property owner 50 Capital Ave. Development Corp., said it “feels really good” to be nearing the finish line.

“It’s been a long journey, a long road,” he said. “I’m excited to get it open and just welcome people to come check it out.”

Grand Rapids-based Fishbeck is the architect and engineering firm on the project, and Grand Rapids-based Pioneer Construction is the contractor.

When completed, the DoubleTree will be Calhoun County’s 22nd hotel and one of just two in Battle Creek’s downtown core.

Annie Kelley, communications director for Calhoun County Visitors Bureau, said the county “needs those hotel rooms,” as travel to the area continues to grow, with visitors coming for golf, sports tournaments, business trips, conventions and trade shows at the arena, and gaming at the FireKeepers Casino.

Room occupancy this year has been up 5% to 8% every month, Kelley said. Hotels are about 70% booked on weeknights, with that rate rising even higher on weekends.

Kelley said a couple of new Battle Creek hotels will be opening soon, including a Tru by Hilton at the end of this year and a Residence Inn by Marriott next year, both of which are about 10 minutes from the city center. Kelley believes the DoubleTree is especially significant because it will “change the landscape of downtown.”

“I think it will bring in more visitors, we’ll be busier, and as it’s connected to the Kellogg Arena, we can bring in more events now, because there are conferences and things that would like (to use) an arena attached to a hotel,” she said. “Now that we can fulfill that, we’re going to be getting more business that way.”

“That’s part of the reason we were ready to move forward on this development here because the (Spring Lake) property has done pretty well over the last couple of years,” he said. “Based on how our hotel’s performing, we knew this project would support the performance of this hotel.”

One city planning commissioner noted that a hotel was part of the original vision for Grand Landing.

Another planning commissioner, Dan Borchers, said he was “excited to see a development” at the city’s northern entrance.

“This is the face of Grand Haven,” Borchers said. “I think it’s

The project partners said the new DoubleTree hotel will be set apart from the others in that it will “showcase” downtown Battle Creek, with its destinations like Handmap Brewing, New Holland Brewing’s Battle Creek Brewpub, Clara’s on the River, The Cricket, Cafe Rica and the Kellogg Auditorium, all within a three- to four-block walking distance.

“The other properties in the market, there’s some really world-class brands, but they are not situated downtown,” Beukema said. “In the kind of changing mindset and changing desires of the new traveler, they’re really seeking experiential travel and really want to engage with the communities that they’re visiting and working in.”

He added: “I think that this property is very uniquely positioned to capture the hearts and souls of our guests that are on their ‘bleisure trips,’ where it’s business and leisure mixed.”

According to Beukema, the approximately 200,000-square-foot hotel will have an “industrial modern” feel throughout its lobby, food and drink establishments, and 15 floors of rooms.

The accommodations will include a mix of standard rooms with two queens or a king bed, along with regular suites and hospitality

great and Grand Haven has been waiting for this.”

Elite Hospitality Group’s project would include dual brands with a 59-room Hampton Inn and 72-room Home2 Suites by Hilton for extended stays of four nights or more, Bacall said. The project would include a shared lobby, a fitness center, two patios and an outdoor lounge, plus space on the site for a restaurant.

The developer has “nobody concrete that we have signed up there yet, but we would like to find somebody that would complement the hotel (with) another great restaurant to add to the city that would be there to cater to the

suites.

Amenities will include lobby seating areas, a pool, fitness center, a bar called The Revus, a restaurant and beer garden dubbed The Alloy that will seat up to 160 people, a rooftop cocktail lounge known as 50 Beacon, a new ballroom and meeting rooms.

The approximately 20,000square-foot atrium that will connect the hotel to the arena and its box office will include an “open, multi-use, multi-functional space,” Sobieralski said.

“It could host an indoor farmers market in the winter, it could host a larger event that the ballroom couldn’t, and I think it’s going to be a very popular community gathering place,” he said.

Perhaps one of the most unusual aspects of the project is that it will have a workforce development training program baked into its staffing model.

The project partners plan to reserve about 10% of staff positions for student workers enrolled in hospitality career training and leadership programs. Participating educational institutions include Kellogg Community College, Grand Valley State University and Battle Creek Public Schools.

Backers and other partners include the Michigan Restaurant &

travelers there on the site as a featured amenity,” Bacall said.

Asked how an extended-stay hotel would fit with short-term rental properties that have proliferated in the city, Bacall said he doesn’t see the two types of lodging as competing.

“There are some people who just prefer the services (of a hotel). The complimentary breakfasts, the fitness facilities, whatever it might be, earning their loyalty points with Hilton,” he said. “There’s a specific traveler who leans on a hotel versus a short-term rental or Airbnb. I don’t see them competing very much with those

Lodging Association, Calhoun County Visitors Bureau, Michigan Works! Southwest, Goodwill Industries of Central Michigan’s Heartland, Women’s Co-Op of Battle Creek, Voces (Battle Creek) and the Burma Center.

The program, dubbed the Suite Collaborative, will “flip the script” when it comes to hospitality education, marrying classroom and on-the-job training, Beukema said.

Students will come to the hotel “at various levels in their educational career, from right out of the gate out of high school to some advanced degree students that might be taking a hospitality management program at Grand Valley State University,” Sobieralski added.

“We’re just excited for the opportunity to (offer) talent development and career development for the residents and the students of the community,” Beukema said.

The Calhoun County Visitors Bureau’s Kelley believes the best part about the hotel is that it has been homegrown from day one, from the guest experience to the educational component.

“It’s something that the community came together and built together,” she said. “It was a vision of the people who live here, as opposed to someone from outside coming in.”

type of travelers.”

Elite Hospitality Group has owned and operated more than 30 hotels since forming in 1995 and completed dozens of hotel real estate acquisitions and developments totaling more than $400 million, according to the company’s website. The company’s current portfolio includes 26 Michigan hotels, operated under the Hilton, Marriott, IHG, Choice, and Red Roof brands.

In West Michigan, Elite Hospitality Group also operates the Hampton Inn & Suites by Hilton and SpringHill Suites in Cascade Township, and the Residence Inn by Marriott in Holland.

Crews continue to work on the Battle Creek DoubleTree by Hilton hotel ahead of its late August opening. | 6PM HOsPItALItY PARtNERs

From Page 1

billion deal to acquire the residential and light commercial HVAC business from Johnson Controls Inc. The deal also included JCI’s 6040 joint venture with Hitachi Ltd. for global residential HVAC.

In a recent report on the JCI deal, Reuters cited anonymous sources who said Bosch stopped pursuing Whirlpool as a target once the “more attractive” JCI acquisition materialized.

The JCI deal came about as Bosch weighed large acquisition targets, CEO Stefan Hartung told Reuters. According to the report, Hartung also declined to comment on Bosch’s potential bid for Whirlpool, but said that his company would be preoccupied in digesting the JCI deal for the next year.

Meanwhile, Whirlpool executives reported lower sales for the second quarter, citing the softness of the U.S. housing market, which began to decline as interest rates rose in 2022. The resulting higher rates for home mortgages “continue to put pressure on housing affordability and overall consumer discretionary spend-

PINE REST

From Page 1

pediatric urgent care center that will include tele-behavioral health capabilities “so that we can treat kids from every county in the state,” said Pine Rest Chief Operating Officer Bob Nykamp.

A much larger proportion of the children and adolescent patients that Pine Rest treats are on Medicaid than the adult patient population, Nykamp said.

“We’ve heard a very clear message from the Legislature in supporting this project that this has to serve the entire state of Michigan. So, just about every service other than our inpatient service has to have a telehealth component to it

ACRISURE

From Page 1

relationships with investors and leaders whose companies are listed on the NYSE.

A graduate of Milford High School and Eastern Michigan University, Tuttle reportedly considered leaving the NYSE last year to run in the Republican primary for Michigan’s open U.S. Senate seat, according to Politico. Prior to his current role, Tuttle served at the U.S. Department of State during the administration of President George W. Bush.

The role of president is a new one for Acrisure, said the company’s Chief Communications Officer Elliott Bundy.

“This role is really about identifying the right fit for the company at this time, and John in specific, and thinking about how he can add to the existing leadership of the firm,” Bundy said.

Bundy added there’s been “no

ing,” Bitzer said.

“We’ve seen the downturn of consumer discretion and demand intensify since 2022 and existing home sales hit multi-decade lows in 2023 and 2024. There is no doubt that we have been and still are at a low point in the U.S. housing market. With interest rate reductions, this will ease at some point, and we are well positioned to benefit from improving demand,” Bitzer said.

“The U.S. housing market will even-

$3.96 per diluted share.

At midyear, sales totaled $8.47 billion, a 10.2% decline from the first half of 2023. The company posted a net loss of $29 million, or 75 cents per diluted share.

“The U.S. housing market will eventually turn positive, and our North America business is well positioned for future growth and further margin expansion.”

Marc Bitzer, Whirlpool Chairman and CEO

tually turn positive, and our North America business is well positioned for future growth and further margin expansion.”

Whirlpool generated $3.98 billion in global sales for the second quarter, a 16.8% decline from the same period in 2023, with higher net income of $225 million, or

so it’s available across the entire state,” Nykamp said.

The Pediatric Behavioral Health Center will become the first facility in the state dedicated to providing mental health care for children and adolescents. Pine Rest forecasts that the pediatric center, along with planned service additions and new care models, will expand inpatient care by 3,000 children annually and by 10,000 for outpatient care.

Whirlpool this year aims to cut $400 million to $500 million in costs as a result of the lower sales. The company has seen “a slower realization of our incremental cost actions,” said Executive Vice President and Chief Financial and Administrative Officer James Peters. “While we remain on track to deliver $300 million to $400 million of cost savings in 2024, we continue to trend toward the lower end of the range,” Peters said. “Despite the macro environment, we delivered approximately $150 million of cost take out globally in the first half of 2024, and we expect our manufacturing and supply chain initiatives to deliver the majority of the cost take out in the second half.”

The lower interest rates needed to allow home sales to recover could come soon. Economists generally expect the Federal Reserve to

specialty outpatient clinics to prevent mental health crises for conditions such as depression, anxiety and eating disorders.

When opened in spring 2026, the two-story pediatric center will include inpatient and outpatient treatment for children and adolescents, psychiatric urgent care, a crisis stabilization unit, and

change” in Acrisure’s intentions to eventually go public, though the company is not ready to “declare a specific timeline,” he said.

Williams was unavailable for an interview but said in a statement that Tuttle’s “command of the capital markets” and relationships in the financial sector made him the “ideal candidate.”

“John’s experience in the global arena will complement our entrepreneurial team, and his work in both the public and private sectors position him as a strong advocate for our company and clients as we continue to transform and grow,” Williams said in the statement. IPO imminent?

Tuttle’s hiring follows Acrisure’s selection earlier in July of Aaron Miller as its new CFO, a move experts said at the time pointed to the company’s need for a financial leader with a new skill set as it explores shifting from growth by mergers and acquisitions to growth by IPO.

Erik Gordon, an assistant profes-

begin reducing rates in September.

Following estimates that showed Real GDP grew 2.8% for the U.S. economy in the first quarter, PNC Bank economists wrote today in an economic briefing that they expect “solid but somewhat slower economic growth in the second half of the year and into 2025 as high interest rates continue to restrain the economy.” Inflation should continue to ease, leading the Federal Open Market Committee to reduce the federal funds rate by a quarter point in September.

PNC expects two quarter-point interest rate reductions this year with more cuts in 2025. As the Fed brings down the federal funds rates, PNC economists expect existing home sales “to pick up slightly later this year as mortgage rates decline and price growth slows, leading to improved housing affordability.”

That could benefit Whirlpool, which Bitzer described as “clearly well positioned to benefit from the upcoming housing rebound, given the high correlation between existing home sales and appliance sales.”

“We have a strong position with the (home) builders as we work with eight out of the top 10, holding the No. 1 share position with builders, which we expect to continue to

The campaign has included “the biggest checks Pine Rest has ever received” from 15 to 20 private benefactors, he said.

Pine Rest remains in the quiet phase of the capital campaign to finance the project and has several outstanding requests, Nykamp said. Prior philanthropic pledges to the campaign include a $5 million commitment from the DeVos Family Foundation in February.

“This community and the state, they have been incredibly supportive,” said Nykamp, who called the state funding “huge” for the largest capital campaign that Pine Rest has ever conducted.

sor at University of Michigan’s Stephen M. Ross School of Business specializing in corporate governance, said in an email to Crain’s Grand Rapids Business that this second executive hire adds to observers’ mounting sense that an IPO is coming soon.

“(Tuttle) can guide them through an IPO,” Gordon said of Tuttle’s qualifications.

Alexander Calderone, president of the Birmingham-based Calderone Hudson Group, which provides business valuation services, echoed that observation.

“Combined with the retention of the new CFO, this announcement further suggests an IPO could be imminent,” Calderone said via email.

Gordon added that Acrisure’s offering could soon follow two Michigan IPOs that recently happened back to back: Birmingham-based software company OneStream Inc., which began trading on the Nasdaq exchange July 24, and Novibased temperature-controlled

grow,” Bitzer said. “Importantly, we have a very strong product pipeline for 2024, and we continue to invest in new product development as we laid out at Investor Day. We’re particularly excited about the new products that we’re rolling out this year.”

When interest rates do start to decline, “you might see still fairly solid new home sales … but you may also see a resurgence of home improvements and remodeling,” Bitzer said.

“People have money. They just don’t want to leave existing homes. So, I think you will see more and more trends toward remodeling, refurbishment, and to be honest, that’s not a bad business for us,” he said.

Whirlpool executives also remain “focused on maintaining cost discipline and are taking actions to increase cost takeout in the second half of the year,” he said.

For all of 2024, Whirlpool projects $16.9 billion in global sales, a 13% decline from 2023. In longer term guidance, the company projects $17.2 billion in organic net sales in 2026.

Crain’s Grand Rapids Business editor Joe Boomgaard contributed to this report.

based BWBR Architects Inc. designed the center.

“This is transformative money,” he said. “What it tells you is that everybody realizes how important access to behavioral health care is, especially for the children and adolescent population right now.”

Construction began in May on the 66-bed, 132,000-squae-foot Pediatric Center for Behavioral Health on Pine Rest’s 68th Street campus in Cutlerville. The project is a partnership with Corewell Health’s Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital.

Holland-based EV Construction Co. serves as the contractor for the project. Minneapolis, Minn.-

storage and logistics giant Lineage Inc., which made its debut on the Nasdaq Thursday as the largest IPO of the year.

Acrisure said Tuttle’s appointment underscores the company’s commitment to “attracting top talent and fostering a forward-thinking corporate culture.”

“With the addition of Tuttle’s leadership, the company is well-positioned to capitalize on new opportunities and deliver exceptional results for its stakeholders,” the company said in the statement.

Tuttle earned a bachelor’s degree from Eastern Michigan University and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Notre Dame.

At the NYSE, he was involved in nearly every line of business, including listings, capital markets and exchange-traded products. He helped manage the exchange’s relationships with 2,400 issuers and more than 1,300 equity offerings, including IPOs and follow-ons, which raised over $1.5 trillion, ac-

Of the total funding that Pine Rest aims to raise, $70 million will go for construction of the new facility and $28 million will cover the cost for equipment and furnishings for the pediatric center and for workforce and program development.

Pine Rest originally sought $15 million from the state in the budget. Legislators in the House allocated $5 million in a budget proposal. The Senate plan did not allocate any money for the project. When legislators approved the final budget in late June, it included the $12.5 million appropriation, Nykamp said.

“We can’t wait to get this thing open,” he said.

cording to the statement.

Most recently, Tuttle created and served as president of the NYSE Institute, the exchange’s platform bridging public policy and global commerce.

Tuttle was unavailable for an interview but said in a statement that he is “thrilled” to join Acrisure.

“(It is) a company that embodies growth, ambition and a relentless pursuit of excellence,” Tuttle said. “I look forward to working closely with Greg and the entire Acrisure team to drive further success and deliver unmatched value to its clients and partners.”

Founded in 2005 by Williams and Ricky Norris, Acrisure has been growing rapidly in recent years, more than doubling revenues since 2021 with a valuation that neared $27 billion in late 2023. Williams has said Acrisure, which reported 2023 revenue of $4.5 billion, is expected to reach $5 billion in revenue by the end of 2024. The company employs about 17,000 people in more than 21 countries.

Nykamp

HOFFMANN

From Page 3

The scaling has already begun. In addition to about 20 vessels that the Hoffmanns added to its fleet across the three marine deals, the deals included more than 116 parcels of land in the Straits of Mackinac area, including docks in Mackinaw City, Mackinac Island and St. Ignace. They also acquired 51 buildings and 6,500 parking spaces as part of those deals.

The Hoffmann family is now the largest real estate holder in the area and employs 500 people, according to the firm.

Meanwhile, the Hoffmann family’s interests in Michigan have expanded beyond marine transportation. Three separate deals have involved:

w Hoffmann Media Group’s acquisition of St. Ignace-based Maurer Publishing LLC, the publisher of the St. Ignace News and the Mackinac Island Town Crier, in March 2023.

w The acquisition of Gladstone-based Besse Forest Products Group, an Upper Peninsula wood products manufacturer, in March of this year.

w The acquisition in July of Lowell-based Envision Engineering, a full-service metal forming manufacturer, to add to its manufacturing portfolio. Grand Rapids-based M&A advisory firm Calder Capital represented Envision in the deal.

Scott Marshall, St. Ignace city manager, said local officials have had largely positive impressions of the Hoffmann family since their in-

CHERRY

From Page 3

production costs.

Compounding the economics problem: Unlike sweet cherries, tart cherries are not generally sold fresh and must be processed through freezing, drying, juicing or canning, value that doesn’t necessarily get back to the farmers.

To that end, a 2022 report from the Cherry Marketing Institute and Michigan State University Extension noted that it costs Michigan farmers 44 cents to produce one pound of tart cherries, but growers only received 18-32 cents per pound for their harvest from 2017 to 2021, with a low of 14 cents in 2019.

“The problem is that everybody else is making money, but the farmer isn’t,” said Leisa Eckerle Hankins, who grew up in a 250acre, fifth-generation family farm in Suttons Bay.

As a grower who also founded the Michigan Cherry Growers Alliance and owns Benjamin Twiggs, a Traverse City-based cherry products retailer, Hankins has a unique comprehensive view into the industry. She said Michigan’s cherry-based retailers largely are removed from the struggles farmers face.

That includes at 60-year-old retailer Benjamin Twiggs, where Hankins said sales are doing “particularly well” this year.

“I do wholesale on top of retail, and that has grown exponentially in the last couple of years,” Hankins

vestment streak in the Straits, particularly for the company’s interest in keeping the former owners’ legacies intact.

“The Sheplers have been famous for investing in employees and using the ‘Disney method’ of training employees,” he said, referring to an employee orientation style that emphasizes family-owned business culture. “It sounds like the Hoffmann family has much the same sensibility and wants to continue that.”

Hoffmann said the family has its eye on a couple of additional hospitality-related investments in Northern Michigan, but no agreements have been formally inked. He said they’re also interested in venturing into marine freight opportunities, which would complement the ferry businesses.

“Our ears are always to the floor, looking for any and all opportunities,” he said. “When the planets align, and they jump off the page as a great business, it could be in anything, and we’re going to take a serious look at it.”

The Hoffmann origin story

Greg and Geoff Hoffmann’s father, David Hoffmann, made his early fortune in the 1980s after founding the Chicago-based executive search firm now known as DHR Global, which is still the conglomerate’s cornerstone business.

From there, David Hoffmann branched out into private equity through Osprey Capital LLC, now structured as a family office, and into real estate via Hoffmann Com-

said. “More and more stores seem to be carrying the product. … The availability for retailers to get the product is there, so that’s not the problem. It’s more of a problem on the farmer’s side.”

Michigan is the largest producer of tart cherries in the U.S., growing nearly 75% of the country’s tart cherry supply. Michigan produced 180.5 million pounds of tart cherries in 2022 and 133 million pounds last year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Michigan’s 2022 harvest was valued at $36.5 million.

In recent years, growers have been contending with inflated costs of supplies, the effects of climate change and higher federally mandated wages for migrant labor.

To that end, the wage rate set by the U.S. Department of Labor for workers employed on H-2A visas climbed to $18.50 this year, a yearover-year increase of 6.7%.

Given the acute challenges growers face, the cherry-based retailers in the state are grappling with how to better support the agricultural sector responsible for the success of their industry.

According to Melanie LaPerriere, vice chairperson of the Cherry Marketing Institute, better consumer education and retailer marketing could be one step toward helping improve growers’ situations.

For example, cherry juice has seen a spike in popularity in recent years for its reported health benefits, but the bump in sales has benefitted processors more than grow-

mercial Real Estate, which today manages properties cumulatively valued at more than $1 billion, according to the firm.

Under the second generation, the Hoffmann Family of Companies now owns about 200 businesses headquartered in 13 U.S. states, Canada and the UK. Together, the companies have 11,000 employees with operations across more than 250 locations in 30 countries, according to the Hoffmann Family of Companies’ website.

The family has thus far acquired businesses in eight sectors: agriculture, aviation and transportation, financial and professional services, hospitality and entertainment, manufacturing, marine, media and marketing, and real estate.

Northern Michigan isn’t the first time they’ve doubled down on a specific location. Three years ago, the family announced plans to invest $150 million in the historic wine region around Augusta, Mo., which is about 50 miles west of St. Louis. Their portfolio in that area currently includes six vineyards and wineries, a golf club, a pair of plant nurseries and a slew of other hospitality and entertainment businesses.

A ‘unique’ investing approach

Jeff Helminski, co-founder and managing partner of the Grand Rapids-based private equity firm Auxo Investment Partners, said the Hoffmanns’ investment approach in Northern Michigan appears “rather unique” compared to other wealthy families.

“If it’s your home geography, we often see families investing in a lot of different things in the place

ers, she said.

LaPerriere cited the recent viral recipe for the “Sleepy Girl Mocktail,” a mix of tart cherry juice, magnesium powder and sparkling water consumed before bed to improve sleep, which led to tart cherry juice flying off store shelves.

“We’re seeing growth in things like juice products, which is awesome, but in terms of return to the grower, that’s the lowest return to the grower,” LaPerriere said. “As an industry, I feel like our challenge is to make sure that we’re looking at the product that has the highest return for growers, and making sure that while we’re pushing on juice — because that’s what’s hot now, and we want to continue to support that — let’s really make sure that we’re mindful of the form of product that has the very best return to grower.”

LaPerriere used the example of the summer salad, which in Michigan is often garnished with dried cherries, but in other parts of the country typically comes with cranberries.

“We’ve got our work cut out for us in terms of educating not the consumer, but educating the food service arena to make sure that they’re responding to their consumers’ interests,” she said. “We do hear consumer interest, we just don’t have the connection to the marketplace to make those products available to consumers, particularly outside of Michigan. We’re doing a lot of yeoman’s work to make that happen at both the industry level as well as my company,

they’re from and the place they know,” he said. “(When) they’re making an investment in something that’s not in their hometown, so to speak, it’s often about the business or about the industry that’s attractive to them, and they tend not to necessarily be local businesses.”

Helminski added that it’s also unusual that the Hoffmanns picked Michigan businesses — local ferry services and two small newspapers — that serve very specific geographies and are unlikely to scale.

“That’s a unique dynamic, not one that I’ve seen a lot of other families replicate,” he said. “I’d say it’s maybe a little more typical to see more of a theme across the things that (families) feel like they have expertise in.”

Helminski also said the Hoffmanns are unique in that only a “small minority” of family offices dabble in direct deals, or companies that they will own and operate.

Mike Brown, partner and managing director of Grand Rapids-based investment banking firm Charter Capital Partners, said many of the larger family offices have gotten into direct deals precisely because they don’t want to pay the steep fees that private equity firms might charge to manage their investments.

He said the advantage of this approach is that the family can then be choosy about which companies they invest in — and likely pay a lower price since they aren’t trying to drive fast returns.

“A private equity group really wants to grow a business fast —

but that’s the disconnect. Consumers like cherries, they want cherries, but when they go to the grocery store, they don’t know how to get them.”

Hankins noted that building unity and facilitating conversations between growers, the processors that buy their cherries, and the retailers that sell them will help build a better future for the industry in Michigan.

“We’re all in it to survive and make money,” she said. “I was talking with someone (recently) and they were saying they were paying $1.29 (or so) per pound for cherries (while) the grower’s only getting $0.13. They (were asking) ‘How do I as a purchaser demand 70 cents for the grower?’ And I said that I don’t know. Those are questions that we have to figure out. We don’t have answers to them, but we’re going to start to talk about them.”

For her part, LaPerriere would like to see more time and money spent on bolstering the domestic

that’s how they return money for their investors,” he said. “A family office will often buy a business that is very profitable and just hold on to it … indefinitely. They don’t have to sell it.”

Brown said that could be advantageous for the ferry companies, because they are limited in their revenue growth by the number of tourists that come to the area, which isn’t likely to change drastically from year to year.

“I’m sure they’ll do things to improve operations and (trim expenses) and things like that,” Brown said. “But a lot of family offices like to buy culture — a business that has a good culture — and maintain that.”

Hoffmann echoed that, noting that they first were drawn to Shepler’s because the family was able to navigate the challenges that come with running a business together for nearly 80 years.

“Our company was started by our father, so we had a lot of synergies and things to talk about at the acquisition table,” he said. “… (The Sheplers) have shown that they not only are great people, but they run a really, really amazing operation that we were honored that they would even consider us to be involved with.”

He added: “The locals of that area are every bit as nice of a caliber as Chris (Shepler) and his family, so we were like, ‘Man, we stumbled upon just a beautiful place, not only to see, but to experience and work alongside with,’ and so that’s why you’re starting to see our appetite to continue to invest more in there.”

cherry market, as opposed to focusing on exports and “many areas that don’t really move the needle, per se.” Right now, the industry is in the process of refocusing its spending priorities, rather than taking “a shotgun approach,” she said. “As an industry, we’ve got our work cut out for us in terms of getting into those channels of trade and educating in a meaningful way, and that does not come without cost.”

With a more coherent industry voice and focused marketing strategy, the cherry industry can step into the growing market outside of Michigan.

For retailers like Cherry Republic, which created 60 new cherry-based products last year, the best way forward is to continue innovating.

“The best thing I can do for the industry is to keep thinking of new uses for cherries, new ways to sell cherries,” Cherry Republic’s Sutherland said. “That’s what keeps me up the most: How can I sell more cherries for the industry that I love?”

Implant Dentistry Associates of Detroit-Southfield, P.C. d/b/a ClearChoice Dental Implant Center, seeks Prosthodontist to perform prosthetic dentistry and related dental implant services in Grand Rapids, MI. Req.: DDS, DMD, or MS in dentistry or equiv., MI dental license, & cert. in prosthodontics from an ADA accredited prgrm. Resumes to: Code AH-P, J. Ximenes, TAG, 800 W Fulton Market, Chicago, IL 60607 (juliana.ximenescoutinhodias@aspendental.com).

For Brandy Johnson, increasing college access in Michigan is more than a job

As the rst generation to go to college in her family, Brandy Johnson, president of the Michigan Community College Association, has a passion for making college accessible.It’s why she founded the Michigan College Access Network in 2010 and years later in that role nudged then-gubernatorial hopeful Gretchen Whitmer and other candidates to set a bold post-secondary attainment goal for the state, make college more affordable and community college tuition-free.The nudge earned Johnson, 40, an invitation to join Gov. Whitmer’s administration as a policy education adviser in 2019. She served in that role for two years before moving to the Michigan Community College Association in late 2021, becoming the rst woman to lead one of the state’s higher education associations.Amid it all, Johnson, with her husband — the “Tom Izzo of debate at MSU” — is raising two young children with all of the day-to-day issues and heart-swelling successes most families see but the added challenges of both being born with birth defects. Yet, she nds time for fun as the sole female in her family’s fantasy football league.This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. | By Sherri Welch

You’re an Arizona native. How did you wind up in Michigan? For undergrad, I went to Arizona State University. While I was there, I actually interned for then-governor of Arizona, Janet Napolitano. at got me really interested in state politics and working for governors. After I graduated, I did Teach for America and taught third grade in a really low-income area of Las Vegas, which got me very turned on to education policy.

I came to Michigan in 2007 to go to the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. I thought I would y back out to the beautiful Southwest before the ink was dry on my degree, and things just did not shake out like that. I really have to consider myself a Michigander now. I’m married to Will Repko, head debate coach at MSU. He is the Tom Izzo of debate. He is the winningest debate coach alive. He has three national championships with MSU and is a nationally recognized debate coach. We met, actually, because I interned for then-Gov. Jennifer Granholm, and that turned into a full-time job in the policy division in her administration. In 2010, MSU won the national debate championship. After talking with the governor’s press secretary, I reached out to him (Repko) to congratulate him and to set up a meet and greet on behalf of the governor, and the rest is history.

You founded the Michigan College Access Network in 2010 to increase college readiness, enrollment and completion in the state. What led you to do that?

When I moved up to Lansing, I was single and didn’t have much of a life. I would work during the day for Granholm and at night I dreamt up MCAN and wrote a business plan for it. is was during the Great Recession when it was abundantly clear that those who had college degrees were way more recession-proof than those with a high school diploma or less. I am a rst-generation college-going student. I have recognized the trajectory change in my own family because I went to college, and so it’s something I’m really passionate about.

What the state was lacking was any sort of strategy or statewide infrastructure to really fuel a movement to help more individuals pursue college. e idea was very similar to what became Gov. Whitmer’s 60 by 30 goal, but I worked on it 10 years earlier. I left MCAN at the beginning of the Whitmer administration to take a position as education policy adviser in her administration for two years.

I worked on 60 by 30, Michigan Reconnect and Futures for Frontliners, among other things.

You’ve led the Michigan Community College Association for the past two and a half years. Is the new community college tuition guarantee your rst win there?

It’s maybe my biggest, but the other really big win was in my rst year related to nursing. ere was this very historic, long-standing policy debate between two-year colleges and four-year colleges about whether or not community colleges should be able to confer bachelor’s degrees of nursing. My rst year, I negotiated a compromise that really was a win-win for the colleges, but also for future nurses and employers. Basically, it requires universities to partner with a community college to deliver bachelor’s degree courses on the campuses of community colleges. Each community college is receiving $2 million to support their program.

It was a $56 million win in the state budget.

What’s keeping you up at night?

Ever since Michigan Reconnect passed to make community college tuition-free for adults 25 and older, we’ve seen an in ux of adult students. And the fact is, adult students are juggling a lot more. And so there are times when adults who are good students drop out for nonacademic reasons. And, you know, that keeps me up at night. More nancial aid that can help students with their basic needs will allow them to work fewer hours and dedicate more of their time and attention to their studies so that they will get that better job and that better paycheck and that upward socioeconomic mobility. e state is also convening a student basic needs task force that will be making some policy recommendations on these topics, and we’ll be supporting those.

You also have a busy home life, right?

We have two kids. Kirby is 8 and our daughter Robin Jane is 6. Both of our kids were born with some medical complications and birth defects, and so both have required signi cant surgeries. Our son is doing really well. His surgeries all happened on his skull when he was about 1 year old. Our daughter was born with a condition called Goldenhar

President

Executive

Ciokajlo, mickey.ciokajlo@crain.com

Editor Joe Boomgaard, joe.boomgaard@crain.com

Managing editor

Balaskovitz, andy.balaskovitz@crain.com

Special projects editor Tim Gortsema, tim.gortsema@crain.com

Director of audience and engagement

Elizabeth Couch, elizabeth.couch@crain.com

Audience engagement editor Matthew Pollock, matthew.pollock@crain.com

Director of Visual Media Stephanie Swearngin

Creative director

Thomas J. Linden, tlinden@crain.com

Associate creative director Karen Freese Zane

Digital design editor Jason McGregor

Art directors

Kayla Byler, Carolyn McClain, Joanna Metzger Notables coordinator Ashley Maahs

REPORTERS

Kate Carlson, real estate, kate.carlson@crain.com

Jack Grieve, audience engagement, jack.grieve@crain.com

Abby Poirier, restaurants, retail and agribusiness, abigail.poirier@crain.com

Mark Sanchez, health care and nance, mark.sanchez@crain.com

Rachel Watson, residential real estate, insurance and tourism, rachel.watson@crain.com

Danielle Nelson, research and data, danielle.nelson@crain.com

ADVERTISING

Senior vice president of sales

Susan Jacobs, susan.jacobs@crain.com

Advertising & event sales director

Jill May, jill.may@crain.com

Account executive

Jennifer Maksimowski, jennifer.maksimowski@crain.com

Michigan events director Samantha Flowers, samantha. owers@crain.com

Events Planner

Tressa Brondyke, tressa.brondyke@crain.com

People on the Move manager

Debora Stein, dstein@crain.com

Classi ed sales

Suzanne Janik, sjanik@crain.com

Sales assistant Rachel Smith

syndrome as well as a cleft lip and cleft palate and heart defect. Basically, her face didn’t develop properly, and one side of her face has smaller or missing features. So she only has one ear; her bones are really small on one side. She has many, many more surgeries to come over the course of her childhood, but she is doing exceptionally well and just nished kindergarten. She has these facial di erences and hearing loss. Otherwise, she is the most typical, brilliant, funny, 6-year-old you’ve ever met. It’s de nitely shaped us as a family and has brought us closer together. We’ve spent so much time in hospitals. I think it’s made us also a lot more compassionate.

Despite your busy life, you’re a fantasy football addict?

My brother is a huge sports fanatic. So probably more than 15 years ago, he invited me to be in his fantasy football league, and then I just got really hooked. It’s my one non-work, non-kid hobby. I y home to Arizona every Labor Day weekend to participate in my draft. I’m the only female on the 14-person league with my brother, uncles, husband and a bunch of our friends that we grew up with. I’m the current runner-up. I was in the Super Bowl this last year, but lost. I’ve never won our “Slobberknocker” family trophy. I think this is my year. Sherri Welch is a reporter for Crain’s Detroit Business.

CRAIN’S CONTENT STUDIO

Senior director of

Brandy Johnson is president of the Michigan Community College Association. Crain’s