Harnessing Regional Wealth: Companies That Could Move to Detroit

[ABetterDetroit]

As many start ups as we can get going. It's was the amazons and starbucks types that let Seattle lose Boeing to chi town with little more than a wave and a few choice words.

[Lowell]

Detroit had all these places [[minus ford ...it's been in Dearborn forever) poached from it because they were either directly bribed to move to where they are or they followed clients and customers that were bribed to move out there.

Minus Chrysler too. They were headquartered in Highland Park with a smaller part of the facility overlapping into Detroit.

[Mackinaw]

As many start ups as we can get going.

Correct, endogenous growth from within it probably our best bet. Who knows which of the many successful starts from the last five years could be the next big thing at a national levels. In the meantime, though, established regional entities with the ability to move should not be overlooked. Moving to Detroit is not just playing musical chairs-- not in our current circumstances. Looking at Penske as a really obvious target.

[Hermod]

Lets see, I have fifty or so employees in my office out on Big Beaver. Detroit comes calling with an attractive package. Do I hate my employees enough to subject them to a city income tax, a commute through unsafe areas, paying for parking, and having to run a gauntlet of panhandlers to get from the parking to the office?

[iheartthed]

Lets see, I have fifty or so employees in my office out on Big Beaver. Detroit comes calling with an attractive package. Do I hate my employees enough to subject them to a city income tax, a commute through unsafe areas, paying for parking, and having to run a gauntlet of panhandlers to get from the parking to the office?

You could offset the city income tax for your employees with a raise using some of the tax incentive savings you received from the city.

[RO_Resident]

Lets see, I have fifty or so employees in my office out on Big Beaver. Detroit comes calling with an attractive package. Do I hate my employees enough to subject them to a city income tax, a commute through unsafe areas, paying for parking, and having to run a gauntlet of panhandlers to get from the parking to the office?

Not only that, but real-live people walking around, pianos on the sidewalks, food trucks, riverwalks, lunch outside, and a dude selling self-produced Star Trek-themed rap cds.

[coracle]

In the spirit of other good threads about what we'd like the downtown of 2020 to look like, and what sort of new small businesses are in demand in the city, I wanted to simply list some major employers located outside the City of Detroit who should be targeted for a move to the central city. Some may be more inclined than others. Some may have solid reasons for having a suburban campus, based on what they do. But I feel strongly that many can and should move to the central city, and that such a move-- as with Quicken and Compuware-- grows the pie and changes the growth vectors and perception of the city [[it would be nice to boast of having over 10 Fortune 500s in the city) and the region. It goes without saying that each such move would heat up the city's housing market, increase central city population, spur retail development, and increase transit usage/demand [[including regional transit). Dan Gilbert has allegedly attracted at least a few other businesses, and he reportedly constantly lobbies others in his local rotary club, so to speak, to come on down. Well, here are some more he can go after, and all of us too, using our collective, if small, influence:

Penske Automotive Group- #194 on Fortune500. Bloomfield Hills. The boss seems invested in changing the city…but his corporate HQ is a missing piece in the equation.
TRW Automotive- #165 on Fortune 500. Livonia.
Kelly Services- #468 on Fortune 500. Troy.
Lear- #177 on Fortune500. Southfield.
Masco Corp- #323 on Fortune 500. Taylor.
Visteon- #351 on Fortune 500. Van Buren Twp.
BorgWarner- #352 on Fortune 500. Auburn Hills.
The Detroit Pistons Basketball Club- Auburn Hills [[previously Detroit-based).
Chrysler Group LLC- Auburn Hills [[U.S. HQ)…has opened a small space in Dime Bldg.
Flagstar Bank- Troy.
Meadowbrook Insuance Group- Southfield. Largest business insurer based in MI.

And then there is this company called Ford.

Thoughts? Additions? Seems to me that many of these companies have impediments, such as owning their 'house' and likely not being able to find a buyer, like Chrysler or the Pistons. Others, who lease, should have more flexibility. Any insight as to which of these companies leases, or owns property that could be easily sold, would help.

There are 700,000 of you; instead of looking for what you can "steal" from other Cities why don't you build your own Companies?

[bailey]

You could offset the city income tax for your employees with a raise using some of the tax incentive savings you received from the city.

Beat me to the punch there. A few jobs ago my group had an outpost in the D... the old guard insisted the flag remain there...but they eventually lost that argument and was shuttered shortly after I got there--primarily because all the new management blood lived in exurban Oakland county and expenses of keeping Detroit were cutting into end of year bonuses for equity holders....I digress.

Anyway, for us at the downtown office, parking was paid and there were other perks given to offset the rather tiny matter of the income tax. Which of course created its own conflict as it was seen as "unfair" and unearned extra compensation for us by the exurban dwellers who worked out of the suburban office because THEY didn't get them...or [[what was really cheesing them off) access to free parking when they wanted to come into town for games.

[bailey]

There are 700,000 of you; instead of looking for what you can "steal" from other Cities why don't you build your own Companies?

I'm sure you'll CC that to LBP and Fouts and Hackel and every economic development office in every major meto area in the entire world that looks to lure companies to their municipality right?

[Wings]

Lets see, I have fifty or so employees in my office out on Big Beaver. Detroit comes calling with an attractive package. Do I hate my employees enough to subject them to a city income tax, a commute through unsafe areas, paying for parking, and having to run a gauntlet of panhandlers to get from the parking to the office?

Now let's not exaggerate. The city income tax can be offset with a raise, driving on any highway or Woodward is not an unsafe commute, there aren't too many panhandlers in the core of downtown anymore, and parking isn't that expensive unless you have a private garage like at One Kennedy Square.

[Gistok]

Lets see, I have fifty or so employees in my office out on Big Beaver. Detroit comes calling with an attractive package. Do I hate my employees enough to subject them to a city income tax, a commute through unsafe areas, paying for parking, and having to run a gauntlet of panhandlers to get from the parking to the office?

Well to start with... you must already hate your downriver employees.... subjecting them to taking the long way around via I-275/I-696/I-75 just to avoid the horrific unpleasantries of driving on the Freeways THRU Detroit....

[Mackinaw]

Now we are getting into some good merits discussion. Hermod, I think most of your concerns are overblown, illogical, or outdated, and if your employees are something other than robots, i.e. people with brains that require stimulation and hearts that require human interaction, then your concerns will be outweighed by the benefits of the urban work environment. I could not imagine working in an office park with noplace to go outside; I have been privileged to have my choice of employment location and always be located in a downtown. Walking and moving about has been proven to increase brain activity and blood flow. Aside from the physical and mental health of your employees, you should care about their productivity. The legal briefs and analyses I write are generally better when I take time to think, and when I walk somewhere outside for lunch or coffee my make the blood flow. I cannot think, and I cannot get my blood flowing, by staying at my desk, or by walking down the first floor of the building to a cafeteria and coming back up. Nor can I stand the thought of not having options as to how I live my daily live. I MUST get a car. I MUST drive on a highway daily. I MUST eat the cafeteria food or DRIVE or pay delivery to get anything else. And if I want to dare see a show, ballgame, or have social time on a weeknight, which I like to do frequently, I'll need to leave early and sit in traffic to go downtown.

I would never work at your office on Big Beaver road. And you should really lobby to get that road name changed.

[Wings]

Big Beaver Rd? Why would anyone who isn't from Troy/Sterling Heights want to work there? Unless you're a stone throw from Somerset, working in endless suburbia doesn't sound too enticing to me. It's easier to drive downtown from the western suburbs, Ann Arbor, downriver, Grosse Pointe...probably even Royal Oak than it is to drive to somewhere on that awfully named road.

[313WX]

Now let's not exaggerate. The city income tax can be offset with a raise, driving on any highway or Woodward is not an unsafe commute, there aren't too many panhandlers in the core of downtown anymore, and parking isn't that expensive unless you have a private garage like at One Kennedy Square.

Driving on any street in Detroit isn't "unsafe." Only a cetain type of foolish person would think otherwise.

Gratiot is jacked up every day in/out of downtown during rush hour with suburbanites from Macomb County...

[renf]

I hope that state's leader will consider the issue of city income taxes. On Tuesday we voted to eliminate one tax with the revenue to be made up by some mysterious yet to be fully determined source. I believe that Detroit's income tax is higher than the limit set by the state. Detroit, I believe, obtained permission to temporarily impose an income tax above 2 percent. Presumably, if gambling revenues greatly pick up - and they are now moving in the other direction - the city will reduce the income tax rate.

It is time for an evaluation of the very many taxes the state imposes. We could have a much
more equitable tax system in Michigan and eliminate the city income tax in the 21 locations that now impose it.

[Mind field]

I sometimes peruse metromodemedia.com and write suburban companies that are expanding and looking for new space to consider locating in the city. I bet if they received enough well written suggestions selling the move to Detroit, someone might start to pay attention.

[DetroitPlanner]

Stealing companies from the suburbs does not grow wealth for the entire region. All it does is move people around. Downtown does not need another huge corporation, it needs lots of small companies. What is better is try to be innovative at what we currently do, and try to build stuff we currently import from outside the Detroit area.

[Inkadinkado]

Now we are getting into some good merits discussion. Hermod, I think most of your concerns are overblown, illogical, or outdated, and if your employees are something other than robots, i.e. people with brains that require stimulation and hearts that require human interaction, then your concerns will be outweighed by the benefits of the urban work environment. I could not imagine working in an office park with noplace to go outside; I have been privileged to have my choice of employment location and always be located in a downtown. Walking and moving about has been proven to increase brain activity and blood flow. Aside from the physical and mental health of your employees, you should care about their productivity. The legal briefs and analyses I write are generally better when I take time to think, and when I walk somewhere outside for lunch or coffee my make the blood flow. I cannot think, and I cannot get my blood flowing, by staying at my desk, or by walking down the first floor of the building to a cafeteria and coming back up. Nor can I stand the thought of not having options as to how I live my daily live. I MUST get a car. I MUST drive on a highway daily. I MUST eat the cafeteria food or DRIVE or pay delivery to get anything else. And if I want to dare see a show, ballgame, or have social time on a weeknight, which I like to do frequently, I'll need to leave early and sit in traffic to go downtown.

I would never work at your office on Big Beaver road. And you should really lobby to get that road name changed.

Have you ever been to Chrysler? Their paths and trails through the forest put to shame any mid-afternoon bum-shit dodging stroll in CBD. Been in the area of Town Center in Southfield? A walk under the trees along the upper Rouge is pretty awesome, too.

[Mind field]

The city needs everything it can get. Home grown, innovative, high growth companies are the best route to creating more regional wealth, but a strong central city will also need to pull some more companies from the suburbs, any kind be it major corporations [[probably unlikely) to small and mid sized companies.

[royce]

Here's a crazy thought. Remove city government offices from the City-County Building [[CAY) and put them into some of the vacant buildings [[not owned by Gilbert) along Woodward/Griswold/Washington Blvd, and or Broadway. Then tear down the CCB/CAY and offer the property up to a company that wants to build a world class world headquarters building on that property. Imagine if we could get Ford out of their "Glass House" in Dearborn. Now that would be a coup.

Also, before it was announced that a New York based company had bought the old Wayne County Building, I definitely felt that Jeffrey Figer should have bought that building and moved his law offices from Southfield to there. Somewhere I remember a commercial or ad in the paper where he and his lawyers were standing on the steps of the Wayne County Building. Now, that would have been a coup.

[dtowncitylover]

You could offset the city income tax for your employees with a raise using some of the tax incentive savings you received from the city.

That would be nice but the satellite office I work for of 35 people, I don't think is big enough to get tax incentives. Most of the tax incentives I've seen are given to companies like BCBS and QL who move 100s or 1000s of workers. And since our numbers are soft, corporate couldn't afford to give us raises to offset the income tax. So while my company would fit in perfectly downtown, we have to stay in the suburbs.

[Mackinaw]

Royce I like where your head is at, but there is no need to do that. We've got three city-controlled front-and-center development parcels for a new corporate HQ: Monroe Block, Hudson Block and Ford Auditorium [[though they probably just want to hold onto it for something lame like a bigger hart plaza). Then there are probably a half-dozen ready made other parcels for tall things, like Randolph @ E. Fort [[whole block), a few small blocks around the financial district that would be perfect for tall, slender buildings, and take your pick of parking lots east of the Ren Cen. In short, no need to move mountains, or city hall.

[JDKeepsmiling]

Stealing companies from the suburbs does not grow wealth for the entire region. All it does is move people around. Downtown does not need another huge corporation, it needs lots of small companies. What is better is try to be innovative at what we currently do, and try to build stuff we currently import from outside the Detroit area.

Planner,
I agree that growing business from within is the best option, with second best being a move from another region into the metro area. However, I disagree that a company moving from the suburbs to Downtown is a zero sum game. When an area like Downtown Detroit has been down and out for so long, when something positive happens, it is usually a catalyst. The ROI is immense, because TBH, Detroit needs employment more than Troy does. That is not a subjective statement, it is fact.

When visitors come into town and see a vibrant downtown, word spreads. With a healthy downtown core, the metro area is going to be considered a lot more for corporate moves and expansions. It is a case where if you can fix the weakest link in the chain, the chain as a whole improves.

I will agree that after a certain point, which Detroit has not yet reached, it does become closer to a zero sum game. However, there is still housing to consider. When a company locates downtown, their employees are much more likely to live closer to the urban core [[not necessarily Detroit, but more likely Livonia than Walled Lake). If a company opens in Wixom, the employees can live in Brighton or Walled Lake. So therefore having employment Downtown helps to curb sprawl and helps us generate tax revenue to reinvest in ailing infrastructure.

[Gistok]

There are 700,000 of you; instead of looking for what you can "steal" from other Cities why don't you build your own Companies?

So using your logic... maybe we should "steal back".... what was built in Detroit to begin with??

Paging AAA in Dearborn... and Plante Moran in Southfield.... come on back....

[DetroitPlanner]

Planner,
I agree that growing business from within is the best option, with second best being a move from another region into the metro area. However, I disagree that a company moving from the suburbs to Downtown is a zero sum game. When an area like Downtown Detroit has been down and out for so long, when something positive happens, it is usually a catalyst. The ROI is immense, because TBH, Detroit needs employment more than Troy does. That is not a subjective statement, it is fact.

The reality is that there is plenty of office and industrial space everywhere in the metropolitan area that is underutilized. When this happens, rents stay low and leases are signed at bargain rates. Most buildings and communities outside of Detroit proper do not want to lose their businesses and will do what they can to entice them to stay.

The cost of doing business downtown is fairly high when you start to include things such as additional taxes, parking for clients, etc. Granted a lot of this is assumed in the lease or in the operating costs but it is there. Not all of Detroit's area for doing business is downtown. In fact the vast majority of it is not. That is where the risk/reward is and it is also where people live [[remember there are still over 700k who live in the City proper, 90-95% whom do not live near the CBD). This is where we need innovative smaller businesses. It would also do a heck of a lot more to make Detroit vibrant both in appearance and improve its economic condition.