Crain's: Corporate campuses in twilight

**DetroitPlanner** · June-15-11, 02:52 PM

Originally Posted by bailey

Did Compuware "need" space for 5000? aren't they leasing a large portion of their building to Quicken folks?

At the time Compuware designed the building they did. They have laid off much of thier staff since they built the building.

**iheartthed** · June-15-11, 11:11 AM

Originally Posted by Malcove Magnesia

Facebook currently leases space across a number of buildings scattered around Palo Alto. It makes sense that they would want to get the majority of their employees into one compressed area. Same thing with Apple. If an operating systems guy needs to talk to a hardware guy about some dongle that isn't working as expected, s/he just crosses the campus [[or across DeAnza Boulevard) and they can get the answers they need pretty quickly.

As much as I would love to see all the buildings of Detroit light up at all hours with business, it's going to be a very tough sell to get additional large corporations downtown. Thousands of employees won't fit into a single already-existing building in any downtown area. Maybe a couple buildings, yes. But Compuware had to build a brand new building for their headquarters [[and get some major concessions / incentives from the city), to get everyone in one place.

The businesses that Detroit should be trying to entice are medium sized businesses [[that can easily fit into the retrofitted UA building, for example) and emerging technologies [[the kind that brings lots of investments, dynamic people, jobs, etc.).

Well, the article pointed out that the idea that everybody needs to be clustered together on the same campus or under the same roof is outdated. From personal experience, I wholeheartedly agree. I have worked more closely with people scattered across the globe, from California to southeast Asia, than I have with some of the people whose desks sit within a 10 foot radius of mine.

**gnome** · June-15-11, 12:55 PM

And this article was reprinted in Crains? Crains? Who's campus has all the charm of bagdad's Green Zone. A walled fort with guard towers and an asphalt moat. Jeeze. Get over yourself.

**wolverine** · June-15-11, 09:39 PM

Originally Posted by gnome

And this article was reprinted in Crains? Crains? Who's campus has all the charm of bagdad's Green Zone. A walled fort with guard towers and an asphalt moat. Jeeze. Get over yourself.

Their Chicago location is pretty bad-ass though. And their employees seem like a pretty happy bunch of people.

**Scottathew** · June-15-11, 01:14 PM

Things are changing in Detroit too. With GM doing better, BCBS, and Quicken down here I've seen a lot more foot traffic than what we had before.

This all good news, but it's also impacting my commute! But that's a good problem to have. We need REAL mass transit.

**dtowncitylover** · June-15-11, 02:02 PM

I don't mean to quote Wikipedia, but here's what they're talking about Bham1982,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_city

**English** · June-15-11, 07:10 PM

Originally Posted by dtowncitylover

I don't mean to quote Wikipedia, but here's what they're talking about Bham1982,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_city

Yay! We're Gamma minus!

**BrushStart** · June-16-11, 11:47 AM

Twilight? More like midnight: http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article...e-to-handle-gm

**Detroitnerd** · June-16-11, 11:56 AM

Well, in fairness, GM has been almost demanding that agencies it works with locate their offices near GM's headquarters. That was the case with Goodby Silverstein, and likely this move too. On one hand, GM's exigencies do not a national trend make, but they certainly are part of that trend.