BY TOM WALSH
DETROIT FREE PRESS COLUMNIST

Dan Gilbert, founder of Quicken Loans and principal owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers basketball team, hosted what he called a "family reunion" for 162 people last week in downtown Detroit.

Think of the three-day meeting as a corporate management retreat in blue jeans, with a dash of evangelical fervor and an array of disparate business ideas aimed at reviving a deflated city.

Members of the Quicken corporate family heard about plans as diverse as the possible purchase of the Chase Bank headquarters building on Woodward Avenue and a deal with Microsoft to allow Xbox video gamers to buy huge Fathead wall graphics of their customized avatars.

Gilbert moved Quicken headquarters and 1,700 employees last August from Livonia into four floors of the Compuware building in downtown Detroit and followed that up in January by buying the Madison Building near Grand Circus Park.

Next up: Quicken wants to move 2,000 more people downtown starting later this year or in 2012. Gilbert has an option on the Chase building -- but hasn't closed the deal yet -- and his real estate people are looking at other Detroit properties. Meanwhile, another affiliated startup, Detroit Venture Partners, aims to invest in 15 young companies a year.


Continued at: http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/a...=2011103200435