Quote Originally Posted by English View Post
I'd like to rejoice, but I'm suspicious. What's his angle?
As far as office space is concerned, he owns interests in dozens of companies, ranging in size from one or two people to the 4,000 he employs with Quicken. Based on the investments him and his peers are making via Detroit Venture Partners, those numbers will only grow. All of the ideas they invest in, will be located in one of his buildings. It may take him a year or two to fill up all this space, but I would anticipate other related companies like ePrize will be joining them Downtown sooner rather than later.

As far as retail is concerned, Gilbert has been probably the most vocal advocate of bringing retail back to Downtown, all part of his Live-Work-Play theme. He was instrumental in the CityLoft experiment which has so far been called a success. Based on the feedback, he may be looking to entice other retailers into coming Downtown or providing some with bigger spaces. Even if retailers are interested in Downtown, given the poor state of most of the empty storefronts, very few retailers would even take a chance with that sort of investment. With Gilbert, he will likely spruce-up the spaces and even possibly subsidize rent or pay for a buildout [[as Compuware did with Texas de Brazil), to entice potential tenants. If it will ever happen, someone needed to improve the storefronts, and with Gilbert [[presuming it is him) buying what seems to be a retail storefront, to me it indicates that he isn't after all of these spaces to turn them into offices...

Gilbert himself has even said he wants to create a walkable Downtown with accessible retail, and that started with the Chase Tower.