Concentrated effort brings projects to life
January 6, 2008
By JOHN GALLAGHER
FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITER
High atop the Book-Cadillac Hotel, Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick took in the sweeping vistas of the Detroit cityscape Friday and reflected on his hopes for his city.
"People have been telling us to die for 50 years," he said. "And we just won't die. And I think it's a group of mayors, political leaders, business leaders, philanthropic leaders who came together and did something extraordinary by saying, 'We're here to stay, we're sticking our flag in the ground, and let's keep moving together.' "
This day, Kilpatrick could feel good about the future. He and private developers were close to announcing the new $150-million Cadillac Centre project on the Monroe Block parcel downtown. Besides providing a financial boost for downtown, the project boasts an innovative architectural design that could provide Detroit with a new postcard image to rival the Renaissance Center.
Michigan's weak economy and the national housing slump have blunted some of Detroit's revitalization efforts. The delays pain Kilpatrick, but he says he is determined not to let setbacks defeat him.
"Whatever we're doing, our mind-set is we have to keep the momentum going," he said. "If it's not going 60 miles an hour like it was at one point, then we can't idle down to zero, we have to go back to 40. That's my mind-set. It's us against the world, and let's get it done, let's keep it moving."
The city's revitalization effort has benefited from many things, from a national trend toward urban living to the creation of special tax credits in recent years that help finance many projects.
Then, too, Detroit's 300th anniversary in 2001 and hosting Super Bowl XL in 2006 led to renewed cooperation among civic and corporate leaders.
Robin Boyle, a professor of urban planning at Wayne State University, called the progress "the culmination of concentrated resources, concentrated political investment, concentrated skill, concentrated attention."
The deal team
January 6, 2008
By JOHN GALLAGHER
FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITER
High atop the Book-Cadillac Hotel, Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick took in the sweeping vistas of the Detroit cityscape Friday and reflected on his hopes for his city.
"People have been telling us to die for 50 years," he said. "And we just won't die. And I think it's a group of mayors, political leaders, business leaders, philanthropic leaders who came together and did something extraordinary by saying, 'We're here to stay, we're sticking our flag in the ground, and let's keep moving together.' "
This day, Kilpatrick could feel good about the future. He and private developers were close to announcing the new $150-million Cadillac Centre project on the Monroe Block parcel downtown. Besides providing a financial boost for downtown, the project boasts an innovative architectural design that could provide Detroit with a new postcard image to rival the Renaissance Center.
Michigan's weak economy and the national housing slump have blunted some of Detroit's revitalization efforts. The delays pain Kilpatrick, but he says he is determined not to let setbacks defeat him.
"Whatever we're doing, our mind-set is we have to keep the momentum going," he said. "If it's not going 60 miles an hour like it was at one point, then we can't idle down to zero, we have to go back to 40. That's my mind-set. It's us against the world, and let's get it done, let's keep it moving."
The city's revitalization effort has benefited from many things, from a national trend toward urban living to the creation of special tax credits in recent years that help finance many projects.
Then, too, Detroit's 300th anniversary in 2001 and hosting Super Bowl XL in 2006 led to renewed cooperation among civic and corporate leaders.
Robin Boyle, a professor of urban planning at Wayne State University, called the progress "the culmination of concentrated resources, concentrated political investment, concentrated skill, concentrated attention."
The deal team
At the heart of the effort is Kilpatrick and what's called his deal team, headed by George Jackson, president of the Detroit Economic Growth Corp., the quasi-public agency that handles day-to-day negotiations on many deals, including the Cadillac Centre project.
In this complex web of deal-making and negotiation, the mayor serves as a sort of heavy artillery, brought in at key moments, Jackson said.
"He lets us do our job, but when we need him, he's there to step in a very decisive way," Jackson said. "We love for him to get involved because he's a damn good salesman, and he does it with a lot of enthusiasm and vigor."
One such moment came during the final stages of negotiations for the $185-million deal to renovate the Book-Cadillac Hotel, expected to reopen this fall. John Ferchill, the Cleveland-based developer heading the project, said some of financing required state and federal officials to approve them. When those officials balked, Kilpatrick stepped in to lobby them.
"The mayor was willing to go to the wall with the various people he needed to," Ferchill said last week. "The unprecedented cooperation, really led by the mayor, is the reason that deal got done, as much as anything else."
Dan Gilbert, founder and chairman of Quicken Loans, is another fan. After lengthy negotiations with the mayor and his team, Gilbert announced in November he will move his headquarters from the suburbs to a downtown site in a few years.
"Mayor Kilpatrick simply gets it," Gilbert said last week. "Unlike a typical politician, he is about the what, not the who. He is a man committed to reviving the city, and through his own hands-on hard work, passion and interaction with key people in the business world, he and his staff are creating an environment and culture that will turn our city into a special place that only very few people are willing and daring to visualize today."
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