Latest / Earn Your Leisure / The Man in Control of Transforming Detroit

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The Man in Control of Transforming Detroit · Earn Your Leisure

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  Speaker 2: So we talked about, you know, you being the CEO
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  Speaker 2: of Bedrock and you guys have deployed billions of dollars
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  Speaker 2: in capital. So how did you land at that position?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, it's actually interesting. As you pointed out,
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  Speaker 3: I'd been in California for a significant part of my
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  Speaker 3: professional life as a real estate developer, and I certainly
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  Speaker 3: had also been in Cleveland. When I left my position
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  Speaker 3: as executive vice president and the chief administrative officer of
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  Speaker 3: the Cleveland Browns in two thousand and five, went to
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  Speaker 3: San Francisco and was recruited there by a company called Leonage.
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  Speaker 4: It's the largest home builder in the US.
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  Speaker 3: And I ran the San Francisco Bay Area office doing
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  Speaker 3: master plank communities.
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  Speaker 5: But I did that for about ten years, and the
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  Speaker 5: company was spun off that endeavor, which was called five
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  Speaker 5: point and five point essentially focused. It took all the
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  Speaker 5: experience and diligence we had in building master planning communities
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  Speaker 5: in the urban community setting, and we began to continue
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  Speaker 5: develop i should say, properties in San Francisco, Irvine, and
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  Speaker 5: in Valencia.
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  Speaker 4: And I did that for five years. We took that
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  Speaker 4: company public.
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  Speaker 3: I did that for five years, and then in twenty
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  Speaker 3: twenty I actually retired.
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  Speaker 4: I'd been at it for quite a while.
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  Speaker 3: And those of you who are in real estate development
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  Speaker 3: may know that it can be fairly taxing, and I
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  Speaker 3: can tell you that in California it is doubly taxing.
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  Speaker 3: I can tell you in San Francisco is triply taxing.
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  Speaker 3: So I felt I had done what I needed to
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  Speaker 3: do and retired in twenty twenty. But if you all recall,
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  Speaker 3: the beginning part of twenty twenty was also the beginning
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  Speaker 3: of the five letter word COVID, and so there we
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  Speaker 3: were retired with nowhere to go, nothing to do, nowhere
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  Speaker 3: to go, and everybody sort of hunker down. And it
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  Speaker 3: was about that time that I received a call from
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  Speaker 3: a headhunter. And I always joked that the only reason
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  Speaker 3: that I picked up that call was because I had
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  Speaker 3: nowhere to go. Otherwise my wife and I would have
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  Speaker 3: been halfway around the world, maybe even in Ghana. But
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  Speaker 3: as it turned out, there I was at home and
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  Speaker 3: the headhunter invited us to take a look at Detroit
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  Speaker 3: and asked me if I would consider becoming the CEO
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  Speaker 3: of Bedrock, and I frankly, initially I had turned it down,
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  Speaker 3: but again, after two months of frankly sitting at home,
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  Speaker 3: I decided my wife and I decided to check out Detroit.
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  Speaker 3: And as I had just mentioned, I had spent a
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  Speaker 3: significan amount of time about almost eight years in Cleveland,
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  Speaker 3: so I had a sense of Detroit and frankly the
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  Speaker 3: Detroit from ninety eight to two thousand and five.
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  Speaker 4: I was there.
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  Speaker 3: When I was in Cleveland, I'd been through Detroit and
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  Speaker 3: Detroit wasn't doing that well.
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  Speaker 4: But my interest was piqued and we flew out to Detroit.
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  Speaker 4: And I will tell you that I was very, very.
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  Speaker 3: Pleasantly surprised this city was on the rebound and had
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  Speaker 3: a certain energy to it.
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  Speaker 4: But I had yet to meet the chairman, Dan Gilbert.
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  Speaker 6: So when I met with my wife and I met
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  Speaker 6: mister Gilbert and his wife, we talked to him about
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  Speaker 6: what he was looking for in terms of this company
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  Speaker 6: and what his vision was.
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  Speaker 3: And when he explained his vision, it was really bringing
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  Speaker 3: these cities of Detroit and Cleveland back to their prominence
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  Speaker 3: as twenty first century world class cities, it resonated with me,
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  Speaker 3: and that's essentially why I decided that I would, indeed,
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  Speaker 3: as I say, get off the couch and take.
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  Speaker 4: The helm of this wonderful company. So that's how I
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  Speaker 4: ended up in Detroit.
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  Speaker 1: So we got to say thank you for getting off
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  Speaker 1: the couch. That wasn't an easy task. We've been due
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  Speaker 1: to Detroit. Shout to everybody in Detroit. We get a
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  Speaker 1: lot of support there. We've been there. I wonder when
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  Speaker 1: you took on the task. Looking at it, right, there's
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  Speaker 1: the downtown area where we know that Ally and Rocket Mortgage,
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  Speaker 1: and we could see all the infrastructure being built downtown.
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  Speaker 4: What was the plan?
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  Speaker 1: Looking at it from a five to ten year. Standpoint
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  Speaker 1: of how we revitalize this is it we start here
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  Speaker 1: and build out, or do we build out?
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  Speaker 4: Like what were you guys.
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  Speaker 1: Looking at before you said all right, I'm going to
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  Speaker 1: I'm taking this task one.
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  Speaker 3: Well, candidly, the folks who had been in before me
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  Speaker 3: had done a tremendous job, as I say, building up Detroit.
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  Speaker 7: And I think there's no question that the city's developed
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  Speaker 7: from the core downtown out, primarily because the downtowns are
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  Speaker 7: the biggest revenue generators of any city, and the revenue
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  Speaker 7: generated from the downtown is fundamentally what funds a significant
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  Speaker 7: amount of the services for the rest of the city.
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  Speaker 7: So a downtown that has declining tax revenues is a
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  Speaker 7: downtown that frankly can barely sustain the quality of services
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  Speaker 7: required for the rest of the city. And so I
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  Speaker 7: think it was very obvious that the downtown areas of
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  Speaker 7: Detroit needed resuscitation, and that's the work that had begun
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  Speaker 7: before I got here, and being here, I think has
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  Speaker 7: been very clear that not only do you have to
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  Speaker 7: build the physical elements of the downtown, and certainly, and
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  Speaker 7: we take pride in the fact that we're able to
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  Speaker 7: take these classic buildings, renovate them, re energize them, and
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  Speaker 7: frankly repopulate them. But it's also just as important for
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  Speaker 7: us to think about the spaces in between the buildings,
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  Speaker 7: and those spaces belong to the whole city, and those
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  Speaker 7: are the spaces that we create activities and energize those
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  Speaker 7: spaces to ensure that folks in the broader city will
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  Speaker 7: have a reason to come downtown.
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  Speaker 4: And we've been spending quite a bit of time doing
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  Speaker 4: that in the.
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  Speaker 3: Public spaces and places between the buildings, to the point.
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  Speaker 4: Where we had a roller rink downtown.
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  Speaker 6: We created a wonderful winter festival area downtown.
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  Speaker 4: We also support major national and international events.
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  Speaker 3: We're coming up soon to the Grand Prix Detroit Grand
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  Speaker 3: Prix coming downtown. We followed quickly by Movement, which is
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  Speaker 3: electronic music festival, and then soon thereafter we are bringing
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  Speaker 3: in the Afro Nation Festival again to really fight the
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  Speaker 3: rest of the world to come to Detroit, and in
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  Speaker 3: doing so, I think refresh their memories of what a
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  Speaker 3: great city this is and perhaps just encourage them to
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  Speaker 3: maybe think about a relocation into this city.
• 9:15
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