Crain's Detroit Business, 1155 Gratiot Avenue, Detroit, MI (2026)

12/30/2025

More than four years after breaking ground, just over half of the nearly 30-mile-long Joe Louis Greenway will be open in the coming year as new segments come online.

Among the additions is a former rail bridge over Woodward Avenue in Highland Park. Unused for decades, the revamped bridge now sports Joe Louis Greenway lettering on either side that will light up when the bridge opens this summer. It will provide pedestrian access across that section of Woodward for the first time, connecting Detroit and Highland Park, said Crystal Perkins, director of the city of Detroit’s general services department.

The bridge will enable programming along newly accessible segments of the greenway, activating spaces that were previously disconnected and bringing more residents safely onto the trail, said Leona Medley, executive director of the Joe Louis Greenway Partnership, which is expanding access to the trail through programming aimed at community engagement and economic impact.

Work on the 29.8-mile greenway began in 2021 to connect 23 Detroit neighborhoods to the cities of Dearborn, Hamtramck, Highland Park and those cities to Detroit’s riverfront.

Coming into this year, roughly a third or 9.9 miles, including 6-7 miles of new construction, was complete. Another 5.7 miles is under construction and set to be completed and opened in 2026, Perkins said.

Read more here: https://www.crainsdetroit.com/sports-recreation/joe-louis-greenway-hit-halfway-mark-new-segments?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=soc-own

12/28/2025

Subaru is returning to the Detroit Auto Show for the first time since 2022, but BMW, Mazda and Rivian have dropped out.

The show, which runs Jan. 14-25, will have 27 brands participating, five more than this year’s event. Subaru is the only new brand with a corporate-sponsored display, while local dealers will show off models from Aston Martin, Audi, Ferrari, Jaguar, Land Rover, Mini and Polestar.

Volkswagen, which had a corporate display in January 2025, is relying on its dealers this year instead.

BMW and Mazda, which stopped participating at a corporate level years earlier, had dealer-supported displays at the last Detroit show, but those are not returning in 2026, according to a Friday news release from show organizers.

Read more here: https://www.crainsdetroit.com/auto-show/detroit-auto-show-gains-5-brands-2026?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=soc-own

12/26/2025

One of Detroit’s Big Four pro sports teams has expanded its partnership with one of the city’s biggest entertainers.

The Detroit Pistons named Detroit native and multi-platinum rapper Big Sean as the team’s creative director of global experience. The move is aimed at building on the team’s cultural identity and speeding up global fan growth, according to a news release. Big Sean will use his influence across creative, community and international initiatives, working with the Pistons on creative direction, community engagement, and international fan development, the team said.

Big Sean said taking on the new role allows him to tout the Pistons and Detroit on a bigger scale.

“Detroit has always been rich with talent and culture, and my mission is to keep opening doors and hiring our city's creatives to shine alongside one of the most iconic franchises in sports,” he said in the release. “I'm grateful to the Pistons for trusting me to help define what the culture of Detroit Basketball really means.”

Read more here: https://www.crainsdetroit.com/sports-recreation/detroit-pistons-tap-big-sean-help-boost-global-fan-growth?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=soc-own

12/25/2025

Consolidation is no stranger to the banking industry and Michigan has experienced it as much as elsewhere in the country. Out-of-state banks make up the top eight of the largest banks in Michigan by deposits. If these large banks aren’t absorbing their local competition, credit unions are — both in-state and out-of-state.

Under the Trump Administration, which takes a looser stance toward combating consolidation than its Democratic predecessor, it’s likely Michigan will see more mergers and acquisitions among banks and their nonprofit competition in the next year.

Fifth Third Bank announced its intention to buy Comerica Bank in October in a $10.9 billion deal that Mike Bell, leader of the Financial Institutions practice at Detroit-based Honigman Law Firm, called a “rare mega deal.”

“You don't see mega deals all the time, but I will say, unequivocally, the regulatory environment has done a complete 180 and is very open and very efficient at the moment when it comes to considering and approving consolidation,” Bell said.

He says that means there will be more, bigger, and more creative deals "from the smallest end of the market to the larger end of the market” throughout 2026.

Read more here: https://www.crainsdetroit.com/banking-finance/fifth-third-comerica-deal-may-signal-opportunity-local-banks?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=soc-own

12/22/2025

Demolition on a long-vacant former hospital in Southwest Detroit has begun as the Detroit City FC men’s and women’s soccer organization kicks off its effort to build a new 15,000-seat stadium on the site.

Officials with the team, city and others gathered last week to commemorate the removal of the Southwest Detroit Hospital property at Michigan Avenue and 20th Street, which, in addition to what is being called AlumniFi Field, other components as part of the $198 million vision include a 421-space parking deck, 76-unit residential building and commercial uses.

The stadium, construction of which is pegged at $153 million by itself, is expected to be completed for play in time for the spring 2027 season, officials said. The overall project received approval for $88 million in public funding, including brownfield tax-increment financing reimbursements.

Detroit City FC, which currently plays at Keyworth Stadium in Hamtramck, first announced its plan for a new stadium in May 2024, about two months after buying the old hospital site for $6.5 million. It then spent months assembling buildings and land from various previous owners in the area of Michigan Avenue and 20th Street.

Read more here: https://www.crainsdetroit.com/real-estate/detroit-city-fc-razing-detroit-hospital-new-soccer-stadium?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=soc-own

12/18/2025

LIV Golf is bringing its high-energy brand back to Michigan next year.

The LIV Golf Team Championship will be played Aug. 27-30 at Saint John’s Resort in Plymouth, organizers announced Thursday. It will be the second straight year the league will play its last event of the season at The Cardinal course. The 2025 season-ending event brought more than 40,000 fans to the three-day event.

The return of the tournament highlights Michigan’s expanding role in LIV Golf’s international calendar, organizers said in a news release.

LIV Golf officials praised Saint John’s Resort and the state of Michigan as fantastic hosts.

The return of the tournament comes after LIV and Saint John’s agreed to a one-year deal. Organizers in a release said the 2026 championship will build on the energy of 2025 event, with plans for an expanded party hole, enhanced fan zones, live music, and collaborations with local chefs and artists.

Read more here: https://www.crainsdetroit.com/sports-recreation/liv-golf-returning-saint-johns-resort-2026

12/18/2025

Michigan regulators have signed off on power contracts for a mammoth artificial intelligence data center near Ann Arbor, a key step forward for the multibillion-dollar project that has become a political flashpoint.

The three-member Public Service Commission gave conditional approval to DTE Electric Co.'s agreements with Green Chile Ventures LLC, an Oracle Corp. subsidiary that plans to serve OpenAI. The state attorney general and others had asked the agency to order a longer contested case proceeding on the Detroit-based utility's request to bless the deals, which was made less than two months ago.

The 1.4-gigawatt "hyperscale" facility in Washtenaw County's Saline Township would be the state's largest electricity user by far, consuming enough to power some 1 million homes and representing a 23%-28% increase in DTE's average daily load. The developer, Related Digital, plans to begin construction in the first quarter of 2026 if environmental permits are secured. Other massive Michigan data centers are also in the works, but not as far along, a year after the state enacted tax incentives to capitalize on a jump in computing demand fueled by AI.

Read more here: https://www.crainsdetroit.com/politics-policy/oracle-openai-data-center-gets-approval-michigan-power-deals?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=soc-own

12/17/2025

The average cost of an ounce of w**d in Michigan is less than $60, a historic low, as this year’s crop of outdoor-grown product floods the market.

Historic oversupply continues to plague industry operators as average prices dropped to just $59.79 in November, down 3.4% from October and down 16.7% year-over-year, according to data provided by the Michigan Cannabis Regulatory Agency.

The dropping prices are due to the October harvest of ma*****na grown outdoors. Known as “Croptober,” thousands of acres of ma*****na are grown outside during the summer months and harvested in October, then frozen and distributed around the year to be processed into infused liquids and edibles as fresh frozen product.

The inventory of fresh frozen ma*****na at growers and processors jumped to 3 million pounds as of Nov. 30, up from just 1.1 million pounds on Sept. 30.

With so much product in the market and stiff competition, operators just aren’t in a position to improve margins through higher prices.

Read more here: https://www.crainsdetroit.com/cannabis/michigan-w**d-prices-hit-historic-low-amid-outdoor-product-flood?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=soc-own

12/17/2025

Approximately 76 banks in Michigan could close or consolidate if the Fifth Third Bancorp acquisition of Comerica Inc. is approved by regulators, according to documents obtained by Crain’s.

In October, Cincinnati-headquartered Fifth Third Bancorp announced a deal to buy Dallas-based Comerica for $10.9 billion in the largest U.S. bank deal this year. The deal would create the ninth-largest bank in the country, with about $288 billion in assets, pending shareholder approval. It is expected to be completed in early 2026.

Fifth Third Bank and Comerica Inc. are two of Michigan’s largest banks by deposits, at No. 7 and No. 3, respectively, according to data compiled by Crain’s. With Comerica’s 144 independent branches and Fifth Third's 156 branches, that means statewide consolidation.

Across all 80 closures in Michigan and Florida, 30 Fifth Third locations are expected to close, compared to 50 Comerica locations, according to the documents provided to Crain's by activist organization Fair Finance Watch, which obtained the list through a Freedom of Information Act request of the Federal Reserve. Michigan would bear the brunt of the impact.

A spokesperson for Fifth Third told Crain's in an email that the branch closures would not take place until the second half of 2026.

Read more here: https://www.crainsdetroit.com/banking-finance/fifth-third-comerica-deal-would-bring-michigan-branch-closures?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=soc-own

12/17/2025

A new joint venture is proposing to turn a vacant building near the Fox Theatre in the District Detroit area into a hotel.

It’s at least the third attempt since 2019 to redevelop the Park Avenue House building at 2305 Park Ave.

This time, Detroit-based Walters Group and Detroit-based developer The Roxbury Group are planning to turn the 13-story, Louis Kamper-designed building into a 175-room hotel with a $60 million price tag.

A hotel flag was not revealed during a recent meeting of the Downtown Development Authority Finance Committee, during which that body signed off on a $10 million loan for the project. Construction would start in the fall of 2026 and be completed by the spring of 2028, James Van D**e, president of Roxbury Group, told the committee.

The DDA board meets this week and may grant final approval for the loan then.

Read more here: https://www.crainsdetroit.com/real-estate/park-avenue-house-targeted-hotel-conversion-new-joint-venture?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=soc-own

12/16/2025

A push to enact new job-creation and job-retention incentives by the end of the year is dead.

And an effort to expand subsidies to help fund the Renaissance Center overhaul and other new redevelopment projects will wait until 2026, too, barring an unlikely breakthrough this week — lawmakers' last voting days in 2025.

Developers had held out hope that lifting a cap on tax captures could get to Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer this year in conjunction with separate tax incentives tied to new jobs and, maybe, retained jobs. Legislative leaders had agreed to send jobs incentives to Whitmer by year's end after cutting other economic development funding from the budget, but neither chamber passed anything Thursday — the deadline for legislation to be considered by the other chamber next week.

Read more here: https://www.crainsdetroit.com/politics-policy/rencen-revamp-funding-stalls-michigan-incentives-pushed-2026?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=soc-own

12/16/2025

Enrollment at Michigan’s public universities has been on a downward slope for more than a decade and that slide isn’t expected to turn around soon — if ever.

While a handful of universities have gained students, enrollment numbers have dropped precipitously at others, with losses as much as 45% since an “enrollment cliff” dropped after 2011-12.

The increased financial pressures for universities with fixed costs and increasing competition for students, along with the unique constitutional autonomy Michigan’s public universities are afforded, are heightening competition among them and with the big three research institutions: the University of Michigan, Michigan State University and Wayne State University.

Hard conversations are continuing to determine if the current governance model of 15 independent public universities is in the state’s best interest or if other strategies could help keep the universities financially viable, accessible and aligned with the state goal of having 60% of residents hold a degree or post-secondary credential by 2030.

There is likely a role for the state in helping Michigan’s public universities navigate enrollment declines through increased collaboration and coordination.

Read more in this month's Crain's forum here: https://www.crainsdetroit.com/crains-forum-higher-education/could-overhaul-help-michigan-stem-college-enrollment-drop?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=soc-own

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