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

01/14/2026

Day by day, one of the largest historic preservation projects in recent memory in Pontiac moves closer to completion.

During a tour of the former Pontiac State Bank Building/Oakland Towne Center at 28 N. Saginaw St, the team behind Southfield-based Blackacre Management said the 185-foot tower downtown is expected to start taking residents in some of its 110 rental units next month or so, with a full certificate of occupancy hoped for in March.

The $14.5 million redevelopment has been in the works for years and the end product will also include an event space called The Reserve on the main level, plus a coffee and pastry shop and bodega space in the north and south retail suites, respectively, and a smaller 75-person event space on the third floor.

Blackacre bought the former bank building in 2021 along with investors, and has been working on its conversion into a multifamily housing space for years.

For all the talk over the years about injecting life into long-struggling central business districts like Pontiac, this project is one of the more consequential in recent memory, defibrillating a building that, only sparsely occupied, was basically on life support.

Read more here: https://www.crainsdetroit.com/real-estate-insider/rehab-pontiac-state-bank-building-nears-completion?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=soc-own

01/14/2026

The Detroit Auto Show opened with its media and industry day Wednesday — and rather than the convention hall full of vehicles as the focus of conversation, it was the actions of one autoworker.

During his onstage remarks in his keynote address, former U.S.
Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg voiced his support for the Ford Motor Co. worker who was suspended for heckling President Donald Trump on Tuesday during a tour of the Dearborn Truck plant.

“I don’t know much about the HR side of it,” the former South Bend, Ind., mayor and presidential candidate said of the suspension. “What I know is that President Trump did literally what I believe he’s been doing figuratively for some time, which is give autoworkers the finger.”

As Trump was exiting the plant Tuesday, a worker could be heard on video obtained by TMZ calling the president a “pedophile protector,” an apparent reference to the records of convicted s*x trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Trump could be seen shouting an expletive and extending his middle finger in response, Automotive News reported.

The Washington Post identified Trump’s heckler as TJ Sabula, who said Ford had suspended him while it investigates the incident. Bill Ford downplayed the incident as “6 seconds out of an hour tour.”

“I was embarrassed because we’re the host,” Ford said. “I understand that gets a lot of social media play, and that’s the world we live in. But it was a very small part of the day.”

A White House spokesperson said in a statement to TMZ: “A lunatic was wildly screaming expletives in a complete fit of rage, and the President gave an appropriate and unambiguous response.”

Read more here: https://www.crainsdetroit.com/auto-show/detroit-auto-show-opens-1-autoworker-shifts-conversation?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=soc-own

01/13/2026

United Wholesale Mortgage Corp. has a new naming rights deal for the Macomb County stadium that is home to the USPBL minor league baseball organization.

Under the agreement, Jimmy John’s Field in Utica, near M-59 and Van D**e Avenue, will now be called UWM Field, and the league will be named USPBL Powered by Mortgage Matchup, after the Pontiac-based mortgage lender’s brand that connects consumers with independent mortgage brokers.

The new and expanded naming rights deal with USPBL follows UWM attaching the Mortgage Matchup brand last year to the Phoenix arena home to the Suns and Mercury NBA and WNBA teams, both owned by UWM CEO Mat Ishbia.

Read more here: https://www.crainsdetroit.com/sports-recreation/mat-ishbia-uwm-jimmy-johns-field-name?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=soc-own

01/12/2026

Dittrich Furs, a 132-year-old high-fashion retailer of furs and other outerwear with an advertising jingle familiar to generations of Detroiters, will close.

The retailer was founded in 1893 by Emil Dittrich, a furrier from London, the company says in a history on its website. He opened a second-story wholesale shop on Witherell Avenue, near Trapper’s Alley. Dittrich bought pelts directly from the trappers and made them into scarves and collars for wool coats.

The company is now in its fifth generation of family ownership under Harold and Shawn Dittrich, and says it is the oldest family-owned retailer in the city. It has had several homes over the decades, including a longtime store in Bloomfield Hills. It opened its current location on Third Avenue in the New Center neighborhood in 1965.

The Dittrich Furs jingle — a musical "Dittrich Furs, by the Dittrich family" that ran in heavy rotation on local TV and radio for years — was composed in the early 1980s by Dan Yessian of Farmington Hills-based Yessian Music Inc.

Read more here: https://www.crainsdetroit.com/retail/dittrich-furs-one-detroits-oldest-businesses-close?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=soc-own

01/12/2026

General Motors is moving its global headquarters this week into a newly finished building in the heart of downtown Detroit.

The automaker’s offices in the new Hudson's Detroit development, with all of its 21st century conveniences, pay deep homage to the midcentury modern design of its Global Technical Center campus in suburban Warren, which opened 70 years ago this May.

GM’s new headquarters, on the site of the former downtown J.L. Hudson’s department store, incorporates the “timeless” elements of Eero Saarinen’s technical campus design through the use of clean lines, curves, stone and warm wood tones, said Rebecca Waldmeir, GM’s architecture and experience design manager.

The construction of Hudson’s Detroit allowed GM to create a modern floor plan and infuse technology into its working spaces. Its headquarters will have just four permanent offices, including for CEO Mary Barra and President Mark Reuss, offering multiple open, flexible spaces for employees to work.

The layout reflects GM’s changing needs for office space, said Michael McBride, vice president of non-manufacturing facility operations. The automaker will use about 200,000 square feet on floors 8 through 11, about two-thirds of the available office space in the 12-story building.

Read more here: https://www.crainsdetroit.com/real-estate/inside-new-general-motors-offices-hudsons-detroit?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=soc-own

01/11/2026

Tax incentives, the artificial intelligence boom and demand for cloud computing are making Michigan fertile ground for new massive data centers.

Proposals popping up across the state, including several "hyperscale" projects backed by the world's biggest tech companies, have become political flashpoints as local officials, lawmakers and energy regulators weigh public pushback.

It is early days for many of the would-be facilities, whose prospects are uncertain. Some proposals have been withdrawn, while details about others are light at this stage.

Here is a rundown of large projects on the table in 2026: https://www.crainsdetroit.com/technology/these-data-center-projects-are-pending-across-michigan?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=soc-own

01/10/2026

The restaurant scene in Detroit and the metro area evolves every year and 2026 will be no different. We'll see some notable names entering the market for the first time and other independent, already-established restaurateurs extending their reach.

Click here for a look at some of the more anticipated restaurant openings in 2026: https://www.crainsdetroit.com/restaurants/new-restaurants-opening-metro-detroit-2026?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=soc-own

01/09/2026

United Wholesale Mortgage Corp. is expanding its already huge Pontiac headquarters by 120,000 square feet — but don't expect a hiring spree to follow.

The nation’s largest mortgage lender has been occupying about 1.65 million square feet across two buildings along South Boulevard in the Oakland County seat, with a skybridge connecting the buildings. A handful of manufacturing tenants have been operating in the south building alongside UWM since its 2019 acquisition, but that’s starting to change.

An automotive supplier tenant has reduced its footprint in the building, freeing up an additional 120,000 square feet for UWM’s roughly 9,000 employees. That space is being used to relocate some teams from the cramped north building and adding meeting spaces and a bevy of new amenities.

CEO Mat Ishbia has been vocal in recent months that UWM can now quickly scale up to meet any mortgage cycle without needing to rapidly accelerate hiring, thanks largely to new AI tools that improve efficiency. That’s a far cry from about five years ago when the COVID-19 pandemic-era housing market spiked and UWM and its competitors grew head count rapidly.

“This is our home and our campus, so when the space becomes available, I will always have a dream and a purpose for how we can build the space, especially for team member need,” said UWM’s Chief People Officer Laura Lawson. “It might not be desks, but collaboration zones. Our team members crave more wellness outlets.”

Read more here: https://www.crainsdetroit.com/banking-finance/uwm-expands-campus-focus-amenities-not-hiring?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=soc-own

01/09/2026

All eyes will be on these large construction projects in Detroit and its suburbs in the coming year.

Some are already under construction and considerable work is expected to be completed. While shovels aren’t in the ground yet on several of them, these projects will be ones to watch due to key deadlines or anticipated groundbreakings in 2026.

Check out the full list here: https://www.crainsdetroit.com/real-estate/7-detroit-area-developments-watch-2026?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=soc-own

01/08/2026

Southeast Michigan’s homebuilders have some ground to make up in the new year.

State officials, business leaders and the homebuilding sector have long touted the need for more new home inventory across Michigan. The Michigan State Housing Development Authority projects the state is short around 119,000 units.

And while homes continue being built — including many subdivisions around metro Detroit’s outer ring suburbs — the latest data shows 2025 on a slower pace than 2024 for new home construction.

November data from the Home Builders Association of Southeastern Michigan shows the year-to-date 3,123 single-family home permits pulled by builders around the region was down 11% from the same period a year ago.

Moreover, many existing homeowners with cheap mortgages from the COVID-19 pandemic era have been opting to remodel their existing homes as opposed to buying and giving up their low mortgage rate.

While development challenges persist, the building of subdivision projects around metro Detroit continues.

Read more about a handful of subdivisions around the region making their way toward completion: https://www.crainsdetroit.com/real-estate/new-subdivisions-continue-rise-amid-construction-slowdown?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=soc-own

01/08/2026

Woodward Avenue in Royal Oak is getting one of the more popular fast-food options, filling a retail space that has been empty for several years.

Atlanta-based Chick-fil-A will open a new restaurant this spring at 30955 Woodward Ave. in the Woodward Corners plaza at 13 Mile Road. A company spokesperson confirmed the planned opening to Crain’s.

The new Chick-fil-A will take over a space that was previously home to a Wahlburgers, which closed in 2022. The restaurant will not have a drive-through, which most free-standing locations do.

The opening of the Royal Oak restaurant will create 80-120 jobs, the company said. It will be the fifth Oakland County location for Chick-fil-A, following restaurants in Auburn Hills, Southfield, Novi and a location inside Somerset Collection North in Troy.

Read more here: https://www.crainsdetroit.com/restaurants/chick-fil-plans-new-store-royal-oak?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=soc-own

01/07/2026

The closure of the Mercedes-Benz Financial Services USA headquarters in Farmington Hills will impact 265 employees, the company recently disclosed to the state.

As a result of the office closure, which was previously announced in May, the automaker said all the employees were “offered the opportunity to relocate to facilities outside of Michigan,” and 108 accepted that offer, according to a WARN notice. The remaining 157 employees declined the offer, and will be phased out of their employment at various times through Aug. 31, according to the notice.

In a statement sent after this story was originally published, Mercedes-Benz said, in part:

"This is not a plan to cut jobs. The centralization of key corporate and engineering teams will enable us to be more agile, increase speed to market and ensure the best customer experience. Mercedes-Benz will maintain its existing Research & Development office in Ann Arbor."

The statement continues: "Our goal is to relocate as many of our existing employees to the new locations as possible. While we cannot share specific details, employees who choose to relocate with the company are being offered a comprehensive relocation package to support moving themselves and their families, and severance packages are being offered to employees who do not relocate with the company."

Read more here: https://www.crainsdetroit.com/automotive/mercedes-benz-office-closure-farmington-hills-impact-265-workers?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=soc-own

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