DETROIT—This is a city that surprises a lot of people. At the same time the national press has told the story of its decline into bankruptcy, the downtown office market strengthened considerably, and now some experts say it is ready for a major expansion of its tech scene.
"One of the things that people don't realize about Detroit is that the auto industry is heavily dependent on the high-tech sector," Dave MacDonald, an executive vice president of JLL, tells GlobeSt.com. And the recent decision by Ford to invest billions in electric vehicles will further boost the need for tech workers.
Another big factor bolstering technology companies here is the presence of Quicken Loans and its family of companies, which have bought up more than 80 downtown properties, many of them 75 to 100 years old, the type of structure most favored by tech-savvy millennials. "Quicken is really a tech company," MacDonald says, and it has filled these buildings with about 13,000 workers, helping to send the CBD's vacancy rate into a historic plunge.
Continue Reading for Free
Register and gain access to:
- Breaking commercial real estate news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
- Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
- Critical coverage of the property casualty insurance and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, PropertyCasualty360 and ThinkAdvisor
Already have an account? Sign In Now
© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
Brian J. Rogal
Brian J. Rogal is a Chicago-based freelance writer with years of experience as an investigative reporter and editor, most notably at The Chicago Reporter, where he concentrated on housing issues. He also has written extensively on alternative energy and the payments card industry for national trade publications.
