Bridge Openings, Building Makeovers, and Soccer Scores: Detroit’s Big Week

All right, well, we finally have some good news on the Gordy Howe Bridge. It's all part of our conversation with Mike Lee, the managing editor at Cranes, Detroit Business, which is brought to you by Mercantile Bank. Looking for a new business bank, mercantile can help drive your business forward. Learn more at Merckbank.com. Michael, good morning. Good morning, Chris. How are you? We're good. What was the breakthrough here? After about a month of talks between the Canadian government and the U.S. government, they reached a conclusion to break the logjam to open the Gordi Howe Bridge. It seems like much of the discussion centered on tolls. They're going to open the bridge July 27th after these talks for the last month. The Trump administration had blocked a planned opening back in June. Trump wanted the U.S. to be fully compensated, and they have reached a deal by which the U.S. will be compensated. One interesting wrinkle in the statement is that it implied that talks are ongoing about certain non-market-related toll charges. So I think it's a safe assumption that the final toll to cross the bridge might be more than the $5.75 they had originally planned, but that's not clear yet. The one perfect one one one One person that's good for is the ownership of the Ambassador Bridge, which higher tolls would mean a less competitive market for border crossings. So we'll see where that shakes out. But by and large, it's good news for international trade and for connections between the U.S. and Canada. Well, you know, Mike, we've got some empty storefronts and abandoned buildings that really have been turned around in the last 20 years in downtown Detroit, but there's still more work to be done, isn't it? Yeah, we've seen building after building in downtown Detroit go through some really stunning makeovers. You know, people think about the book tower or the... you know, Michigan Central most, most prominently, but there are a number of quite a few others and it's a different downtown than it used to be. You might think that there might not be very many buildings left to renovate, but that is not correct. We identified Kirk Pinho, our senior reporter, identified a list of about 19 of those buildings downtown that still are waiting for their turn in the sun, so to speak. Some are, you know, some are owned by, you know, Dan Gilbert, bedrock, including Cadillac Tower and the, in the, in the, in the Wayne County building. Others are sort of underused. The Penobscot building, which once was the city's tallest building, is, is, is still in use, but it's only 40% occupied, and it has some really widely reported maintenance troubles.

Over the years, it really is a sign that, you know, even though so much progress has been made, it's redevelopment is still hard. It's very expensive. Construction costs are high. Labor is hard to come by to work on these sorts of projects and the money, the capital, to make them happen is still tricky to put together. Often it doesn't come without some sort of government subsidy. So the momentum in downtown continues, but if you're looking for an opportunity to redevelop a building, I would check out Kirk's List. and look into acquiring one of those. You want to go in together on one, Lloyd? Yeah. Yeah. Everybody kick in 10. Snatch one up and go get it. I mean, you know, a hotel or, you know. That's right. That's right. And, you know, we have been, Mike, talking to Keith Baldwin, the owner of the Regal Eagle in southwest Detroit throughout much of the World Cup here. And it's wonderful to have like a true soccer bar here in our city because, I mean, It ain't no time to be excited like soccer than it is right now. No, they picked a golden opportunity to start this bar in southwest Detroit. A group of local business leaders, really, Keith Baldwin, as you said, Glenn Stevens of Michado is one of the ownership group. It's opened this regal eagle bar, and not only does it take advantage of the timing of the World Cup, but it is ahead of the planned construction and opening of Detroit City FCs. New soccer stadium in Southwest Detroit, 15,000 seat stadium. It's going to bring a lot of people down there. It's, you know, Detroit didn't really have a center for the world's most popular sport. And now it really does. And it seems like there are a lot of stars lined up to make this the right time to open that sort of venture. Mike Lee, always appreciate catching up on a Monday. Thank you. We'll talk again next week. Thank you. Yep, you got it. When it comes to redeveloping those buildings downtown, you know, as Cranes has said in their report, I mean, many of those buildings are eyed for hotels or apartments right now because people are living downtown, they need places to stay. And boy, do we need still hotel rooms downtown. And the exciting part, too, is hopefully you get to the point where we are adding buildings, not just renovating. Renovating is good. It's good. It's great. I'm not, we got to do it. Yeah, because if not, they'll just crumble and we can build new buildings, but the old ones are just fall down. Right, right. But once you get to the point where all of them are renovated, then you start adding? Adding. Yeah, that's good stuff. Coming up on the other side, we're going to talk about the death of Lindsey Graham, what it means, what it means for the midterms. All coming up next here on J.R. Morning.