Cocktails & Popcorn: Dan Gilbert Had A Stroke - Detroit Still Has Gerrymandering 2016 Election Issues

I would love to hear the tale of how Dan Jacked Detroit.

I watched him do it, you know.

Where is George Bush?

Gilbert has stroke in hospital; Emerson replaces him at Mackinac business conference

Dan Gilbert & Mike Duggan

Quicken Loans Chairman Dan Gilbert had a stroke in the hospital Sunday and had an emergency procedure, company CEO Jay Farner said Monday.

I am claiming it.

Gilbert, the billionaire online mortgage lender and Detroit real estate developer, suffered a stroke" Sunday and had a "catheter-based procedure" at Beaumont Hospital and was put in the Intensive Care Unit, Farner said in a statement.

The statement indicates Gilbert's health condition is more serious than initially indicated.

"Dan is awake, responsive and resting comfortably," Farner said. "Dan and his family are immensely grateful to the doctors and nurses whose early intervention is already paying dividends toward his recovery."

The revelation came as the Detroit Regional Chamber said Quicken Loans Vice Chairman Bill Emerson is replacing Gilbert at this week's Mackinac Policy Conference.

Gilbert's health issue isn't expected to affect the day-to-day operations of the Quicken Loans family of companies, a University of Michigan expert said.

It was a point reinforced by Farner, who said "Thanks to the strong culture and leadership Dan has built and grown, business at the Rock Family of Companies will continue under the normal, everyday direction of their respective CEOs."

But the illness could affect high-profile projects such as the skyscraper scheduled to be built along Woodward Avenue on the old Hudson department store site, said Erik Gordon, an assistant professor in UM's Ross School of Business.

The 912-foot skyscraper is expected to become Michigan's tallest building, taller than the Renaissance Center.

The condition of Gilbert remained unchanged as he recovers from stroke-like symptoms that led over the weekend to his hospitalization at Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak.

“Dan and his family are in our thoughts, and we are wishing him a speedy recovery," Detroit Regional Chamber Sandy Baruah said in a Monday statement. "The chamber is grateful that Dan’s colleague, Bill Emerson, will be taking his place on stage at the conference.”

Gilbert's medical issue has stoked concerns over the day-to-day operations of his empire of companies — which include the Cleveland Cavaliers, three casinos and Fathead — as well as his real estate investments in Detroit.

But Gordon said Monday that Gilbert's group of companies will be in good shape because the billionaire has done a great job of hiring strong people to keep the businesses going in his absence.

Quicken Loans Vice Chairman Bill Emerson is replacing hospitalized company Chairman Dan Gilbert at this week's Mackinac Policy Conference. (Photo: Max Ortiz, The Detroit News)

"People at the operation level can keep the company going for a while,” said Gordon.

“They understand their role and his vision,” Gordon said. “He’s built a strong team. It’s not a one-man band.”

Gilbert, a 57-year-old Franklin resident, is founder and chairman of Quicken Loans, ranked as the nation's largest mortgage lender. Gilbert's Rock Family of Companies employs more than 30,000 people around the nation, including more than 17,000 in Detroit.

Part of Detroit's turnaround has been credited to Gilbert's investment in the city's central business district. He moved his employees from Livonia and other suburbs to a Detroit headquarters starting in 2010.

As Gilbert bought other companies or provided funding for startups, those firms filled the more than 100 buildings he bought and oftentimes renovated around the city in his bid to help transform Detroit into a "great American city." He also has envisioned turning the city into a magnet for technology companies and has succeeded in luring local offices for Google and Twitter.

Gilbert's Bedrock real estate firm and its affiliate have invested and committed more than $5.6 billion in its efforts to help revitalize Detroit.

The billionaire is not the only person contributing to Detroit's renaissance through his real estate investments and developments, Gordon said. But “he is the symbol of the (city’s) switch from negativity to a turnaround in Detroit’s spirit."

Gilbert's illness also could affect the completion of the Wayne County jail land swap project, Gordon said.

Gilbert's Rock Ventures is receiving 15.5 acres of property where a half-built jail now stands on the edge of Greektown, and the billionaire has vowed to construct an unidentified $1 billion in mixed-use developments. In return, he is helping finance the construction of a new criminal justice complex on other land in the city.

Such a large project could be slowed up by Gilbert's hospitalization, Gordon said.

But the mortgage lender has built a strong team and “avoided the trap of 'It's all me,'” he said.

“He’s not like Elon Musk," Gordon said. "Gilbert is less maniacal."


FUN FACT! DAN GILBERT HAS A TINY HUMANS FOUNDATION

https://www.gilbertfamilyfoundation.org/transform-detroit/

And this is what he is doing with the tiny humans in Detroit where there was $2.5 million directed to Michigan State University.

Dan likes data.

He likes to manipulate data, like what he does with elections.

That is called gerrymandering.

Dan Gilbert suffers stroke: Facts about his family, net worth, real estate empire 

A look at some of the iconic Detroit buildings Dan Gilbert and his companies own. Tanya Wildt, Detroit Free Press

Detroit billionaire Dan Gilbert, founder of Quicken Loans, was hospitalized after suffering stroke symptoms Sunday at Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak. He was treated for a stroke and is recovering. Here are a few facts about the man who is responsible for much of downtown Detroit's recent growth and who also owns the NBA's Cleveland Cavaliers.

Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert congratulates his son
Nick Gilbert after the team won the NBA basketball draft lottery,
Tuesday, May 21, 2013 in New York. 

Also read:Dan Gilbert's stroke a reminder it can happen at any age

More: Dan Gilbert bows out of Mackinac conference after health crisis

Net worth

 $7.3 billion

Personal

Birthdate and place: Jan. 17, 1962, in Detroit

Age: 57

Spouse: Jennifer Gilbert

Children: Four sons, one daughter. Gilbert's son Nick has a rare genetic disorder called neurofibromatosis, which causes tumors to grow throughout his body. Dan and Jennifer Gilbert founded the Gilbert Family Foundation to help fight for a cure.

Education

High school:  Southfield-Lathrup in Lathrup Village, Michigan

Michigan State University: Bachelor's

Wayne State University Law School: Juris Doctor

Major companies

Gilbert's holdings include dozens of companies and smaller enterprises, including many tech startups. He recently sold his Greektown Casino-Hotel for $1 billion but continues to own other casinos in Maryland and Ohio, according to Quicken's website. Among the companies:

• Rock Ventures: The holding company that connects Gilbert's portfolio of more than 100 companies.
• Cleveland Cavaliers: Gilbert bought this NBA team in 2005 for $375 million. Forbes magazine estimated the team was worth more than $1.3 billion in late 2018, but also estimated the team lost $6 million on operations in 2017.
• Quicken Loans: Gilbert's online mortgage lender is the mother ship of Gilbert's family of companies. Gilbert founded Quicken in 1985 as Rock Financial and has built it into one of the nation's top mortgage lenders.
• Bedrock: This company acquires and manages commercial properties in Detroit and Cleveland.
• Rocket Fiber: This launched in 2014 to provide Detroit's fastest home and business internet service.
• StockX: Allowing for day trading for consumer goods, this company is billed as the first online consumer "stock market of things" for high-demand products like expensive sneakers. 
• Dictionary.com: Gilbert's Rock Holdings purchased the websites Dictionary.com and Thesaurus.com from New York-based media firm IAC in November 2018. The websites date to 1995 and are free for public use. They feature a significant amount of online advertisements.

Real estate 

Gilbert moved Quicken Loans to downtown Detroit in 2010. Today, his companies own or control through master leases somewhere in the range of 100 properties, including many of downtown's iconic skyscrapers — the First National, One Woodward, 1001 Woodward and more. Gilbert's companies also own One Campus Martius, David Stott Building, Detroit Media Partnership Building (former home of the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News), Chrysler House, Federal Reserve Building (current home of the Free Press and Detroit News), Shinola Hotel, Madison Building, and more. His downtown workforce has swelled to about 17,000 workers who fill up all these properties.

US v Quicken Loans OPINION AND ORDER GRANTING IN PART AND DENYING IN PART DEFENDANT QUICKEN LOANS INC.’S MO... by Beverly Tran on Scribd

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The Tale Of Matt Cullen Being Forced To Dissolve Dan Gilbert's Thiefdom - Detroit & Cleveland

Gather round my Dearies, for the Celestial Goddess of the Woodshed shall tell the tale of how Conjugal Collaboration stopped Detroit from being JACKed of its children, land and votes.

On second thought, I shall just let the Detroit Free Press tell the ongoing tale of how Matt Cullen is is being forced to dissolve Gilbert's thiefdom in Detroit.

Detroit JACK layoffs another clue Gilbert is winding down casino empire

Matt Cullen

If nothing else, the move by top Dan Gilbert aide Matt Cullen from Gilbert's JACK Entertainment arm to be CEO of the Bedrock real estate operation shows that casinos will play a much diminished role in Gilbert's network going forward.

Bedrock announced at the end of August that Cullen would become CEO of the real estate firm after serving as head of JACK Entertainment, the casino arm of Gilbert's family of companies. JACK exec Mark Dunkeson also joined Bedrock as president and chief operating officer, and four other top execs from JACK made the switch to Bedrock as well.

And then just this week JACK Entertainment filed a so-called Warn Notice with the State of Michigan warning of the pending closing of its JACK home office in Detroit with the layoff of all 92 employees. The layoffs will begin in November and run through early 2020, the notice said, as the JACK central office shuts down permanently.

Closing JACK's central office and transferring JACK's top echelon to Bedrock marks a dramatic change from not long ago when Gilbert was assembling  a casino network that spanned four states.

In 2013 he bought Detroit's ailing Greektown casino after its bankruptcy. In 2009 he successfully promoted a referendum to bring casinos to the state of Ohio and later opened gaming halls in Cleveland and Cincinnati. There was a racino track (a combined casino and horse racing track) in nearby Kentucky, as well as a partial interest in a casino in Baltimore.

But that gaming empire didn't last long. In 2018, Gilbert announced he was selling Greektown Casino in Detroit for $1 billion. This year, he announced the sale of the Cincinnati casino for $745 million, and the Kentucky track is tied in with that. Cullen said this week in a phone interview that the sale should close this month or next.

JACK is in similar talks over its Baltimore location, Cullen said, adding that Gilbert may sell the physical properties housing his Cleveland casinos to others but will hold on to the operating arms there.

So what once looked like a growing part of Gilbert's wide-ranging mortgage, sports and real estate empire now looks like almost an afterthought.

More: Detroit's downtown building boom slowing as costs, rents soar

More: Dan Gilbert has built a leadership team. Here's who they are

"It's definitely changing, right?" Cullen said in a phone conversation with the Free Press this week. Employees at JACK "are going in one of two different directions with JACK. They’re either moving on to the Cleveland projects for a long-term play there with growth. And myself and Mark Dunkeson will remain involved to some extent, but obviously now will turn most of our attention to Bedrock."

Starring Dan Gilbert

Cullen, a former longtime General Motors executive before joining Gilbert, also serves as chair of the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy, which builds and operates the RiverWalk, and is president and CEO of the QLINE streetcar line.

What this reshuffling of leadership means in the context of Gilbert's broader business strategy is hard to say. Gilbert's many business operations, from his Quicken Loans mortgage lender to his Cleveland Cavaliers NBA team, are privately held. Neither Gilbert nor his top aides like Cullen are given to revealing too much about their strategy.

But it's fair to make some educated guesses. It is widely thought among local real estate professionals that Gilbert's outsized ambitions for his downtown Detroit projects ran into some hard realities about cost and budget.

As outlined last year by Bedrock, four of the firm's biggest projects downtown were to cost an estimated $2.15 billion, create more than 7,000 permanent jobs and add 3.1 million square feet of new office, retail, residential, hotel and civic space to the downtown core. Those projects include the Hudson's site, the Monroe Block, the Book Tower and the addition to One Campus Martius, the former Compuware headquarters.

In recent months, though, construction costs have risen sharply due to shortages of skilled workers and other factors. While work continues at the Hudson's site, Book Tower and One Campus Martius, work at the Monroe Block has been delayed pending a redesign of the project.

Whether cost overruns or other challenges led to the departure of former Bedrock top execs Jim Ketai and Dan Mullen, who both left recently for opportunities outside Gilbert's network, is hard to say. But so many changes at the top seem to hint — I'm guessing here — that Gilbert thought a change in Bedrock's leadership could bring in the many projects in a timely and cost-effective way.

Whatever the motivation for the leadership changes, casinos that once seemed a growing part of Gilbert's family of companies have been relegated to the second tier. It's real estate, not casinos, that holds the attention of the A-Team now.


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Prelude To Detroit: Warren Buffett & Dan Gilbert Have Tales To Tell

Oh, Warren,

Take my hand and let us go down the rabbit hole.

#maytheheavensfall

Pulling pranks, bidding for Yahoo, and launching a $1 billion basketball stunt: Rocket founder Dan Gilbert and Warren Buffett are close friends with a colorful past

Warren Buffett & Dan Gilbert
in Detroit

Rocket Companies, which owns Quicken Loans, went public on Thursday, boosting founder and chairman Dan Gilbert's fortune to about $34 billion.

Gilbert is close friends with Warren Buffett and has partnered with the investor and Berkshire Hathaway CEO several times over the years.

For example, Gilbert and Buffett pranked Quicken employees with a fake sale in 2014, Berkshire insured a $1 billion Quicken marketing stunt the same year, and Buffett agreed to finance a bid for Yahoo by Gilbert and other investors that ultimately failed.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Rocket Companies' founder and chairman Dan Gilbert saw his net worth soar to $34 billion after the parent company of mortgage lender Quicken Loans went public on Thursday.

Gilbert — who is also the majority owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers basketball team and the founder and controlling shareholder of StockX, the online sneaker marketplace — now boasts a fortune roughly half the size of Warren Buffett's, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

The famed investor and Berkshire Hathaway CEO will likely be cheering Gilbert on, as the pair have been friends and occasional business partners for years.

"I'm an enormous admirer of Dan and what he has accomplished in Quicken Loans," Buffett told CNBC in May 2016.

Read more: BANK OF AMERICA: Buy these 5 commodities now for profits into next year as pandemic uncertainty boosts their prices and lifts gold to $3,000

Rocket didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Pledges, prizes, and pranks

Gilbert and Buffett first met at a conference years ago, and became acquainted over lunch in Buffett's hometown of Omaha, according to Reuters.

In 2012, Gilbert signed the Giving Pledge, which Buffett launched with Bill and Melinda Gates to encourage the world's wealthiest people to give away at least half of their fortunes to philanthropic causes.

Gilbert roped in Buffett two years later, when Quicken's marketing team wanted to hold a competition with a $1 billion reward for any contestant who filled out a perfect bracket for the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament.

No one succeeded, but Quicken paid Berkshire an estimated $10 million premium to insure the prize, according to Crain's Detroit Business.

Read more: 100 deals and $1 million in profit a year: Here's how Mike Simmons made a simple change to his real-estate investing strategy that took him from small-time house flipper to full-fledged mogul

Gilbert also interviewed Buffett at an event called Detroit Homecoming in 2014. The pair revealed backstage that they pranked most of Quicken's management team on April Fools' Day that year: Gilbert falsely claimed that Berkshire had bought the company, and Buffett played along on a video call, Crain's Detroit Business reported.

"I go along with whatever he comes up with, and so far I haven't gone to jail," Buffett joked at the time.

Buffett also agreed to finance a group of investors including Gilbert when they tried to buy internet titan Yahoo in 2016, Reuters said. The consortium's bid ultimately failed.

There's no mention of Buffett beyond the basketball stunt in Rocket's initial public offering filing. However, in light of their tie-ups over the years, it would be no surprise if Gilbert name-checks him during future interviews and earnings calls.

Read more: Investors are piling into socially responsible ETFs at an unprecedented rate — and Morgan Stanley says these 4 stocks are best-positioned to profit from the trend

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rocket Companies IPO jumps 19.5%; company promises Detroit neighborhood investments

Shares of Rocket Companies Inc., the parent of billionaire Dan Gilbert's mortgage lending giant, closed up more than 19% on their first day of trading Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange.

An unspecified amount of the $1.8 billion the company is set to earn from its initial public offering will support initiatives in its hometown, such as increasing internet access in Detroit neighborhoods, CEO Jay Farner told The Detroit News.

The first public shares of Rocket, which includes Quicken Loans, ended trading up 19.5% to $21.51 on the exchange under the RKT symbol — a milestone for the Detroit company that was an early harbinger of the city's revitalization and recruiter for young tech talent. The firm is slated to become the seventh-largest IPO of 2020, according to Dealogic, with 100 million shares available at $18 each.

The price was lower than the original $20 to $22 range the company had suggested last week for the IPO. Despite the decrease, shares did reach a high of $22.70 around 2 p.m. and were in line with last year's 18% average first-day price rise.

"The purpose of this was not to raise capital," Farner said in an interview. "Whether it was $3.3 billion or $2 billion, the goal was to take the company public, which is an important step and gives us more flexibility into the future."

The stock's performance was a "Goldilocks stock-price bump," said Erik Gordon, a faculty member at the University of Michigan's Ross Business School.

It was "high enough to make money for investors who bought stock at the opening price and not so high as to make you think the company sold the stock for too little," he said.

The smaller IPO, Farner said, is expected to bring about a long-term investor base thinking three to five years in the future. Although Rocket is in the mortgage business, it is seeking to pitch itself as a tech disruptor in the industry by allowing homebuyers to apply for loans completely online.

The company represents about 9% of the highly fragmented mortgage industry, Farner said, but it hopes to grow it to 25% over the next decade. Rocket Companies closed $145 billion in loans in 2019 and recorded $893.4 million in profit on revenue of more than $5.1 billion.

Although COVID-19 had put a pause on IPO plans in the spring, low interest rates have spurred a frenzy of refinancing and homebuyer activity that contributed to record months in March, April and May, Farner said. Coupled with an upward trending market since March, the company decided now was the time to go public.

"I think the market is really recognizing or confirming that we have some pretty special technology that we can grow and scale and do so profitably," he said.

Going public should help Rocket reach its goal, Farner said, providing opportunities for greater name recognition and funds to improve its market share. It also provides for an employee stock option — something Gilbert has wanted to provide to the company's more than 20,000 employees, most of whom work downtown and many of whom are highly sought tech talent.

"It was challenging to do that in our previous structure," Farner said. "You see that a lot in Palo Alto, California. Here in Detroit, I think, it's less common. We're proud that we can offer our employees the opportunity to be owners of the business."

The funds will support the company's greater efforts in Detroit, as well, Farner said. A company spokesman declined to disclose how much of the offering would support those initiatives.

"We're selling only about 5% of the organization," Farner said. "We wanted to take that and be able to use it for some of the initiatives here in the city of Detroit, not just today, but though for example the Gilbert Family Foundation to provide even more capital to continue to help our city down the road."

The Gilbert Family Foundation has contributed to COVID-19 relief efforts in Detroit as well as supported efforts in education and blight removal. IPO funds also will support efforts around the Connect 313 Fund, an initiative to increase internet access in the city.

"Technology empowers us to get a loan, to buy a home or find a home, get a mortgage; it increases education," Farner said. "It's crazy 30% of people here don't really have that. We are working with others to solve that problem."

Gilbert will maintain a majority controlling stake in the company with 79% of shares under a multi-tiered system. He will have final say over major decisions such as the election of board directors, proposed mergers, or sale of the company's assets. Gilbert's net worth totals $7.5 billion, according to Forbes.

Gilbert founded the company in 1985. In 2010, he moved its headquarters from Livonia to downtown Detroit. He joined Farner and other executives in New York to ring the opening bell in New York. They wore face masks amid the pandemic.

“Rocket has spent the last 35 years becoming America’s largest mortgage lender by taking the road less traveled,” Gilbert said in a statement. “I have full confidence in Jay and the rest of the senior leaders to build on the blueprint that got the company to where it is today and find innovative ways to reach new clients in the future.”

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The Intercept Is The First To Commence The Unmasking Of Detroit - Brenda Jones, Dan Gilbert, Detroit Land Bank Authority & SIGTARP

Brenda Jones & Detroit Land Bank Authority
behind the obverse Seal of the City of Detroit

FUN FACT! BRENDA JONES CERTIFIED HER OWN CONGRESSIONAL ELECTION AS A CITY OF DETROIT ELECTION COMMISSION MEMBER BECAUSE SHE REFUSED TO RESIGN

ANOTHER FUN FACT! BRENDA JONES IGNORED MULTIPLE ELECTION COMPLAINTS OF ELECTION FRAUD WHEN SHE CERTIFIED HER OWN CONGRESSIONAL ELECTION

ONE MORE FUN FACT! SIGTARP IS INVESTIGATING THE TARP MONEY QUICKEN LOANS CONTRIBUTED TO BRENDA JONES' CAMPAIGN

LAST FUN FACT! BRENDA JONES WAS MEAN TO MY SWEETIE

http://beverlytran.blogspot.com/search?q=BRENDA+JONES#axzz6NfyXb8lX

It seems Detroit is about to be unmasked.

This article is a nice start, so I shall grade it a C+, just because it did not take the time to identify TARP as the public subsidy nor did it mention the Detroit Land Bank Authority as the vehicle for TARP.

Rashida got some of that TARP money for her campaign, too, you know.

To better foreshadow, think of it like this: Detroit politicians funded their campaigns from the fake ass mortgage and tax foreclosure crisis, then participated in blasphemy to take out a congressional office holder, just so they could run for his seat to cover up the fact that they did what they did - stealin' the children, land & vote.

Let us see if The Intercept, or anyone else for that matter, will bring it up.

#maytheheavensfall

TLAIB OPPONENT BRENDA JONES COLLECTED CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS FROM QUICKEN LOANS EXECUTIVES AS PUBLIC SUBSIDIES FLOWED

Brenda Jones & Greg Mathis

IN THE WEEKS leading up to Brenda Jones’s vote in November 2017 to award $250 million in taxpayer funds to billionaire Dan Gilbert and his Quicken Loans empire, the Detroit City Council president cashed $8,000 in campaign checks from current and former executives at Gilbert’s companies. In total, Jones has received nearly $25,000 in campaign contributions from the executives, their spouses, and Quicken’s political action committee, while Gilbert, Michigan’s richest man, has accumulated over half a billion in public subsidies.

The $250 million from the city council allowed Gilbert, the owner and co-founder of Quicken Loans, to continue an ambitious redevelopment of downtown Detroit through his real estate company, Bedrock. In the years that followed — and as Jones collected more Gilbert-linked campaign contributions — the relationship between Jones and Gilbert has only tightened.

Jones is one of just two elected officials, alongside her ally, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, on the board of the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation. One section of the Trump tax cuts included the bipartisan Opportunity Zone program, which selects low-income census tracts for lucrative tax breaks. The DEGC helped to craft Michigan’s recommendations to the Treasury Department for Opportunity Zone designations that benefited Gilbert. A ProPublica investigation revealed Gilbert’s role in lobbying for the census tract designations, which sparked outrage in Detroit, including a call for a congressional investigation from first-term Rep. Rashida Tlaib, who represents the city in Congress.

Jones, however, made no public statement as anger rose at Gilbert following the revelations. Jones also stayed silent as Gilbert attracted criticism for refusing to assist the city in collecting income taxes from the new, wealthier residents of Bedrock’s luxury apartment buildings.

Jones and Tlaib faced off in two elections in 2018, one to fill the remainder of former Rep. John Conyers’s term, the second for the nomination to succeed him in the next Congress. Jones won the first, serving for roughly three weeks, while Tlaib won the second, going on to become a high-profile member of the so-called Squad, quickly making headlines declaring that House Democrats would “go in and impeach the motherfucker.”

Related
Brenda Jones Took Illegal Campaign Cash From Donors Doing Business With the City of Detroit
Gilbert, who has been referred to by President Donald Trump as “a great friend,” is the most powerful man in Detroit, and owns vast swaths of the city. But his team responded angrily and attacked Tlaib’s demand for an investigation. “Rep. Tlaib would be well served to spend some time at www.oppzonefacts.com learning the truth behind the false ProPublica narrative before advocating that the government spend the public’s money chasing a ghost story,” a Quicken Loans representative told the local press. Now Gilbert has an opportunity to help a politician deeply enmeshed in the census tract designation as a board member of a powerful local development agency, as opposed to a member of Congress, Tlaib, who demanded a federal investigation into the controversial tax break.

Polls for the August 4 Democratic primary show a tight race.

The Intercept reported last month that Jones had received illegal campaign contributions in her 2017 re-election campaign to the Detroit City Council. Neither Jones nor Gilbert, through Quicken Loans, responded to requests for comment.

GILBERT’S ENTRANCE into Detroit began in 2011 when Quicken Loans moved its headquarters to downtown from Livonia in the Michigan suburbs. In a city that is 84 percent African American, with 35 percent of the city and half of its children in poverty, Gilbert’s role in Detroit’s politics and development have not come without controversy. Community discomfort with Gilbert’s vaunted new status was encapsulated in 2017 when Bedrock ran an ad campaign titled “See Detroit As We Do” featuring overwhelmingly white models.

“Dan throws a tremendous amount of money around in the city,” said Maurice BP-Weeks, who lives in Detroit and is co-executive director of the Action Center on Race and the Economy. “He is a political kingmaker. It’s difficult for people to credibly contest him and feel that they can keep their job or their funding because those are the things that are threatened when you take on such a powerful person. If you’re contesting power in Detroit, you’re contesting Dan Gilbert.”

Gilbert is the richest man in Michigan, with a net worth of $7.3 billion.

“The risk here is that a small group of developers can capture a city council or county board and get overpaid to do something they would have done anyways” said Greg LeRoy, executive director of Good Jobs First, which advocates for transparent and fair municipal subsidies.

“If you’re contesting power in Detroit, you’re contesting Dan Gilbert.”
“For a city like Detroit, it really doesn’t have the luxury of wasting any money,” LeRoy said. “Do you want to put all your eggs in one basket, like Dan Gilbert-sized office parks, or do you try to do other things where you’re not putting so many eggs in one basket — where you’re doing public transit, public infrastructure, health, and education, all the things that benefit lots of employers and don’t put you at risk of any one company’s business plan not working out?”

Between 2011 and 2016, Gilbert and his affiliated companies spent $451 million purchasing parcels of land in downtown Detroit. Gilbert and his companies employ over 17,000 workers in Detroit, making it the city’s largest employer. Of the five lenders that had the highest percentage of foreclosures in the city in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, only Quicken is still extant. As of 2015, half of the properties that Quicken has foreclosed on had become blighted. Gilbert has been a leading advocate of expanded government funding to tear down blighted structures. Last June, Quicken Loans paid $32 million to settle charges brought by the Justice Department that it had approved hundreds of loans for unqualified borrowers, and then profited when the borrowers defaulted.

“Dan Gilbert and Brenda Jones are not looking out for the residents,” said Charlevoix VIllage Association President Toyia Watts, a community organization that led the opposition to the 2017 giveaway. “They’re not putting money in the pots for fixing up homes, give the people that live here the empty lots they’ve maintained. We’ve given developers too much power over the community. They have too much power over our neighborhood. The way they’re making money doesn’t work for us.”

BP-Weeks noted the connection between Quicken’s role in the subprime lending crisis and Gilbert’s role in crafting development policy in Detroit today. “Quicken is the folks that were responsible for the last housing crisis” said BP-Weeks. “For an executive of Quicken making all those decisions including about housing is ridiculous. He should not be making those decisions.”

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Cocktails & Popcorn: Dan Gilbert Sends Proof Of Life - Duggan Is Lost & All Alone

Call me Missy Morbid, but why would one edit a 30 second video?

It was scripted, like he was in the custody of the writer of the video, but hey, what do I know?

I know Mike Duggan is dazed and confused right about now.

Dan Gilbert sends video to Quicken Loans employees during stroke recovery

I am waiting for someone to publish how he acquired those commercial properties and for how much.

So many stories to be told about the chain of command of those deeds.

Businessman Dan Gilbert, recovering from a stroke two months ago, has sent a video to his employees at Quicken Loans in which he appears on the road to recovery.

“As Dan continues his rehabilitation and makes progress toward his recovery, yesterday he recorded a brief video to share his gratitude with our company’s 17,000 team members who have set numerous records through the second quarter and beyond," the company said in a brief statement Friday. "We all wish Dan well as he continues down the path to recovery.”

The Detroit News reported Friday that a "snippet" of the video showed Gilbert seated and speaking clearly in a strong and steady voice.

Video shows Dan Gilbert is doing better since May stroke. @cavsdan @WWJ950 @FOX2News pic.twitter.com/fTANu5XyHb

— Charlie Langton (@charlielangton) August 2, 2019

Some Bedrock people got their feathers ruffled because Langton published the private video.

Well, that sucks.

"Whatever you're doing is great," Gilbert told his employees in the video, according to the News report. "It's going much better since I left a few weeks back, I noticed."

More: Dan Gilbert 'doing as well as he can' after stroke, Quicken Loans exec says

More: Dan Gilbert had stroke in hospital, underwent emergency procedure

More: Dan Gilbert released from hospital, set to begin 'intensive' rehab from stroke

Gilbert had a stroke May 26 and was treated at Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak. Quicken Loans said in late June that he had been released from the hospital and was "focusing on his recovery at an in-patient rehabilitation center."

Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©

Meet Jennifer Gilbert

Meet Jennifer Gilbert, Dan's wife.

After Dan's stroke, Jennifer Gilbert focuses on family, creative pursuits

Dan & Jennifer Gilibert

A thin red string wraps its way around Jennifer Gilbert's wrist, a custom from Kabbalah, a type of Jewish mysticism, worn to ward off misfortune.

Touching the string lightly with her fingers, Gilbert, the wife of billionaire businessman Dan Gilbert, says she's worn these strings only twice in her life. The first was when her son, Nick, had brain surgery. The second was when her husband suffered a stroke in late May.

"The entire family has these," says Gilbert, speaking in the lower level offices of the commercial design firm, Pophouse, she helped found in the former Dime Building in downtown Detroit. "It was a way to connect all of us."

Connection is important these days as Gilbert and her family move forward from Dan's stroke, which hospitalized him for several days before he went to an in-patient rehab facility this summer in Chicago. Gilbert says her 57-year-old husband, now home, "is improving every day" though he still isn't back at work.

"With stroke recovery, it's a marathon, it's not a sprint," she said. "But every day he's working hard, and every day we're seeing improvements. He's encouraged. And he's up for the challenge."

Her husband's health crisis forced her to step back from her role at  Pophouse (previously known as dPop). She says the summer was "definitely challenging," but it was nice to have her children home, especially the three who were away at college, so they could be there to support their dad.

The Gilberts, who live in Franklin, have five kids, four of whom have graduated from high school. Their youngest is 13.

"They were able to come home and support him, and me, and each other," said Gilbert.

Speaking to The Detroit News in a rare interview last week, Gilbert, 51, reflected on her husband's recovery, her evolving design firm and why Detroit is so attractive to what she calls "creatives." Even though her husband isn't back at work, "he’s definitely involved," she said. "He’s aware of everything that’s going on. We anticipate what we know he’d want to make decisions on."

She said as a mom of five, she's always had to multitask, but after her husband's stroke she's multi-tasking in a different way.

"As you go through life, you re-prioritize with what's happened," she said. "... . His recovery and our family and making sure our kids were good was the biggest priority."

But with her husband's health more stable, Gilbert is stepping back into her role at Pophouse, taking on the official title of creative director, as the firm expands its mission -- designing not just workplaces, but other commercial spaces. The firm has done the interior design for a large portion of her husband's Bedrock properties.

Gilbert said it makes sense why so many creative people are drawn to the city.

"Designers are part of creatives and artists are part of creatives," said Gilbert. "We're all attracted to a blank canvas, about taking something, and evolving it and solving problems. I think Detroit is just a natural place" to attract creative people.

And Gilbert knows about the power of creativity. She’s the chair of the board of governors for the Cranbrook Academy of Art and Art Museum. She’s also brought the work of artists from around the country into her husband’s properties, from the 17-foot sculptures at Campus Martius Park by the Brooklyn artist KAWS to a custom-made paper sculpture inside the former Detroit News building by Detroit artist Leon Dickey.

Susan Ewing, director of the Cranbrook Academy of Art, says Gilbert has been an “incredible thinking partner” during Ewing’s tenure at the school, which started in 2018.

“We have a shared vision of embracing new technology and entrepreneurship while staying true to Cranbrook’s roots, which is experimental design, craft and making with the hand,” said Ewing in an email.

Given her Cranbrook role, Gilbert says she tries to make sure her own firm’s designers and creative leaders are being to exposed to new art, exhibits and lectures. That exposure is important, she says.

“They’re finding inspiration in everyday life,” said Gilbert. “That’s just the people that they are. But I think it helps to just let them know there are other things out there. And the more you can be exposed to and the more experiences you can have, the more things you can see, it’s good for everybody – but especially a creative.”

A design career
Design has always played a critical role in Gilbert's life.

Growing up in Huntington Woods, she remembers designing elaborate houses with a friend, houses so outside the box that they could never be built in real life.

"My friend down the street and I use to spend hours creating these insane fantasy houses," she said. "There were pits and pools and waterfalls."

But as a student at Michigan State University, it was actually architectural engineering she planned to pursue. She wanted to transfer from MSU to the University of Michigan, but she took one interior design class in East Lansing and she was hooked. She graduated in 1990.

"I took an interior design class my freshman year and fell in love with it," she said. "The rest is history."

Design also is how she met her husband.

"I ended up designing his office," she said.

After marrying and having children, she stepped back from her career for more than a decade and a half. But when her youngest was in preschool, she "started to dip my toe back into it."

The Madison Building in Detroit was the first building Jennifer, left, designed her husband. She worked with Rosetti, the Detroit-based architectural firm. The Madison housed offices for her Doodle Home startup among many others.
The Madison Building in Detroit was the first building Jennifer, left, designed her husband. She worked with Rosetti, the Detroit-based architectural firm. The Madison housed offices for her Doodle Home startup among many others. (Photo: David Coates)

She founded a startup called Doodle Home, a business-to-business software platform that specialized  in home and interior design. Seeing her husband's firms and how they operated, Gilbert realized how "antiquated" interior design was.

"Looking at Dan and everything he was doing with the mortgage company -- that was when he was bringing it all online, looking at it from that lens and saying, 'How can we simplify the design process through integration and technology?'" said Gilbert.

In 2015, Doodle Home was acquired by Dering Hall, an online portal giving designers, architects and consumers access to high-end home furnishings and services. The same year, Gilbert also started Amber Engine, a Detroit-based home furnishings services and solutions technology company.

Design with a purpose
But it’s at Pophouse that Gilbert has really helped play a role in reshaping workplace design. When the firm launched in 2013, Gilbert had been working with the Quicken Loans' facilities department, which shaped the look of the company's downtown offices. Afterward, they decided to create a design studio to work with other clients who liked the aesthetic of Quicken's offices.

Six years later, the firm has completed 2,311 projects for the Rock Family of companies, which includes Quicken Loans and Bedrock. Now, as it branches out into hospitality and retail design, Gilbert says it's about creating “thoughtfully assembled places.” That’s a slogan on Pophouse’s website.

“Designing for a purpose is really why we get out of bed in the morning and why we love what we do,” she said. “We’re just more purposeful and intentional in the projects that we do. They have to be more holistic and have an opportunity for us to transform the space. We believe that transformational spaces can impact people’s lives.”

Jennifer Gilbert, wife of Dan Gilbert, is pictured at Pophouse in front of the Relic Wall created by artist Scott Hocking and Clinton Snider on Thursday, September 26, 2019.Buy Photo
Jennifer Gilbert, wife of Dan Gilbert, is pictured at Pophouse in front of the Relic Wall created by artist Scott Hocking and Clinton Snider on Thursday, September 26, 2019. (Photo: Max Ortiz, The Detroit News)

Jennifer Janus, Pophouse’s president, says there isn’t anyone better to spearhead the firm’s future than Gilbert.

“Jennifer knows that purposeful design goes beyond selecting the right furniture and finishes. It is how the space functions for the user that is the most important,” Janus said in an email. “With the mission of positively impacting people through design, Jennifer encourages the design team to develop and implement strong design narratives that drive the execution of every aspect of a project.”

Outside of her design work and Cranbrook, Gilbert and her husband have also made finding a cure for Neurofibromatosis Type 1 (NF1) a top priority. NF1 is a genetic disorder that causes tumors to grow on nerve pathways anywhere in the body. It affects 3 million people worldwide, including the Gilberts’ son, Nick, .

The couple founded the Gilbert Family Foundation, a nonprofit that has donated millions to funding research and finding a cure for NF1.

As Gilbert looks to the future – juggling her husband’s recovery, her kids, nonprofit work and her career – she sees a Detroit that will continue to change and draw creative people.

“I think that’s just going to keep continuing,” she said. “We’re only scratching the surface. It’s like a creative’s playground.”

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Gilbert, Mnuchin, Duggan... Oh My!

Oh, what a tangled web we weave when it comes to stealin' the children, the land and the votes.

Dan Gilbert has a network.

How a Tax Break to Help the Poor Went to NBA Owner Dan Gilbert

After a lobbying effort, Dan Gilbert, billionaire founder of Quicken Loans, won special tax status for wealthy areas of downtown Detroit where he owns billions worth of property.

Billionaire Dan Gilbert has spent the last decade buying up buildings in downtown Detroit, amassing nearly 100 properties and so completely dominating the area, it’s known as Gilbertville. In the last few years, Gilbert, the 57-year-old founder of Quicken Loans and owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, has also grown close to the Trump family.

Quicken gave $750,000 to Trump’s inaugural fund. Gilbert has built a relationship with Ivanka Trump, who appeared at one of his Detroit buildings in 2017 for a panel discussion with him. And, last year, he watched the midterm election returns at the White House with President Donald Trump himself, who has called Gilbert “a great friend.”

Gilbert’s cultivation of the Trump family appears to have paid off: Three swaths of downtown Detroit were selected as opportunity zones under the Trump tax law, extending a valuable tax break to Gilbert’s real estate empire.

Gilbert’s relationship with the White House helped him win his desired tax break, an email obtained by ProPublica suggests. In February 2018, as the selection process was underway, a top Michigan economic development official asked her colleague to call Quicken’s executive vice president for government affairs about opportunity zones.

“They worked with the White House on it and want to be sure we are coordinated,” wrote the official, Christine Roeder, in an email with the subject line “Quicken.”

The exact role of the White House is not clear. But less than two weeks after the email was written, the Trump administration revised its list of census tracts that were eligible for the tax break. New to the list? One of the downtown Detroit tracts dominated by Gilbert that had not previously been included. And the area made the cut even though it did not meet the poverty requirements of the program. The Gilbert opportunity zone is one of a handful around the country that were included despite not meeting the eligibility criteria, according to an analysis by ProPublica.

Several weeks later, the Michigan governor selected all three of the downtown Gilbert tracts for the program.

Gilbert influenced the local selection process, as well, other emails obtained by ProPublica show: Quicken’s top lobbyist was so enmeshed in the process, his name appears on an opportunity zone map made by the city economic development organization, recommending part of downtown be included in the tax break. No other non-city officials are named on the document.

The result has likely already been a boon to Gilbert: Multiple studies have found that property values in opportunity zones increased because of the tax break. Gilbert has put an estimated $3 billion into buying and renovating properties in Detroit, the vast majority now in opportunity zones.

In addition, even though the law was designed to incentivize new investment, Gilbert has several already-planned developments in the area that could benefit from the tax break, experts said.

The upside for an investor such as Gilbert “could be huge,” said Steve Wamhoff, director of federal tax policy at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a liberal-leaning think tank. “This seems to be a situation where someone is going to get tax breaks for something they were going to do anyway.”

The White House, Treasury Department and Quicken Loans all declined to answer repeated questions about Gilbert’s interactions with the Trump administration regarding opportunity zones. Roeder didn’t respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson for the Michigan Economic Development Corporation declined to elaborate on the email mentioning Quicken’s work with the White House.

In a statement, Jared Fleisher, Quicken Loans vice president of government affairs, acknowledged Gilbert’s companies gave input to the state but said they “did not exercise any inappropriate influence.” The companies “joined a wide range of stakeholders in providing feedback into the Opportunity Zone selection process,” he said. “The State of Michigan engaged interested parties, asked for their input, and encouraged participants to share the State of Michigan’s request for input with other potentially interested groups.”



A Bedrock Detroit map shows properties owned by Dan Gilbert in orange, part of an estimated $3 billion in real estate investments he’s made in the city. The lower left census tract was named an opportunity zone despite being too wealthy to qualify for the program. (Black lines added by ProPublica to roughly show tract boundaries.)

Opportunity zones were created by the 2017 Trump tax code overhaul. The idea, touted by members of both parties, is to grant lucrative tax breaks to encourage new investment in poor areas around the country. The Treasury Department determined which census tracts were eligible for the special status, based on poverty and income levels, and then each state’s governor picked 25% of them as zones.

But the program has been widely criticized as a giveaway to the rich that will not bring the promised revitalization in needy areas. There is no mechanism to track the program’s results, from how much new investment comes to the zones to how many jobs it creates.

Here’s how the tax break works. Say you’re a hedge fund manager, you purchased Google stock years ago and are sitting on $1 billion in gains. If you sell, you’d send the IRS about $240 million in taxes on the capital gain, less than you’d pay in ordinary income tax but still a lot. To avoid paying that much, you could sell the shares and put the $1 billion into an opportunity zone. That comes with three generous breaks. The first is that you defer that $240 million in tax, allowing you to invest more money up front. Plus, you can hold the investment for several years and you’ll get a significant reduction in those taxes. What’s more, any additional gains from the new investment are tax-free after 10 years.

The exact value of the tax breaks for any individual will likely never be publicly known because the program has no disclosure requirements. Gilbert’s holdings, managed by his firm, Bedrock Detroit, are private.

Experts say two of the downtown Detroit tracts are islands of wealth in the city, one of the poorest in the nation. They are significantly wealthier by median income than the surrounding area. They include Gilbert-owned office space with high-end tenants including Microsoft, JP Morgan and Quicken Loans. The boutique Shinola Hotel sits in another Gilbert property that is now in one of the opportunity zones.

While the tax break is supposed to generate new development, Gilbert already has several long-planned projects located in the newly designated zones, including the construction of a glass-and-steel skyscraper on the historic Hudson’s department store site.


Gilbert at the 2017 groundbreaking of a skyscraper planned for the former site of Hudson’s department store, now in an opportunity zone. He owns so much downtown Detroit real estate, some people call it Gilbertville. (Carlos Osorio/AP Photo)
“These areas are not distressed,” said Conrad Kickert, an urban design academic who wrote a book about downtown Detroit. He noted that Gilbert also helped create a new streetcar line in the area, named the QLine after Quicken Loans. The area is much wealthier and whiter than Detroit as a whole, according to recent census estimates.

This year, Gilbert’s opportunity zone push has continued; his firm has been lobbying the Treasury Department on the regulations for the program, which are still being hashed out two years after the law was signed. The CEO of Bedrock sent a letter to the agency pressing the administration to adopt lax technical rules for real estate projects of the type Gilbert is pursuing, according to a copy obtained by ProPublica.

“We believe that the purpose of the [opportunity zone] legislation is best achieved through large-scale, multipurpose real estate development projects that transform and revitalize entire neighborhoods and communities,” wrote Bill Emerson of Bedrock, appearing to describe the firm’s mixed-use Monroe Blocks project. Therefore, he argued, the department should loosen the rules around how quickly opportunity zone investments have to get under way.

Gilbert’s rise in Detroit started in 2010 when he moved the headquarters of his mortgage firm, Quicken Loans, from a suburb to struggling downtown Detroit. His companies employ more than 10,000, and his influence is so immense that Politico named him to its list of the most interesting mayors in America, the only non-mayor on the list.

Gilbert’s downtown developments have already received city and state subsidies with few strings attached, a recent Detroit Free Press investigation found. Along with myriad tax breaks, Detroit’s Downtown Development Authority, for example, sold an important lot to Gilbert for $1. (He has also been advised in his Detroit strategy by another Michigan native and prominent Trump supporter, the billionaire real estate developer Stephen Ross of Related Companies.)

As Gilbert was expanding his Detroit portfolio, Facebook billionaire Sean Parker was embracing the idea for what would become opportunity zones: give investors a tax break on their capital gains if they agree to invest the money in needy areas. Parker set up a think tank, the Economic Innovation Group, to promote the idea in Washington. In 2015, Gilbert joined the group’s “Founders Circle.”

He hasn’t spoken publicly about opportunity zones, but his real estate holdings and businesses in Detroit were clearly in areas that would be well positioned to benefit from the tax break that Parker wanted to create.

In June 2017, Gilbert met with Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, the administration’s point man on the tax bill that included opportunity zones. Gilbert also had a phone call with Mnuchin, last November, according to public calendars. It’s not known what Gilbert and Mnuchin discussed. (Spokespeople for Quicken Loans and the Treasury Department declined to comment on the communications between Gilbert and Mnuchin.)

Despite his relationship with Trump and the administration, Gilbert has tried to publicly dissociate himself from the president. He is in a particularly sensitive position because Detroit is a majority African American city where Hillary Clinton beat Trump 95% to 3%. Before the event he held with Ivanka Trump in 2017, Gilbert released a statement disavowing electoral politics.

In December 2017, Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which included the Economic Innovation Group’s opportunity zone idea. That prompted a scramble by state and local officials across the country to assemble nominations for the program.

By mid-February 2018, Gilbert’s lobbyists had joined the fray. They communicated with both Michigan and Detroit officials about opportunity zones, according to emails obtained by ProPublica through public records requests.

On Feb. 15, an official at the Michigan Economic Development Corporation instructed a colleague at another state agency to reach out to a lobbyist from Quicken to discuss opportunity zones.

The colleague, Brian Mills of the state housing authority, confirmed that he had a call with a representative at Quicken. The company was interested in how the state would select zones, Mills recalled. He advised the company that officials in cities like Detroit would have a lot of sway in the process.

A week later, a top economic development official in Detroit emailed maps of areas that the city wanted to nominate for the program to state officials. One of the maps reflected the input of Gilbert’s lobbyist, Jared Fleisher, who is named on the document.

Curiously, the city’s recommendations shown on the map included a downtown tract that the Treasury Department had deemed ineligible for the program because it was too wealthy. Its median family income was almost 1 1/2 times higher than the opportunity zone eligibility requirements allowed, according to census data. Gilbert owns more than 10 buildings in the tract.

Days after the city sent the map to state officials, it proved prophetic. The Treasury Department released a revised list of eligible tracts. The downtown tract was now, for the purposes of the law, a “low-income community.”

Asked why the name of a lobbyist for Quicken Loans appeared in the legend of the map, a spokesperson for the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation told ProPublica that “Jared Fleisher was just one of the experts we consulted on how the Treasury regulations worked.” She added the city “consulted with numerous experts” to assess which tracts would be eligible for the program, and that the city itself wanted the riverfront tract in the program.

It’s not clear why Gilbert’s lobbyist believed that the tract would end up being eligible for the program. Fleisher did not answer questions on the issue but said in a statement that Gilbert’s companies had not “engaged in advocacy activities (monetary or otherwise) regarding the eligibility of certain areas.” A Treasury Department spokesman said only that “the Treasury officials that typically work on opportunity zone issues had no knowledge of this matter.”

In a statement, Fleisher declined to comment on the nature of his interactions with the city, but he told ProPublica, “Ultimately, the City of Detroit — not [Gilbert’s] Rock Family of Companies or any other respondent to the open call for comments — made the recommendations to the state about which census tracts in Detroit should be selected.”

Two weeks after the Treasury Department issued its revision, the city recommended the tract for the program, along with several others in which Gilbert had substantial investments. They did so even though those tracts were not included in a list of recommendations for Detroit that the Michigan State Housing Development Authority had assembled and shared with the city.

In the end, the state deferred to the city, and in April 2018, the downtown tracts in which Gilbert had poured so much capital officially became opportunity zones.

One Trump Tax Cut Was Meant to Help the Poor. A Billionaire Ended Up Winning Big.
Opportunity zones are meant to spur new investment in poor areas. But Under Armour’s Kevin Plank is getting a tax break for investments that are not new and not in a poor tract. And Plank’s area was picked over neighborhoods that are actually poor.
An analysis by ProPublica found that one of the tracts only became eligible through a provision in the law that was intended to allow areas that had been designated for a Clinton-era anti-poverty measure to be included in the program. However, experts told ProPublica that the Treasury Department’s mapping analysis was deeply flawed, and that it erroneously allowed a handful of areas to become opportunity zones. As ProPublica previously reported, a similar loophole allowed a tract largely owned by Kevin Plank, billionaire CEO of Under Armour, to take advantage of the opportunity zone program for his development in Baltimore.

Community groups in Michigan have criticized the selection process, contending it favored wealthier areas that are already seeing redevelopment at the expense of more impoverished areas of Detroit. Of the 10 most impoverished areas in the city that the governor could have picked, only two made the cut. Of the 10 least impoverished areas, six were picked. Those include downtown tracts in which Gilbert has substantial investments.

Former Gov. Rick Snyder, who made the ultimate selections last year, declined to comment.

In an email, a spokesperson for the city of Detroit said its recommendations centered on areas where investors could make a return. “The City recommended the eligible areas where it believed developers were most likely to find profitable investments. To do anything else would have been pointless under the opportunity zone law.”

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