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Credit: Courtesy of Bedrock LLC
A view of the Hudson’s Detroit skyscraper with its exterior facade completed.
Dan Gilbert’s Bedrock LLC is leveraging its extensive real estate portfolio to become a leader in Detroit’s emerging tech and innovation ecosystem.
The event space of Bedrock’s new 12-story office block building next to the still under construction 49‑story Hudson’s Detroit building downtown was the marquee venue this week for Reindustrialize, a manufacturing summit which welcomed more than 1,000 founders, investors and government leaders
According to Bedrock’s leadership, the building underscores how Bedrock’s property portfolio is doubling as a tech‑ecosystem accelerator.
Nearby, Bedrock is planning a new building at Gratiot Avenue and Interstate 375 to house BAMF Health as its anchor tenant, as well as offices for Ferris State University, startup incubator MI-HQ, and Wayne State University and TechTown. The facility aims to fill the absence of wet lab space for startups in Detroit, while the Rock Family Companies works to both bring startups to Detroit and keep them here.
Kevin Mull, senior director for Bedrock’s Office of Urban Strategy and Innovation, said other Bedrock properties like the Detroit Smart Parking Lab and the Urban Tech Xchange offer locations for startups to join Detroit’s ecosystem.
“We meet a startup that we like and that we’re working to deploy, and we’ll say, ‘Hey, DVP, have you met these guys?’ We kind of pass the ball back and forth where we’re both looking at this startup from a little bit of a different perspective,” Mull said. “Or it’ll go the other way, where they’re like, ‘We’re thinking about this company, and we would love to see their product in action. Could you deploy it at the UTX or at the DSPL?’”
Credit: Anna Fifelski/Crain’s Detroit Business.
Kevin Mull, senior director for Bedrock’s Office of Urban Strategy and Innovation; Lindsey Rem, senior vice president of business transformation at Barton Malow; Anthony Chang, founder and CEO of BAMF Health; Justine Johnson, chief mobility officer for the state of Michigan; and Cory Tincher, senior associate at Detroit Venture Partners speak at a Re:Industrialize panel on Thursday.
Bedrock’s real estate footprint gives it an advantage when it comes to working with startups.
Bedrock, Atlanta-based Orange Sparkle Ball and NoHo Hospitality recently launched an autonomous robot that collects food waste from local restaurants and transports it to the Urban Tech Xchange — all of which are located in Bedrock-owned buildings.
Another DVP investment, Santa Monica-headquartered Metropolis Technologies, is known for its parking operations. Cory Tincher, senior associate at DVP, said following the firm’s investment in the company, it deployed at Bedrock’s parking garages around the city.
Mull hopes to see Bedrock support innovators through their careers in Detroit, from housing their startups to finding homes, and eventually opening an office in a Bedrock commercial office building.
For example, the Detroit Smart Parking Lab housed Alba Robot and It’s Electric, both of which have since established offices in Detroit. It’s Electric, a Brooklyn-based startup, is installing 25 curbside electric vehicle charging stations in Detroit by the end of this year. Alba Robot moved to the DSPL from Italy and now has an office in Newlab at Michigan Central.
Detroit Venture Partners is also taking a hands-on approach to attract talent to Michigan. Tincher said that while the firm has never made an investment contingent on a company relocating to Michigan, it does sell the city in other ways.
“We made a pitch to them for why Detroit might make sense and then we said, ‘Don’t take our word for it. Come see it,’” Tincher said.
DVP hosts the startup in the city for several days and introduces them to other members of the community.
“Detroit is one of those places where you have to come here to really get it, because you can read every article that’s out there, but until you see it, you won’t understand it,” Tincher said.
Continuing to strengthen its innovation community is one of the several ways Michigan can continue to improve and attract founders, BAMF Health founder and CEO Anthony Chang said during a panel at the Reindustrialize summit on Thursday.
“In order to retain the startups ready to scale, we need to have a high-quality workforce and high-quality work … So we need to start really investing in health care, really invest into education at all of the levels in order to develop the local high-quality workforce. This will retain startups and attract more talent coming in, and start creating this flywheel.”
Mull also hopes the Reindustrialize summit being hosted at Hudson’s Detroit will be an initial stepping stone for founders and entrepreneurs to look deeper into Detroit.
“You can change people’s minds one at a time, and that works, but it takes a long time, when you can bring 1,000 people and try to change their mind over the course of a day or two,” Mull said.
Editor’s note: The original version of this report incorrectly stated where the Reindustrialize event took place. This version is correct.
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