Business

Peers cite
Richard .Komer
as "Builder of the Year"

Richard Kolaer
a constructida s

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ALAN ABRAMS
Special to the Jewish News

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wo metro area builders
were recently honored by
their peers in the Building
Industry Association of
Southeastern Michigan.
Richard Komer, a partner in the
award-winning Wineman & Komer
Building Company of Southfield, was
named 1998 Builder of the Year. Peter
Burton, a third-generation builder and
president of the Bingham Farms-based
Burton Katzman Development
Company; was elected president of the
association for 1999.
Komer was honored in December at
the association's leadership awards
night. Komer and his partners, brothers
Henry II and John Wineman, also carry
on a long line of Jewish philanthropy
begun by their families who were pio-
neers in Detroit's Jewish community.
Wineman & Komer is one of
southeastern Michigan's largest
builders of custom homes, elegant
detached condominiums, single-family
homes and commercial office build-
ings. Some of their best known resi-
dential projects include the Woodlands
on Gilbert Lake, Boulder Park in
Bloomfield Hills, the Polo Club
Apartments in Farmington Hills,
Country Club Manors of Oak Pointe
in Brighton, Clarkston Pines in

Independence Township and
Roundtree Subdivision in Orion
Township. They are currently
developing several new sites in
Northville.
The company built the 60,000-
square-foot Essex Centre in
Southfield, which houses their
offices, and the Seniors Retirement
Village at Botsford Commons for
Botsford Hospital. They also assist-
ed the Ramco-Gershenson
Properties Trust in a major expan-
sion of Summit Place shopping center
in Waterford Township.
Wineman & Komer has received
two awards from the Engineering
Society of Detroit: one for their work
on the $20 million restoration of
downtown Detroit's historic Old
Wayne County Building, working in
conjunction with Burton Farbman
and The Farbman Group, and the
other for the Franklin Village home of
architect Kenneth Neumann of the
Neumann/Smith partnership.
Komer, who is 58, grew up in
northwest Detroit and graduated
from Mumford High School in 1958.
His sister Rochelle is better known as
Shelly Komer Jackier, the executive
vice president of the Michigan-Israel
Chamber of Commerce. He also has
a brother, Robert.
In the 1930s, Komer's father,
Harry, and his uncle, Charlie, pur-

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Fellow builders cite Richard

Komer as their man of the year

and pick Peter Burton to lead

their organization this year.

chased the Redford Theatre on Grand
River and were bit by the movie bug.
Combining with family — Sam
Goldberg and his cousins, twins
Irving and Adolph Goldberg — the
Komers and Goldbergs owned the
Community Theatres chain. At its
peak, they had 13 theaters, including
the Whittier, Grand River, Bel-Air,
Gratiot and Town drive-ins, and later
the Adams downtown.
Komer's family also developed land
and constructed homes in Troy and
Waterford in the 1950s. Another
cousin, Adolph Komer, built the
Eastgate Shopping Center, one of the
area's first, on Gratiot in Roseville.
All of this served to whet Richard
Komer's interest in the business. But
he decided to come in as a lawyer. He
graduated from Wayne State
University Law School in 1964, and
practiced real estate law. In the late
1960s, he worked with Abe Green

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and Walter Goodman as house coun-
sel for Rose Hill Builders, which
eventually became Republic
Development Corporation.
"That's how I gained my experi-
ence, by being escorted by a sheriff
out of a zoning meeting, or being
greeted by baseball-bat-brandishing
crowds as you people from New
York,'" said Komer.
He then spent three years as house
counsel to Biltmore Homes in Troy,
owned by the Stollman family.
One day, his then-neighbor in
Huntington Woods, Henry Wineman
II, suggested they go into business
together, including Henry's brother
John, who had been working in field
construction for the Taubman
Company at their Fairlane and
Lakeside projects.
"Our names were able to get us
some credit at the bank," said Komer.
Wineman & Komer began business
in 1976 with 10 lots in the Emerald
Lakes Subdivision in Troy. They later
moved on to developments in Sterling
Heights and Rochester Hills.
When Wineman & Komer was
founded, the partners split the
responsibilities: John Wineman was
in charge of field construction and
Henry Wineman, also an attorney,
handled finances. "And I did the land
acquisition, land development, sales
and marketing," said Komer.

3/19
1999

Detroit Jewish News

67