Metro
Ill! Circle
Longtime friends teaming up to help invigorate Detroit.
Bill Carroll
Special to the Jewish News
A
lexander J. Rosko was the
beloved principal of Adlai
Stevenson Elementary School in
Southfield in the 1960s and 1970s when
a close-knit bunch of Jewish youngsters
were growing up in the Twyckingham
subdivision. They attended each other's
birthday parties and bar mitzvahs, played
youth baseball, backyard basketball and
forged friendships that so far have lasted
at least half a lifetime.
Now business entrepreneurs and pro-
fessionals, they find themselves working
together again on one of the biggest busi-
ness deals to hit Detroit in recent years. It's
the Nov. 13 announcement by Dan Gilbert,
45, of Franklin, chairman of Quicken
Loans/Rock Financial, the nation's largest
online mortgage lender, that the company
will relocate its headquarters from Livonia
and move about 4,000 jobs to downtown
Detroit. One of two sites will be selected
within a year: A two-acre parcel on the
site of the former J.L. Hudson store on
Woodward or a site off Grand Circus Park
where the demolished Statler Hotel once
stood.
Gilbert announced the move, labeled
"Detroit 2.0:' at a news event attended by
Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, Detroit
Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, state legislators,
county and city officials and local busi-
ness leaders, including pizza king and
sportsman Mike Ilitch and Compuware
chief Peter Karmonos.
"Our intent is to develop both parcels
— one for Quicken headquarters and the
other for growing technology companies,
incubators and venture capital firms:'
said Gilbert. "There's a new energy in
downtown Detroit: We're switching from
a muscle economy to a brain economy.
We believe our move can be a catalyst for
future growth and momentum."
He pointed out that his father and grand-
father once owned businesses in Detroit.
Dan Gilbert
Jeffrey Cohen
while still principal. The gigantic relocation
was code-named in his honor.
Playing instrumental roles in the Rosko
Project are Jeffrey Cohen, 45, of West
Bloomfield, CEO of Rock Companies,
a development and building subsid-
iary of Quicken; Howard Luckoff, 45,
of Bloomfield Hills, an attorney with
Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohen's
Bloomfield Hills office; David Friedman,
46, president and CEO of Friedman Real
Estate Group, Farmington Hills; and David
Carroll, 45, of West Bloomfield, Quicken/
Rock vice president.
"About six months ago — as busy as
we were — e-mails were flying furiously
among all of us one weekend to pin down
a code name for this project',' said Luckoff.
"Mr. Rosko came to mind and we all
thought that was great. He was a respected
principal and real nice guy. We all have
fond memories of our days at Stevenson
school."
Luckoff lived on Twyckingham
Way in the old subdivision, Cohen on
Pontchartrain Drive, and Gilbert, Friedman
and Carroll on Glastonbury Gate. Gilbert,
now listed as a billionaire by Forbes mag-
zinc, showed signs of his business acumen
and entrepreneurial skill at the age of 12,
selling homemade pizza, toys, pots and
pans and even power tools to relatives and
neighbors. At 14, he and Carroll managed
a Little League baseball team, surprising
adult managers by winning the champion-
ship in two out of four years.
Behind The Scenes
"Team Rosko" attended Birney Middle
While working on the decision over the
School,
Southfield-Lathrup High School
past several months — Quicken was wooed
and
went
on to college. Gilbert graduated
by other cities and states, and especially by
from
Michigan
State University with a
the Detroit Economic Development Corp.
communications
degree and from Wayne
— Gilbert's own brain trust never forgot
State University's law school.
"Mr. Rosko," who died of a heart attack
Howard Luckoff
David Friedman
Beginnings And Beyond
In 1985, at the age of 23, Gilbert used
$5,000 to found Rock Financial Corp. in
a shared Southfield office suite, closing
only 50 loans in the first year. His partners
were his brothers: Gary, now an indepen-
dent movie producer living in Hollywood,
and Lindsay Gross of Franklin, now an
independent investor. Quicken/Rock,
consistently ranked in the Top 20 on
Fortune's "100 Best Companies to Work
For;' is expected to close between $18 bil-
lion-$20 billion in home loans this year,
said Carroll, a University of Michigan law
school graduate, who assisted Gilbert in
all facets of the project
Cohen, who studied engineering at
Michigan State, then operated his own
construction company before joining
Quicken to develop residential commu-
nities around the country, will oversee
construction of the company's new down-
town headquarters. Quicken also has
development options on the old Lafayette
(Ave.) Building and two parking lots on
Broadway. For operating in renaissance
zones, the company will receive close to
$200 million in incentives from the state
and city over 12 to 20 years.
"Since making the announcement, we've
been inundated with calls from engineer-
ing firms, other construction companies,
realtors and just about everyone else want-
ing to help with this project:' said Cohen.
Gilbert promised the city he will make
a decision within 12 months on the final
site, but it probably will be shorter than
that, according to Carroll. "Dan wants to
move on this quickly, and he's also aggres-
sively pursuing other businesses to join
us," Carroll said.
Friedman, who is real estate consultant
David Carroll
on the project, said,"It will take another
18 to 24 months to complete due-dili-
gence, renderings and construction plans."
Quicken's current lease in Livonia
expires in 2010, but can be extended.
Much of the project's legal interaction with
Detroit was handled by Luckoff, a Detroit
College of Law graduate.
"We think the move is the right thing
to do, and the smart thing to do:' said
Gilbert.
He added that Quicken employees will
be compensated for having to pay Detroit's
income tax and higher parking rates. "It
shouldn't have to cost them any money at
all for moving;' he said. "We feel bad about
leaving Livonia, but these types of moves
happen all the time in metropolitan areas.
In 1999, we moved 2,000 people from
Southfield to Livonia."
Gilbert is an investor in 12 other
Quicken-affiliated companies, including
the Cleveland Cavaliers basketball team,
the new RockBridge Equity Partners and
ePrize of Pleasant Ridge, a global leader in
the interactive promotions industry. ePrize
CEO Josh Linkner hinted to the media last
week he may follow Quicken and eventu-
ally move about 300 employees downtown
from their Pleasant Ridge ofices.
"This announcement is great for the
city of Detroit and we're all proud of Dan:
said Jewish philanthropist and retired
businessman Eugene Applebaum of
Bloomfield Hills, who attended the event.
Applebaum could have been part of Team
Rosko; he formerly lived on Tavistock
Trail, right around the corner from
Gilbert.
Editor's note: Special Writer Bill Carroll is
the father of David Carroll.
November 22 R 2007
A13