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Where The Action Is

Sachse Construction's move
Downtown was 'a necessity.'

Allan Nahajewski
Contributing Writer

I

is only natural that Sachse
Construction is shifting its head-
quarters to Downtown Detroit.
The company is so busy with pro-
jects in the city that the move just
made sense.
Sachse Construction's new main
office will be on the top floor of the
historic, six-story, 36,000-square-
foot Arts League Building at 1528
Woodward near Grand Circus Park, a
stone's throw from Comerica Park. The
floor will house about 50 employees,
many of whom are now occupying
office space scattered throughout
Downtown.
The company has about 75 employ-
ees. Its operations staff, including pro-
ject managers, engineers and super-
intendents, will be based Downtown.
Support staff, including accounting,
IT and administration will remain in
Birmingham.
"About three years ago, we opened
up a satellite office in Detroit to catch
the beginning of the latest resurgence
of good things happening in the city,"
said company president and founder
Todd Sachse. "We were seeing more
activity there so we thought it was
important to have a presence. Then
over the last two years, our work
Downtown has grown even more so to
a point where it didn't become just a
desire but a necessity to be there!'
Sachse says the move is a show of
faith in the future of Detroit.
"I believe quite strongly that [the
current] resurgence is very real, and
in 10 or 20 years, the greatest growth
for real estate construction and peo-
ple migration will be into the city of
Detroit," he says. "Strategically, we feel
it's important that we're there in the
center of it."
Sachse said 2011 was the compa-
ny's best year, and 2012 is proving to
be even better. Projects under way
include restoration of historic build-
ings as well as new construction.
"Right now, there's a lot of reno-
vation, but there are a couple of new
projects happening:' says Sachse.
"We're building the new Whole Foods
grocery store at Mack and Woodward
in Midtown from the ground up, and
we're doing many renovation projects
Downtown for Bedrock Real Estate,
in addition to Blue Cross Blue Shield
and Detroit Regional Chamber of

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Todd Sachse

Commerce!"
The company began in 1991 and has
built millions of square feet of retail,
restaurant, airport, education, office,
health care, industrial, multi-family
and hospitality space throughout the
United States and Canada. Currently,
nearly 20 percent of the company's
projects are in Detroit, representing
nearly half of its revenue.
While Sachse describes the move
Downtown as a business imperative,
he says that many in the company
expressed a personal preference for
the move. "They said they wanted to
be here because of the excitement and
new energy in the city," he said.
The Arts League Building is owned
by Rock Ventures, who purchased it
last year from the city's Downtown
Development Authority.
"I like the Arts League Building
architecturally. It's historic, and it's just
a really cool building:' he says. "But
location was the main reason we chose
it. We wanted to be on the Woodward
corridor between Grand Circus Park
and Jefferson, in the middle of the
action!'
One of Sachse Construction's pro-
jects was the new Quicken Loans
world headquarters in the city. The
250,000-square-foot office occu-
pies four floors in the Compuware
Building. The company's other
Downtown projects include the
Madison Building, Chase Tower and
Dime Building.
Sachse is very active in the Jewish
community. He is past president of
the Jewish Community Center and
current president of the United Jewish
Foundation of Metropolitan Detroit.
A 1985 graduate of the University of
Michigan, he lives in Huntington Woods
with his wife and three children. ❑

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October 25 • 2012

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