Sterling Heights : Development News

Precision Global Systems is moving into a 60,000-square-foot space in Sterling Heights, bringing it closer to many of the manufacturing customers it counts as clients.

The new office at 6600 E. 15 Mile Road becomes the company's second metro Detroit location. The other is in Troy. When that space was outgrown PGS chose a recently renovated building in Sterling Heights that is co-occupied by the Macomb Group.

The Sterling Heights facility is ideally located near many of Precision Global Systems' customers, and it will be used for warehousing and distribution functions. The nearly 30-year-old company provides specialized manufacturing and engineering services and consulting to companies such as Ford, Chrysler, Dana and Bosch.

Five full-time jobs are being created with the office opening.

Writer: Kim North Shine
Source: Teresa Jarzab, management assistant, City of Sterling Heights and Kasey Green, economic development manager, City of Sterling Heights

The operators of Freedom Hill Amphitheater in Sterling Heights, a venue that closed in 2009 after 10 years in business and in the midst of legal disputes, is reopening and predicting its second shot at success will stick.  The venue is pinning that prediction on the music promoter who will book acts for the 7,200 seat outdoor theater.

With the reopening will come jobs and crowds again.

The theater is located at a Macomb County park on Metro Parkway near Schoenherr and will open in June. The first major act announced for the re-opening is Lady Antebellum for a June 13 performance.

Freedom Hill, which is a partnership between president & CEO of Andiamo Restaurant Group, Joe Vicari, and Luna Entertainment CEO and owner of MotorCity Harley-Davidson, Tom Celani, will work with concert promotor AEG Live instead of Live Nation, which sued the amphitheater over disputed concert revenues.

Freedom Hill's location on Metro Parkway near Schoenherr taps into markets in northern and eastern suburbs  not so easily served by larger venues and also pulled from the metro Detroit region and around the state.

Writer: Kim North Shine
Source: Crain's Business Detroit and Jason Brown, PublicCity PR

The Michigan Defense Center (MDC), an agency of the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, opened in Sterling Heights this week and made official Macomb County's position as the state's top destination for defense dollars.

The new center will operate at Velocity, a business incubator and central location for economic development efforts in homeland security, defense, advanced manufacturing and other industries. It also provides loans and guidance, work and meeting space and more to start-ups. It is a collaboration between Macomb County, Oakland University and Sterling Heights.

The MDC's Sterling Heights office opens as the state releases a study that found that in the last decade, the U.S. Department of Defense awarded nearly $42 million to businesses in Michigan, 63 percent of that going to Macomb County businesses. MDC also has a Lansing office.

“Macomb County is the heart of our defense industry so it makes sense that this is the new home of our state’s defense center,” Michael A. Finney, president and CEO, Michigan Economic Development Corp., says in a statement announcing the opening. “This is a sector that is ripe for economic gardening opportunities, and we will continue to work with our partners to grow Michigan businesses and new jobs.”

The Michigan Defense Center is an agency of the MEDC, created as a public act to attract new defense and homeland security investment in Michigan and to provide supply chains for defense industry buyers as well as augment research and development resources in universities and federal laboratories, among other objectives.

Source: Maria Zardis, manager special projects and outreach, Macomb County Department of Planning and Economic Development
Writer: Kim North Shine


  

Just two years after Chrysler Group LLC's Sterling Heights assembly plant was written off in bankruptcy there are construction cranes and workers putting $1 billion worth of updates and changes into the facility.

"It's amazing considering, as Chrysler has said itself, it is a rags-to-riches story for this facility," says Mark Vanderpool, Sterling Heights city manager.

When the facility made the list of Chrysler properties to be closed and liquidated in 2010, the city council formed a task force to save the facility. After meeting with 50 local, state, and federal officials from government, schools, unions, private industry, the utilities, railroads, and the Italian Consulate, Chrysler bought the facility back and decided to make it a site where the latest technology would meet manufacturing.

"After this broad-based effort, Chrysler decided to reverse its decision...and due to the incentive package...Chrysler decided to purchase back the facility out of bankruptcy for $20 million," says Vanderpool, who notes it's one of the largest construction projects in southeast Michigan.

"This is the first example of such a scenario in the country. Probably 30-plus auto facilities have been closed across the country and this is the only example in the country of the company buying it back and bringing it back to life."

Besides just over $1 billion in investment in the facility, which includes the recent announcement of a $165 million paint and body section, Chrysler is putting 900 people to work.

In a statement announcing the additional investment, Scott Garberding, senior vice president and head of manufacturing for  Chrysler Group LLC, says, "A plant that was slated to close nearly two years ago will now be a state-of-the-art facility that will play an integral role in the success of this company by building the next generation of all-new vehicles.”

Source: Mark Vanderpool, Sterling Heights City Manager
Writer: Kim North Shine

A business incubator support project in Sterling Heights called Velocity is offering space, guidance and other services to startups in the fields of defense, homeland security and advanced manufacturing.

Velocity and several other organizations are located in a renovated and technologically updated 35,000-square-foot building that was formerly a Ford Motor Co. child care center. It's located on 18 Mile Road between Van Dyke and Mound Roads. Van Dyke lies in a state SmartZone.

Velocity, which launched last week, is a collaboration between the city of Sterling Heights, Macomb County and the Macomb-OU Business INCubator.

It offers customized leased space to start-ups that "have their business plan, their product, and they're looking for assistance and guidance to take it to that next step," says Denice Gerstenberg, business development manager for Sterling Heights. "They will grow up, move out of the incubator and into the community to create jobs."

Macomb County, which has been dubbed the Arsenal of Democracy for its work in defense, has a long history and background in all three industries targeted by Velocity.

"This corridor has a strong defense presence…Macomb County gets approximately six percent of all defense contracts," Gerstenberg points out. It goes to show that the money is there for start-ups with useful ideas. "Homeland security is an emerging industry and obviously with all the [automakers], Chrysler and Ford being here, it's a strong manufacturing corridor as well."

Other building occupants include the Macomb-OU INCubator, the Pawley Lean Institute from OU, and OU's Center for Robotics and Unmanned Intelligent Systems.

There also are two start-up tenants moving along the business development path that's opened to 20-25 other start-ups.

Source: Denice Gerstenberg, business development manager, city of Sterling Heights
Writer: Kim North Shine

A British company that produces defense armor for vehicles and troops has moved into new offices in a part of Sterling Heights dubbed the Defense Corridor.

On June 1, NP Aerospace Inc.. joined personnel from TACOM and Automation Alley at the Defense Corridor Center for Collaboration and Synergy, or DC3S. NP Aerospace announced in October that it was establishing a U.S. operation in Sterling Heights. It also has offices in Kingston, Ontario.

The Sterling Heights facility features a media center with amphitheater style seating for 46, a large display area and multipurpose rooms and close access to counterparts in the defense industry.

NP Aerospace was founded in 1926 and is based in Coventry, England. It is seen as a leader and innovator in defense systems, especially lightweight armor delivered in a speedy fashion to military sites around the world.

"The reason we established NP Aerospace Inc. in the states in October was to allow us to share technologies to build advanced composite armor systems in the U.S.," Donald Bray, business director for NP Aerospace Inc., says in a statement. "Our materials are stronger and lighter than other armor systems and have been battle tested in Iraq and Afghanistan with the British Army. We have brought this state-of-the-art technology to the U.S. to help create and build the next generation of lightweight advanced armor systems for tactical vehicles and personnel.
This new location in Sterling Heights will enhance our activities in Michigan's Defense Corridor."

Source: Automation Alley and Don Bray, business director NP Aerospace
Writer: Kim North Shine

Metro Detroit, already said to be home to the largest Chaldean community outside the Middle East, will be the destination for thousands of Chaldean refugees in coming months.

Between 10,000 and 12,000 Chaldeans from Iraq, many of them Catholics fleeing persecution of their Christian faith, are expected to resettle in the Detroit area in 2011 and 2012, and one of their first stops could be a new immigrant assistance office in Sterling Heights.

The office is operated by the Chaldean American Chamber of Commerce and the Chaldean Community Foundation. The Sterling Heights location become the second such office. The other is in Southfield.

Martin Manna, executive director of the organizations that run the offices, says the goal is to offer help, be it transportation, housing, English language lessons, and job help so that the new residents can become self-sufficient after their eight months of federal assistance ends.

Manna says one aspect of assistance will be helping Chaldeans, who are the indigenous people of their part of the world, where they traditionally excel. "They are historically merchants and entrepreneurs," he says.

And a survey of local Chaldeans by Walsh College and the United Way found that 2/3 of Chaldean households own one business and and 39 percent own two or more.

He says the residents, many of whom will stay in Macomb County, will add to metro Detroit's growing number of Chaldean Catholic churches and organizations.

The new office has filled a vacant storefront at 15 and Ryan and resulted in the hiring of three employees, and more will soon be added to keep up with the arrival. There are also plans to expand the office, Manna says.

"Part of the goal of the grant is to grow a campus," Manna says.

Source: Martin Manna, executive director, Chaldean American Chamber of Commerce and Chaldean Community Foundation.
Writer: Kim North Shine