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HARDLINE WITH HANLEY: Saginaw - Field of Dreams 
by Mike Hanley
One of the perks of being in the legislature is that you get to attend just about any professional sporting event you want. This is because the Lansing lobby corps represents lots of southeast Michigan corporations and individuals with season tickets and corporate suites.
The clients give the lobbyists access, and the
lobbyists take the legislators so they can build relationships. My experience
was that if you went to a game with a lobbyist, you didn't talk about the
issues their clients cared about, you'd just eat giant shrimp and drink free
beer and have fun watching the game with the lobbyists and several of your
colleagues.
It's not like you traded your vote for the
ticket to the game. In fact, I voted against the position of plenty of season
ticket/suite owners in my time.
The events I attended most often were Red
Wings games during the seasons they took the Stanley Cup. I have
to confess I'm not a huge fan of hockey, or any sport. I find it about as
difficult to pay attention as most other guys would find it to pay attention
to a political convention. But I'd attend for two reasons. First, I was an
ambitious guy who knew that the more I could establish relationships with my
colleagues, the more likely the were to vote for me in the race to Speaker,
which thanks in part to Geoff Feiger, turned out to be the race for
Minority Leader. The second was that my friend and local party chair
Stephen Borrello loved the Wings, and if I went to the games, I could
usually get him invited along.
Just about every opportunity to go to a Wings
game meant you'd be in a suite. The only exception I can remember was if you
had the Blue Cross/Blue Shield tickets, four in a row, on the glass,
right next to the Wings bench. I only spent one period of one game in those
seats.
There are two levels of suites in the Joe Louis
arena. They're right at the very top of the place, and you're looking a long
way down to the ice. Still, they're very nice, and since you can walk around
the perimeter of the arena on the outside of the suites and look into them
(they're all decorated differently) as you pass by, it's a fantastic place to
people watch, and to meet the movers and shakers of southeast Michigan.
On the lower level, there are two "super
suites", one at each end of the rink. They're the size of 5 or 6 of the
regular suites. One is owned by Mike Illich, the guy who founded
Little Caesar's Pizza, and for those of you who don't know, the owner of
the Wings and the Tigers. Illich also owns the Fox Theatre
in downtown Detroit. He bought it in pretty bad shape and totally restored
it, and it's an incredibly beautiful place, a very popular venue, and real
credit to Detroit. I've always thought Illich is a real hero.
I was attending a game with Curtis Hertel,
Speaker at the time, and I was his choice for his successor. He's from
Detroit, and he'd take some time during the games to introduce me to local
business people, tell them I was his guy and that I cared about Detroit and
southeast Michigan, so they should be comfortable with me. Once, he took a
group of us into Illich's suite. It was between periods, and the family was
socializing in the large public area of the suite. During the game per se,
the family would retreat to a side area with a sliding/folding wall that would
be closed so they could watch the game without disturbance.
I walked up to Illich, introduced myself, and
told him where I was from. Then I told him that I was absolutely in awe of
his contributions to Detroit, and that I thought it was really great that a
guy like him, who didn't need to spend some of his fortune on speculative
development in a troubled city, actually did so.
He looked at me like I was nuts, and said
"thanks".
And that's the exciting story of Mike Illich
and me.
If you're an ambitious and successful
legislator, you also get invited to a lot of "industry association" events.
You go because the associations have large political action committees, and
one of the jobs of a legislative leader is fundraising, so you want to make
friends with the members of the association so you can raise money for your
caucus from them.
One of the biggest and most influential
industry associations is the Michigan Beer and Wine Wholesalers. They
have state granted exclusive rights to distribute beer and wine, and they were
an important group to me in particular because every wholesaler warehouse in
Saginaw County was in my district. Collectively they employ about three or
four hundred people.
Well, at dinner with a couple of our local
wholesalers one night, I asked what they thought it would take to get Dr.
Sam Shaheen to get involved in economic development in the City of
Saginaw. This was a year or two after Shaheen had opened his first high
profile project, the Horizon's Center. Their answer was that they
considered it very unlikely that Dr. Shaheen would invest in Saginaw under any
circumstances, since the city for a variety of reasons wasn't the best place
to do business, to put it mildly.
Obviously, history proved them wrong. The
Shaheen's saw in Saginaw what Illich saw in Detroit - opportunity. They
developed the Davenport Inn, the MCVI building on Washington
Avenue, the Temple Theatre, and soon they'll develop a mixed use
building on Hamilton Street.
Over the years, I've come to express some of my
favorite ideas over and over and over again. One is that while in the Detroit
area most of the people in the suburbs are very down on the city, and many are
unwilling to go into it at all, you can't get a parking place in Greek Town.
Or near the Fox when there's a show. Or near Comerica Park when the
Tigers are playing.
Illich knew if he built it, they would come.
I think the Shaheen's have the same vision.
Another thing I've said a million times is that
all the talent and money Saginaw needs to become a thriving city again is
right here at home. Several years ago, I had a conversation with Saginaw
architect Les Tinknell about the idea of getting a group of local
business people together to discuss opportunities in town. It never got off
the ground, but it's still a great idea. Just imagine if the famous families
in Saginaw got together and committed to developing consumer entertainment
businesses - restaurants, nightclubs, coffee houses, etc., all at the same
time.
A friend of mine ran into Art Dore at
the Bay City Hooter's a couple of days ago. Dore owns it now, and he
bought Saginaw's Hooter's too. They'll reopen in a few weeks. Now get
this crazy idea - Dore is going to put in DOCKS! Gee, I wonder if he
puts in docks, boaters will come?
I'll end this column much like I ended my last
one. For all of the city's problems, some real and some greatly exaggerated,
the city offers some business opportunities the suburbs don't. The Shaheen's
are proving it. So is Rich Kramer with Richie Rich's. So is
JoAnn Jackson with the French Quarters. So did Paul Barrera
with Nine's. And I can't think of another town in the state that has
a Retro Rocks. The list goes on.
I hope the famous business families with
potential entrepreneurs in Saginaw County who are watching realize there's
still plenty of room on the river and in the business districts waiting to be
developed.
And if you build it, they will come.
P.S. Note to "Cool Cities" committee -
consider starting a venture capital fund, raising money from small donors who
want to see more "cool" businesses. Then find people with great vision and no
money to invest in. Just a thought!
Mike Hanley is a former City Councilmember, State Representative and State House Minority Leader. He is now an hourly worker at Delphi and resides in Saginaw with his wife and two young sons. You can reach him at michaelhanley@hotmail.com) |
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