Feb 27, 2018

City of Detroit paving the way for urban retail

The city of Detroit is having a moment, and retail-design executive Ken Nisch isn’t the only one who thinks so.

In all the years Nisch attended the most influential shopping trade-show, he never imagined giving the presentation he did at this year’s National Retail Federation’s Big Show in Manhattan.

“I explained why Detroit can be the future of retail,” said Nisch, who is chairman of Southfield, Michigan-based retail-design company JGA Inc.

Nisch told this to several hundred conference attendees last month during his panel presentation. The crowd included major international investors, tech executives and retail thought leaders.

“For the last 40 years, the words ‘major retail’ and ‘Detroit’ – you didn’t hear those two things in the same sentence,” said Todd Sachse, vice president of Broder & Sachse Real Estate in Birmingham, Mich. He’s also CEO of Sachse Construction.

An estimated $5.2 billion in development projects is planned through 2022. “We now have the kind of investment that can attract a lot more investment,” Sachse said.

Click here to read more on this story from The Detroit News.