DETROIT, MI – Quicken Loans Founder and Detroit real estate mogul Dan Gilbert continues to get national recognition for all the moves he makes in downtown Detroit.
An Atlanta newspaper cited Gilbert as a benchmark for what needs to be done to revamp a city.
The article looked at St. Louis as an example of a city that made the wrong decisions, CBS St. Louis reports.
According to the article, urban shifts that make cities more downtown-centric are crucial to a city’s success. Richard Florida, director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the University of Toronto, pointed at Gilbert and Tony Shay in Las Vegas as prime examples of people who made the correct moves for a city.
Florida said that by moving their headquarters and thousands of employees downtown in their respective cities, Gilbert and Shay set the tone for cities making comebacks.
Gilbert currently owns 11 million square feet of real estate, over 70 buildings, in downtown Detroit. His most prominent companies Quicken Loans, Rock Ventures and Bedrock Real Estate Services are all based downtown.
There are dozens of companies under Gilbert’s Quicken umbrella.