Sep 13, 2022
Robert McCraight was not yet mayor of Romulus when Kansas City-based NorthPoint, the nation’s biggest industrial real estate developer, came sniffing around southeast Michigan in 2018 looking for project sites.
McCraight, who was the city’s director of economic development and public services before becoming mayor in 2021, had – like many Romulus residents – been disappointed “year after year” by various proposals that hadn’t panned out.
Then he flipped the script, working alongside partners like the Detroit Regional Aerotropolis Development Corporation and Michigan Economic Development Corporation, and hammered out a deal with NorthPoint.
The result, the Romulus Trade Center, is about to bring $130 million of investment, 750 to 1,000 construction jobs, 500 permanent full-time jobs, 2 million square feet of industrial and retail space to 171 acres of vacant land at Vining and Wick Roads, just across I-94 from Detroit Metropolitan Airport.
Northpoint executives, McCraight, and dozens of local, state and regional officials broke ground Sept. 13 on the site.
“The city, its residents and elected leadership had a vision for this property, and NorthPoint was able to deliver on that vision,” said Christopher Girdwood, CEO of the Detroit Region Aerotropolis partnership, bringing a high-quality development to this important intersection in the Aerotropolis region.
FORGING A PARTNERSHIP
Both Mayor McCraight and Brent Miles, NorthPoint’s chief marketing officer and a founding partner, were quick to admit that the Romulus-NorthPoint deal very nearly crashed and burned before takeoff. To be successful, they needed to build a true partnership.
Miles began his remarks at the Sept. 13 groundbreaking with a surprise —an apology. “This property has been sitting here a long time. It was promised to be many things over time,” Miles said.
At one point, the deal nearly unraveled, but NorthPoint — a leader in building huge Class A industrial projects — pivoted.
“I don’t think we heard what Romulus residents wanted initially, and we didn’t listen,” Miles said, and then repeated an oft-used saying from his grandma: “God gave you two ears and one mouth and that ratio for a reason, so use it that way – and we didn’t. Not many times in life do you get a second chance, and we got a second chance here.”
McCraight gave credit to another NorthPoint project manager, Johnny Sweeney, for a phone call that put things back on track.
“Johnny called me and asked, ‘Why doesn’t Romulus like us? Can’t we just have a frank conversation?’” McCraight set up what turned out to be a great meeting that evolved into a relationship. “It became a win-win.”
Girdwood said the final project will include what the Romulus residents had asked for: a neighborhood commercial district with fast-casual dining, small office spaces, and incubators for startups along Wick, with the larger industrial buildings set back from the road.
“And you put it all in this park-like setting with trails and trees and grass,” he said. “That’s what residents wanted: a work, live, play atmosphere.”
AEROTROPOLIS GAINS TRACTION
The new Romulus Trade Center is one of several industrial/commercial projects undertaken by major national development firms recently along the Detroit-Ann Arbor corridor.
In fact, the Romulus Trade Center is NorthPoint’s second foray into Romulus. Their Ecorse Commons Industrial Park opened in mid-2021 and four logistics businesses — LaserShip, Pitney Bowes and DHL — are already operating on the 68 acres adjacent to the General Motors Powertrain plant.
Earlier this year, Northpoint set up a local office in Romulus for its Great Lakes regional teams, said Marc Werner, a Northpoint project manager and regional vice president.
Girdwood said that seeing a major industrial developer such as Northpoint active here is a positive sign.
“If you look at Michigan, it’s in a peninsula. Just from a distribution point, I think Indiana and Ohio along the I-80 corridor were getting a lot of the deal flow in the 1990s and 2000s, so we had to do some convincing to get NorthPoint to look our way,” Girdwood said.
Twenty years have now passed since the completion of the McNamara Terminal at Detroit Metropolitan Airport, which had sparked hopes that an “Aerotropolis” district would emerge to fuel a wave of jobs and economic growth in towns like Romulus along the I-94 corridor from Detroit to Ann Arbor. The growth may have been slower than hoped, but now, we are seeing more major national development interest in the area, Girdwood said.
Another example is the Dallas-based Hillwood Investment Properties – led by the Ross Perot family – who joined with Michigan’s Sterling Group to buy the former 650-acre Pinnacle racetrack site in Huron Township. They plan to invest $40 million in the property, and already have built two Amazon warehouses, with a Home Depot building underway.
“The reason this kind of development didn’t happen 20 years ago and is happening today is because of stories like the Romulus Trade Center,” Girdwood said.
