Mark Sanchez: Yeah, there are a couple of nice big economic development wins for the region this week. Let's start here in Grand Rapids. And what's known as Site 36 along 36th Street and U.S.131 in Wyoming. It's a former site of a former General Motors stamping plant that's been vacant for about 15 years. And Benteler Automotive Corporation plans to put about $105 million into an investment for that site to build a new plant that will produce battery components at the facility. And the Michigan Strategic Fund Board this week approved a performance-based grant to $1.4 million, then some state tax capture of $395,000 for the project. It will create about 147 new jobs there at that site that's kind of over the years has become an eyesore, but it's really coming back with not only now the Benteler Project, the Corwell Health and the Mercado market going up there. So, it's a big project, it's a big win for the region to get that site redeveloped and cleaned up and put back to use in creating several hundred jobs between all the projects there. And the Benteler project is the latest and that should start construction or has started construction. And within a year or two, they should have production back there for Benteler Automotive. And the second project is also a big deal. This is Howmet (Aerospace) up in Muskegon County for aerospace. And it's a big project that the Michigan Economic Strategic Fund also supported this week through some grants and incentives. Howmet basically intends to invest up to $107.5 million in a new advanced manufacturing plant and offices there in Whitehall. It's going to produce what's known as ceramic cores. This is used in air cooling passages inside the air foils of jet aircraft engines. And these jobs are going to pay pretty well. About 300 new jobs created there in Muskegon County through the Howmet project. They pay more than $29 an hour. So, this is a big deal. This is a nice win up in Muskegon County. Both the companies, Benteler and Howmet, they could have taken these projects elsewhere. But this is how these state incentives are used to help balance that cost, the labor costs and other costs here in Michigan versus lower costs in other states. So, the state Strategic Fund Board yesterday approved these incentives as well for a Howmet. It's a $5.1 million performance-based grant, and then an exemption on the state essential services assessment worth more than about $1.6 million. Again, we can't stress this enough, two nice big economic development wins for the West Michigan region.
Patrick Center: And you're seeing that economic activity and what's to come once we're now getting through the election cycle.
Mark Sanchez: And that's the question, what's to come next? You know, we here talk about tariffs. We here talk about interest rates coming down. And on these two particular projects, one's going to build these components for Ford's commercial transit van and electric vehicles. And we'll see where that industry is going. EVs are a little soft right now, haven't quite met some of those earlier projections for high growth, but there's a number of reasons for that. One of the economists who spoke last week at The Right Place, Inc's economic maybe consumers are waiting a little bit to see how this EV technology advances. Where's it going? You know, you may buy an EV vehicle now, that gets 300 miles to a charge. In a couple of years, you may have new technology that emerges or advances, that gets 500, 600 miles to a charge. So are you thinking to yourself, maybe I'll wait a couple of years, two, three years to make that purchase and get the better technology. So, there are a lot of factors there for EV vehicles right now, but the industry is still investing and that is the future, even though things are a little softer right now.
Patrick Center: You attended the West Michigan Economic Outlook with The Right Place. What else are they keeping a close eye on?
Mark Sanchez: There's a number of things. It's kind of some of the key metrics, some of the things they look at were down a little bit. Yeah, The Right Place staff, that's of course the economic development organization here from the region. They get out and they visit hundreds of companies throughout the year. And during their visits in 2024, with more than 600 companies, they noticed some of the percentages of the companies reporting increased sales was down a little bit 66% to 62% year to year. The number of companies planning expansions declined four percentage points down to about 53% and the number of businesses reporting that they had increased hiring went down a little bit as well from 49% to 45%. That could be an indication of just that uncertainty that really prevailed during much of 2024. You know, we had inflation, we had high interest rates, you had some economic uncertainty. And throw on top of that the uncertainty of the presidential election. Talking with Randy Thelen, CEO of The Right Place, Inc., after that outlook here a couple of weeks ago, he talked about now that the election's over, they are indeed seeing maybe a little bit of increase. He had talked about how he had just talked to executives that day at a few companies that were talking about, okay, now we're beginning to break loose again. And there's also the aspect of the labor shortage where that's easing a little bit, has been easing this year and maybe in 2023 when the labor market was tighter. Companies were holding back growth and holding back on trying to grow because they didn't have the staff, they didn't have the labor to build those products and serve those new customers that were coming in. So again, it's always a lot of things that go into that equation. The bottom line, you know, what they talked about is the West Michigan economy here is not robust, but in okay shape and we'll see what 2025 brings.
Patrick Center: We're talking with Crain's Grand Rapids Business staff writer, Mark Sanchez. BAMF Health Foundation is receiving a significant donation from hip hop rocker, Kid Rock.
Mark Sanchez: Yeah, Kid Rock, you know, he lost his father earlier this year to prostate cancer. And he had been one of the early patients that BAMF Health treated back in toward the end of 2022. It was a little too late, but now the Kid Rock, his family's foundation has decided to make what we're told is a significant donation to the new philanthropic arm for BAMF Health to support its advanced cancer treatment here in Grand Rapids. And within a couple of weeks, we may know where BAMF Health is going to go with its second clinic. It's targeting to open in a new location and clinic in Detroit. So, it's a significant contribution, we're told, and BAMF Health has the new foundation. We've talked about this company before in the technology and precision medicine, molecular medicine and all those new advances that they're bringing to treat people with, starting with prostate cancer. And now it's got a foundation and Kid Rock made quite a sizable donation, we're told.
Patrick Center: Crain's Grand Rapids Business staff writer, Mark Sanchez. Thank you so much.
Mark Sanchez: Thank you, Patrick.