Mark Sanchez: And this is just basically the framework for The Right Place to do economic development in this region, the seven-county region around Grand Rapids, for the next few years. And it's got some ambitious goals to do better than what The Right Place has done the last three years under the former strategic plan.
Basically, under this new idea, new plan, it's helped create 4,500 new jobs, attract $700 million in capital investment. And this is something that the CEO there, Randy Thelen, talked a lot about last week when he presented this, was get employers more engaged in K-12 and higher education.
They want 100 new partnerships between industry and education. And getting companies into the schools, even at an early level, start exposing students to career ideas and potential and help them kind of formulate that path. So, then they go into, there's K-12 going to college they maybe have a little bit better direction. So, this was the new plan rolled out last week. Again, 4,500 jobs over the next three years, $700 million in capital investment, and 100 new partnerships put together between industry and education.
Patrick Center: I'm intrigued by the idea of building those relationships between K-12 schools and local businesses. Is that to hit on two strategies? One is to build a familiarity with a potential pipeline down the road and how much of that is for the student to gain the experience and potentially have a better sense of the direction that they want to go when it comes to a career?
Mark Sanchez: Yeah, both those points you ask about is exactly the idea. Get some mentorship in the schools from people who are into their careers can offer some mentorship to students, whether in high school or at the college level, and give them an idea of this career. This is what it's like. This is what you need. This is what you have to do to get into this.
But also developing that future talent pipeline. For how many years now we've heard about this talent shortage, labor shortage, especially coming out of the pandemic a few years ago, where it really worsened. I write a lot about health care, and there's acute shortages all over health care, especially nurses. So just expose folks to career possibilities and then get involved and help them, lead them down that path.
Patrick Center: So, we know the targets, 4,500 jobs, $700 million worth of investments in the next three years. How did The Right Place do in the previous three-year strategic plan?
Mark Sanchez: Based on the data they showed off last week, quite well. In the previous strategic plan that ran from 2023 to 2025, The Right Place targeted retention and growth of 4,000 jobs in the region. They ended up supporting more than 4,150, targeted $550 million in capital investment and an average hourly wage of $2,650 an hour. It ended up being $844 million in capital investment, far exceeding that goal and $30.90 per hour average wage. So, there's progress there.
And there's always that conversation, well, how much did this organization really bring that about? And how much was that just the marketplace dynamics? You know, nothing happens without a plan and economic development is a regional game and it's something that every community has to do now. So that's a partnership in helping foster this economy and Grand Rapids has been doing awfully well for a while. But it's about supporting those businesses that are here, helping to attract new business investments and keeping this community pointed in the right direction.
Patrick Center: We'll stick with business and Michigan and our largest trading partner to the north, Canada. There's some new data out Canadians, the visits from tourism have dropped.
Mark Sanchez: Yeah, it's not just about trade and tariffs. The Canadians perhaps are reacting to what we've seen over the last year. And this is a story the other day my coworker here at Crain’s Grand Rapids did, Rachel Watson, that basically the tourism bureaus in Michigan continuing to hold back advertising in Canada after a year of double-digit declines in visitors.
Basically, four major connections from Ontario, Canada, the border crossings fell more than 10% last year from 9.8 million in 2024 to 8.8 million in 2025. Boy, even I can do that math. That's a million people not visiting the state, not spending, not staying, not seeing the sights and enjoying the state and what Michigan has to offer. And that's some money. And the decline was particularly acute outside Detroit, up in the U.P. at Sault Ste. Marie and then Port Huron north of Detroit. They each experienced 18% declines in visitor crossings at their borders.
So, there's some data about market forces, perhaps a reaction to the political environment, but it's something definitely to watch because tourism is a big industry in this state. And how many of these folks were leisure travelers? How many were business travelers? Don't quite have that data broken down, but we do know, based on the top line data, that's a million less folks who visited Michigan last year from Canada.
Patrick Center: Is there an opportunity here for Pure Michigan to make an appeal to Canadians who may want to enjoy some leisure travel in our state?
Mark Sanchez: You could, but boy, there's an awful lot of tension there right now, especially, you know, last week we saw the president go off threatening to delay the opening of the Gordie Howe Bridge, the new international border crossing in Detroit. And that corridor is one of the busiest trade corridors in the world. This is a major, major connection. The existing Ambassador Bridge often has backups and delays. And if you've ever gone by there during peak times, you see those semi-trucks just backed up down the entryway to that bridge and onto the freeway. So, there's a lot going on out there. Could you do some advertising, marketing, and soothe over things? Perhaps, but right now the visitors’ bureaus have kind of pulled back that spending.
Patrick Center: We're talking with Crain's Grand Rapids Business staff writer Mark Sanchez. BAMF Health made an announcement Tuesday.
Mark Sanchez: This is, I don't know if we could accurately call it a startup anymore. They're really gaining some traction out there in the marketplace. But this is the company started a few years ago, number of years back here in Grand Rapids has its clinic up on the hill on Michigan Street. Does some really advanced cancer treatment using what's called theranostics. It's these advanced high-speed medical imaging equipment, new age radiopharmaceuticals, artificial intelligence, and they treat a number of different cancers now.
Last year, they got some funding and are partnering with Henry Ford Health in Detroit to do a second clinic. This would be in downtown Detroit at a new life sciences building going up there.
And now Tuesday morning, we hear the announcement that BAMF Health has formed a partnership in Kansas and Kansas City, Kansas, with the University of Kansas Health System, the University of Kansas Medical Center, and Children's Mercy to develop a new theranostics clinic there.
I wrote a piece back about a month ago, basically on BAMF Health has some pretty ambitious plans. It's got the Grand Rapids Clinic. It's going to have the Detroit Clinic coming up in 2027. Now it's planning the Kansas Clinic and BAMF Health really wants to do a series of these theranostics clinics across the country. For this year alone, they expect maybe four to six new partnerships to get signed with health systems and some academic medical centers and national health care providers. Then over the next three to five years, maybe have about 25 of these cancer clinics around the country. So, this announcement this week with BAMF Health and the health system there in Kansas is kind of a train leaving the station toward that goal for this company.
And I should also point out there is a bit of a connection between Grand Rapids and Kansas. So, there's a Dr. Alejandro Quiroga, who used to be president of Corewell Health West here in Grand Rapids. He departed a couple of years ago and went to the Children's Mercy Children's Hospital there in Kansas, and he's now president and CEO there. So, there's that connection that undoubtedly helped bring this one about for BAMF Health.
Patrick Center: Crain’s Grand Rapids Business staff writer
Mark Sanchez. Thank you so much.
Mark Sanchez: Thank you, Patrick.