Dan Gilbert
Unquestionably, Quicken Loans founder Dan Gilbert has made a bigger impact on the city of Detroit in recent years than any other business person.
And that came about fairly quickly.
In 2010, Gilbert and the first wave of Quicken Loans Inc. workers moved into their new downtown headquarters from Livonia, Louis Aguilar of the Detroit News writes. At the time, he owned nothing in Detroit. Now, his company, Bedrock has invested nearly $2.2 billion in acquiring and renovating 80-plus properties.
On Wednesday night, he spoke before a crowd of about 700 in a Wayne State University auditorium about his vision for the city, and he said 3,100 of his employees live in Detroit, the News reports. He added that there would probably be another 2,000 if they could find a place.
Gilbert, who earned a law degree from WSU going to night school, told the crowd during the question-and-answer session:
“I (would) always say to myself: If we just come down here and just be in two buildings, we might as well be in the suburbs,” he said when asked why he and Bedrock started to amass downtown property. “If we are going for this, we are going to do as much as we can. Let’s make as much impact as we can. It was one of the best decisions we ever made.”
