DETROIT -- In April 2007, trucking magnate Manuel "Matty" Moroun snatched up the shuttered 2.1 million-square-foot Budd Wheel plant, a rectangle-shaped 80-acre site on the city's east side that had been closed for good in 2006 as the decades-long retreat of corporate capital and people from Detroit was escalating.
In the acquisition, the billionaire businessman did just what he's done for decades -- he speculated that someday Detroit would have a reversal of fortunes.
That day has arrived.
Twelve years later, the Moroun family is sitting on what's arguably the hottest piece of industrial real estate in Detroit -- the linchpin to unlocking $2.5 billion of investment by Fiat Chrysler Automobiles to modernize the adjacent Jefferson North Assembly Plant and convert two engine plants across Mack Avenue into the first new assembly plant in the city since Jefferson North came online 27 years ago.
FCA wants the Moroun-owned parcel as part of 200 acres it needs for new vehicle storage, employee parking and staging trucks delivering parts to both assembly plants.
This move comes two years after the Moroun family's Crown Enterprises Inc. said it spent $10 million to demolish the century-old Budd Wheel plant and turn the site into a logistics hub for FCA to ship new vehicles by truck or rail. Once it was complete, the site quickly filled up with FCA's hot-selling Dodge and Jeep SUVs being pumped out of Jefferson North.
And now, the automaker wants the city of Detroit to acquire the land from the Morouns -- and then hand it all over as part of a taxpayer incentives package for its mega-investment.
Audacious move
It's a pretty audacious move on FCA's part -- asking taxpayers to buy a parcel of land the Morouns recently redeveloped for FCA and likely helping the company break a multiyear lease with Crown Enterprises, the Moroun family's real estate development firm.
This reversal of fortunes has put the Morouns in an interesting position to play a decisive role in bringing 4,500 manufacturing jobs to the Motor City.
That's if the Morouns can reach a favorable deal with the city before FCA's 60-day deadline on April 27.
After all, the Morouns didn't get rich by giving things away.
Insiders close to the negotiations with the Morouns are optimistic the family's third-generation leader, Matthew Moroun, is going to do a deal with Mayor Mike Duggan.
Strong signals
One sign that Duggan's land assemblage challenge may be further along than he has acknowledged is the city has already bulldozed a berm along St. Jean Street that will become part of the Mack Avenue plant property the city plans to give to FCA.
Another sign is the Michigan Strategic Fund board will likely vote before the April 27 land assemblage deadline on a state tax incentives package for the Mack Avenue plant and other FCA capital investments in Southeast Michigan, according to two sources involved in the deal.
Duggan himself has boasted about his record of striking deals with Matthew Moroun -- starting with a land swap in 2015 that helped expand Riverside Park.
After prodding Matthew Moroun to put temporary windows in the train station, Duggan pushed the Grosse Pointe businessman to sell Michigan Central Station to Ford Motor Co., a blockbuster $90 million deal that nobody thought the elder Moroun would ever do.
But this isn't Matty Moroun's my-way-or-the-highway business enterprise anymore.
The 91-year-old billionaire has largely handed over the reins of his CenTra Inc. and related trucking companies, Crown Enterprises and the Detroit International Bridge Co., to his son.
Changing image
And the son has been consciously trying to change the public image that took root surrounding the Morouns with the train station, countless other derelict properties that sat vacant for years and, of course, their Ambassador Bridge and epic decades-long battle with the governments of Canada and Michigan over planned construction of a new Detroit River span. And let's not forget the Ambassador Gateway connection ramps debacle with the Michigan Department of Transportation that landed a then-84-year-old Matty Moroun in the county jail for a night for contempt of court.
While respecting his father, Matthew Moroun has tried to portray himself as the softer Moroun.
"I'm different from my dad. He was born poor with a chip on his shoulder. I was born rich," Matthew Moroun told journalist Charlie LeDuff last year for a Detroit Free Press profile. "He'd bang on the table and take the position that he's 'entitled to it under the law, so you've got to give it to me.' I'm trying to build a bridge, so I need friends."
Representatives with the Morouns' Crown Enterprises declined to comment, citing the ongoing negotiations.
Just what it will cost the city to acquire the 80 acres from the Morouns remains to be seen. Duggan has declined to disclose how much he's budgeted for land assemblage.
As one of Detroit's largest land owners, the Morouns could be in line for some land swaps with the city to help fill out the footprint of other industrial land the family wants to redevelopment (like they did in 2015 with the construction of a new 500,000-square-foot warehouse in the I-94 Industrial Park).
For decades, Matty Moroun and his son have been making strategic real estate purchases throughout the city -- some to fulfill their own purposes like land in Delray they bought to try to block construction of a new bridge and some with the financial wherewithal and patience that can pay long-term dividends.
A recent example of this is Crown Enterprises' purchase of the polluted wasteland that is the former McLouth Steel plant in Trenton. The jury's still out on whether they can tear down that hulking remnant of a different era in Detroit's industrial might and repurpose the land alongside the Detroit River's Trenton Channel.
By all accounts, Matthew Moroun doesn't want to get blamed for blowing up this deal Duggan has forged with FCA.
And by selling or swapping the land at Mack Avenue and Conner Street, he could buy his family business some goodwill with new Gov. Gretchen Whitmer -- after spending the last eight years fighting a very expensive and mostly losing war with her predecessor.
The Morouns still need cooperation from Whitmer's government if they ever hope to build a replacement span for the Ambassador Bridge, which turns 90 years old this year.
For the future of Matthew Moroun's enterprises in this city, some political goodwill with the governor may be just as valuable as collecting land or profits from his dad's investment in Detroit when nobody was buying abandoned auto plants in Detroit.
Strategic deals
For decades, Matty Moroun and his son have been making strategic real estate purchases throughout the city -- some to fulfill their own purposes like land in Delray they bought to try to block construction of a new bridge and some with the financial wherewithal and patience that can pay long-term dividends.
A recent example of this is Crown Enterprises' purchase of the polluted wasteland that is the former McLouth Steel plant in Trenton. The jury's still out on whether they can tear down that hulking remnant of a different era in Detroit's industrial might and repurpose the land alongside the Detroit River's Trenton Channel.
By all accounts, Matthew Moroun doesn't want to get blamed for blowing up this deal Duggan has forged with FCA.
And by selling or swapping the land at Mack Avenue and Conner Street, he could buy his family business some goodwill with new Gov. Gretchen Whitmer -- after spending the last eight years fighting a very expensive and mostly losing war with her predecessor.
The Morouns still need cooperation from Whitmer's government if they ever hope to build a replacement span for the Ambassador Bridge, which turns 90 years old this year.
For the future of Matthew Moroun's enterprises in this city, some political goodwill with the governor may be just as valuable as collecting land or profits from his dad's investment in Detroit when nobody was buying abandoned auto plants in Detroit.
