It has been a whirlwind of a summer so far, speeding by like Liza on her spunky blue bike. One of the coolest experiences has definitely been touring Quicken Loans and their campus of buildings downtown. Dan Gilbert's work in Detroit has long been a contentious subject for Detroiters, but as a visitor I feel that his work has been wholly positive.
Quicken Loans really felt like the Google of the midwest, with its hip, urban offices and the numerous millenials flocking to the city. As the owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, Dan Gilbert clearly needed to have a basketball court in the office for any of the employees to use. In fact, every floor had a different theme complete with aptly named conference rooms, and each floor was equipped with free snacks and slushees in the kitchen with ESPN Sportscenter playing on all the TVs. Furthermore, all of Dan Gilbert’s buildings downtown are connected with an iPhone application that allows anyone with the app to queue up the next song playing in the lobby, allowing anyone to DJ. We even met a Duke student interning in one of the Quicken Loans companies who said he spent his lunch playing Super Smash Bros. with his coworkers. It honestly felt like Dan Gilbert had all my interests in mind when creating a workspace.
Besides the nice shiny perks, Dan Gilbert has done some cool things in terms of businesses in the city and creating a community. As our tour guide Alisha put it, the downtown area really is like a campus, with concerts in Campus Martius park, food trucks during lunch, and the countless young people that work in the Quicken Loans family. A majority percentage of the Quicken Loans employees in Detroit are 35 or younger, and the internship program has about 1000 interns who often have group activities around the city. One of the businesses we visited, dPOP! Detroit, is a design company in the Quicken Loans family that does interior design, marketing, and branding. Their offices are built in the basement of an old bank, so they converted all the vaults into office space. Another treat was the Z Lot, a parking garage Dan Gilbert purchased and decorated by bringing in world famous graffiti artists and giving them an entire floor to paint with whatever they wanted.
Besides the nice shiny perks, Dan Gilbert has done some cool things in terms of businesses in the city and creating a community. As our tour guide Alisha put it, the downtown area really is like a campus, with concerts in Campus Martius park, food trucks during lunch, and the countless young people that work in the Quicken Loans family. A majority percentage of the Quicken Loans employees in Detroit are 35 or younger, and the internship program has about 1000 interns who often have group activities around the city. One of the businesses we visited, dPOP! Detroit, is a design company in the Quicken Loans family that does interior design, marketing, and branding. Their offices are built in the basement of an old bank, so they converted all the vaults into office space. Another treat was the Z Lot, a parking garage Dan Gilbert purchased and decorated by bringing in world famous graffiti artists and giving them an entire floor to paint with whatever they wanted.
People complain that Dan Gilbert isn’t doing enough for Detroit, but I believe his work is necessary to rebuild Detroit. Without him buying up properties downtown and starting the revitalization of the city, I definitely don’t think I would be here today.
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