Detroit has a new leader tasked with attracting national and regional retailers to the city’s neighborhoods.
Mayor Mary Sheffield announced on July 13 that she hired a former Bedrock executive, Addofio Addo, as Detroit’s new director of retail attraction.
In this role, Addo — who helped bring Rihanna’s Savage X Fenty boutique to Detroit and worked with Apple on programming for its downtown opening — will focus on recruiting other national brands and local businesses to neighborhood commercial corridors, according to a news release. His annual salary is $125,000.
“Detroit has never needed to be sold. It deserves to be seen,” Addo, who began his new role, said in a statement. “My job is to make sure the businesses deciding where to grow next see what this city has known all along, and that when they arrive, they arrive as good neighbors.
“If culture is how you build, Detroit belongs on your map.”
Previously, Addo was the director of business development in arts, culture and business attraction at Bedrock. He’s been involved with the Afro Nation festival and AfroFuture event.
Earlier this year, Sheffield announced plans to hire a new director of retail attraction. During her State of the City address, she spoke of a “neighborhood anchor plan” to reinforce and bolster economic development in neighborhoods and commercial corridors.
In addition to marketing the city to national and regional brands, Addo will lead the city’s retail attraction strategy and work with the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation (DEGC) to improve business development, according to a news release. The city didn’t immediately provide details Monday on potential retailers and where they would be located.
“Addofio’s job will be to bring quality businesses and brands to our neighborhood commercial corridors, so Detroiters can shop closer to home and spend their money to support Detroit-based businesses,” Sheffield said in a statement. “Addofio understands Detroiters and what they want, our neighborhoods, and most important, has a track record of delivering in Detroit.”
Existing small business owners said they want the city to remember them, too.
Lola Lucania Black, owner of Lucania Lavish Couture on Livernois’ historic Avenue of Fashion, said that while she’s excited to see what Addo will bring, she has mixed emotions: while she said she’d like to see more big businesses come to town, she also wants to see more support for existing brands.
“We are small businesses. A lot of us are bootstrapping. We’re just trying to make it … We’re dug in here. We’re not leaving,” Black said. “We want to see businesses that come in are helping to support us, not just overshadow us.”
Sevyn Jones, owner and esthetician of luxury spa Skin Bar VII and a Livernois block club president, said she wants to learn more about Addo’s exact responsibilities and how small businesses will benefit.
Big name retail could draw attention to the “little guys,” she said. But what she said she really wants is an “even playing field.”
“We all survive off of each other,” Jones said.
I would prefer to see more emphasis on business retention and development of home grown businesses from the ground up. Positive impacts can be realized quicker with retention strategies than from attraction strategies as the time it takes to bring a new business to town is often longer with attraction schemes.
This situation feels more like Dan Gilbert getting employees off his payroll while still trying to lure big names to town. We don’t need big names necessarily. Are Detroiters heading downtown to Nike, Fenty X and Gucci? This is shopping for the hotel district.
Detroit has never been a place where corporate chain restaurants or chain stores have survived because they require huge advertising budgets. What we need is regular, everyday product access.