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Old Posted Jul 1, 2016, 2:00 AM
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animatedmartian animatedmartian is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by subterranean View Post
You may be right, but I just have a really hard time believing that. West Michigan alone has:

Gordon Food Service - Largest food service distributor in the US

Bissell Inc. - Largest manufacturer of floor care products in North America

Wolverine (and brands) - 5th largest shoe manufacturer in the US, 8th largest shoe manufacturer in the world

Meijer - 8th largest grocery in terms of sales, 26th largest retailer in the US overall (2014).

Steelcase & Herman Miller - Two of the world's largest office furniture manufacturers.

Kellogg's - 12th largest food or beverage manufacturer in the US

Alticor - 26th largest private company in the US

There are probably a lot more than I'm missing. Maybe they are the "wrong" industries.
Manufacturing companies don't really seem to need large amounts of office space up until they get to be obnoxiously large or expand into other sectors of the economy. That or they would rather be nearer to their production facilities rather than in a central location of the city.

I think it's part of the reason Detroit has/had an undersized skyline relative to its population peers as well as have relatively spread out business centers even early in the city's growth.

But hey, wealth attracts wealth so GR is bound to eventually attract the sort of companies that you see in downtown locations.
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