Bill Ford explains effort to revitalize Detroit
Restoring train station just a part of his vision
DETROIT – Day after day, Bill Ford drove his Mustang GT along Michigan Avenue between Dearborn and Detroit, past the graffiti-covered train station that had become the symbol of this city’s decay.
And he started to wonder about his legacy, his family’s legacy and the future of Ford Motor.
“I kept staring at the train station thinking, ‘What if ? Wouldn’t that be amazing?’ ” he said. “If all we did was to restore this fabulous building and make it sparkle, that would be great.”
The purchase of the Michigan Cen- tral Station brings to life Ford’s vision, a vision designed to navigate a changing future rather than falling victim to it.
Bill Ford, great-grandson of company founder Henry Ford, sat in the depot’s cavernous, long-neglected lobby for an interview last week two days after the company’s purchase was announced.
“Throughout most of my adulthood, when I would travel anywhere outside of Michigan, people would ask where I was from, and I would say ‘Detroit.’ Often people said, ‘Gee, I’m sorry.’ Or ‘Why? Why would you live there?’ I was always very proud of this area. And I love Detroit.”
Soon, he said, the rehabilitated train station will be the hub for 2,500 Ford jobs. No one could have predicted a dramatic pivot that would include the return of the carmaker from the suburb of Dearborn, Michigan, to the heart of Detroit with the purchase of multiple parcels in the city’s oldest surviving neighborhood, called Corktown.
“I’ve always thought about what Ford could and should be like years from now,” the executive chairman said, “as I
“I was always very proud of this area. And I love Detroit.” BILL FORD BY
was thinking about us inventing the new, modern era.”
❚ The forefront of change: During his drives, Ford thought about the future of cars.
“It struck me, years ago, even back in the depths of the recession, that our world was going to change. Nobody in Detroit was thinking about what that might look like. So I wanted to be at the forefront of that change,” he said.
When General Motors and what then was Chrysler filed for bankruptcy almost a decade ago, Bill Ford created a low-profile company that has invested millions of dollars in projects that would help transform the car business.
“I started a venture capital firm here in Detroit called Fontinalis Partners in 2009. It was to invest in the future of mobility when nobody was thinking about the future of mobility,” he said. “We invested in autonomy. We invested in parking solutions. It’s been a huge success. We’re in 1 Woodward Place. I wanted to be downtown. So, we kind’ve invented the whole mobility space. There was nobody else doing it.”
❚ Family business: Bill Ford and his family represent the last of U.S. industrial royalty. Most iconic families have sold out. Not Ford. The family has built the top-selling vehicle in America – the F-Series pickup – 36 consecutive years.
“When my great-grandfather built his first Ford car here in Detroit and had his first plant here in Detroit, it was really kind of the Wild West of entrepreneurism. There were so many car companies being formed. Nobody really knew – would they be steam-powered, would they be electric, would they be gasolinepowered? Lots of companies failed, including his first company,” Ford said.
❚ Inside the train station: In Detroit, Ford envisions a former train station that has coffee shops, restaurants and shopping on the first floor and office space for up to 5,000 people on the floors above. The renovated depot will be a public attraction but also a potential revenue generator.
“I would love to see startups, young entrepreneurs in here,” Ford said. The timing is uncertain. “We’re saying four years from now,” Ford said. “Once you get into restoration of a project of this nature, you don’t really know what you’re going to find. What’s going to be really cool is that this beautiful space will be completely restored and be open to the public. We don’t want to just be this corporate entity coming downtown.”
The car company could use the lift. Its stock price has been hovering around $12 a share, not far from its price level in 2016, while competitors have seen gains amid record sales. One of the company’s biggest headlines of the past year is not about future mobility, but its decision to stop making all traditional cars but the Mustang to focus on pickups and SUVs.