MichiganRadio

Quicken Move Gives Downtown Boost DETROIT (Michigan Radio) - Downtown Detroit will get a boost next month when Quicken Loans moves its headquarters out of suburban Livonia.

About 1,500 workers will be part of the move. That's expected to help small businesses that cater to the downtown professional crowd. But it will only put a small dent in the glut of vacant office space in the area.

"There are still 3 million square feet of vacant space of office in downtown," says Fred Liesveld of the commercial real estate firm Grubb and Ellis. "So it will adjust the needle a little bit on the positive side, but it's not a big enough event on its own to say this is a benchmark."

Close to a third of the commercial office space Detroit's central business district was vacant in the second quarter of 2010, according to Grubb and Ellis.

Quicken is renovating four floors in the Compuware building for its employees.

Contact Sarah Hulett at sarahhu@umich.edu © Copyright 2012, Michigan Radio