The Brodhead Naval Armory, originally built in 1930 to house a bulging Michigan Naval militia, now stands along Jefferson Avenue, at the foot of the bridge leading to Belle Isle, a shell of its former self.
The armory, which served sailors and Marines until it closed in 2004, is now in horrible shape. A massive hole in the roof that has been there for years now allows the rain and other weather inside the building. There’s standing water inside, and the Armory’s art collection is crumbling to the ground.
But not for long, if CEO Tony Michaels and the board of directors for The Parade Company have their way. See the full interview here: https://youtu.be/lmQ060niC0Q
A fundraising effort underway for nearly two years now would allow the armory to become the new home for The Parade Company, the company that oversees the Detroit Thanksgiving parade and a slew of other events.
Michaels knows first things come first—the fundraising campaign they started back in 2023 has to come through with the money before efforts to make the armory the company’s new home can get started in earnest.
“We are raising money right now to purchase (armory) from the city,” Michaels said. “We’re excited. It’s a massive project for the city of Detroit.”
An agreement to buy the armory expires June 30, but the company is confident a requested extension will be granted. A $10 million budget item has been included in the Michigan budget, according to Michaels, and is waiting approval.
Recently retired U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow helped the company get a $3.5 million grant from the federal government and contributions are coming into the campaign.
“There’s a lot happening,” Michaels told Corp! “We do have to get through some hurdles, but we’re excited. We’re going to have a veterans’ office in the building, a huge summer camp. We’re going to build the floats there, an event center. It checks every box from education to neighborhood to blight, and we’re just rocking to get this thing done. We really are.”
Michaels talked about the armory, preparations for this year’s events and a variety of other issues in a recent interview with Corp!
Corp! Magazine: Assuming success with the fundraising, when do you think you’d be in your new home?
Tony Michaels: Well, as you can imagine, it’s all predicated on the money raise, right? If we can raise that money in the next six to nine months—”We’re going to bust our butts to get that done”—it’ll take probably two years to build it. It’s a game changer. It’s a tourist stop. It has everything to it, but we’ve got to get through some hurdles. We’ve got to go back in front of city council (for the extension). The building was empty for 25 years, and here we come with a great plan, great thing. So, we’re just trying to do something great for the city and great for people. That’s what we’re doing.
Corp!: You said you’re getting some money from the federal government, but the administration has been rescinding some grants. Have you heard any indication that your funding would be in any kind of trouble?
Michaels: No, we have not heard anything about rescinding our money from the federal government.
Corp! What’s been the biggest challenge so far to getting it done? Because you’ve been working on this for a couple of years now.
Michaels: It all started with the idea years ago. It took five years to get through the Historical District Commission … Our commitment was to salvage all of the art that’s salvageable in the building, which we’ve committed to. We’ve hired a conservator, so we’re good on that. The tough part is coming out of a pandemic. Everyone’s kind of holding back a little bit, and that was a tough situation for us to come out of. See the video clip here: https://youtu.be/unfsuqrylbM
So now we start picking up some momentum and we’re going through some other financial issues, but it seems to be kind of correcting itself right now, the stock market and those things. So, the real key to this is a momentum piece. If we land (money) from the state of Michigan, that is momentum. That will then send a message to many people who are sitting back telling us they’ll let us know. All of a sudden that will open up and make things maybe more successful.
Corp!: While you’re doing all that, you’ve still got a job to do, right? Events to put on, the fireworks. That’s exciting, right?
Michaels: We’re so lucky to have Ford Motor Company and all of our other sponsors. We really are. So June 23, the Ford Fireworks hit the river. It’s going to—I say this every year, but I mean it, and I think we prove it—the biggest show we’ve ever done. We’ve jammed more fireworks into a 24-minute show than you can ever put in. It’s going to be quite the night in Detroit. We urge people to come down, take it in. It’s going to be quite a show. And if you can’t, you can watch it on our partner station, WDIV, they do an amazing job.
Corp! The Parade Company has always had a great relationship with the city, but things are going to change next year with Mayor Mike Duggan running for governor. You’re going to get a new administration. How’s that going to impact your relationship with the city?
Michaels: Nothing’s changing in my mind at all. We are just going to keep doing what we do … I don’t anticipate anything to change in our lives because our goal is to keep bringing great things to people. And if you think about it, some of this entertainment, the parade, the celebrities, some of the kids who come with their families, this is it. This is that big moment of the year. I can’t imagine anything changing in our world other than people saying, “keep making it bigger, keep making it better.”
Corp! Mayor Duggan has been pretty supportive of you. I assume you expect that would continue regardless of who gets in there?
Michaels: Mayor Duggan has been incredible. What he’s done in the city of Detroit is incredible. But he’s moving on, running for governor, and we’re going to have a new mayor. And I think that they’re very smart people and that they understand the good things that happen in the city can only get better, and I think that that’s a great attitude.
Corp! You start working on this year’s parade the day after last year’s parade. How is that going? The Thanksgiving parade will be here before you know it. How’s that going?
Michaels: We literally start the following weekend, January, February, March, make sure all of the deals are getting done, because all the floats are three-year contracts. When a contract is up, it has to be renewed. When that process is done, we’re off and building. So right now, we’ve got eight new floats, which is a massive undertaking. We’ve got three designs done in two to three weeks. We hope to be beginning the build process of those three while we finalize the art on the other five or six. So, it never stops.
Corp! The relationship and the importance and the impact the Parade company has with and on Detroit. Talk about the meaning of that relationship.
Michaels: It means the world to us because we know that we have to deliver. These events are free. These are the moments that people look forward to our job, and I’m telling you, we literally say in our meetings that we are owned by the people of Detroit, that they look forward to these things so much, and the region and the state, they look forward to these things so much. It’s our job to deliver and to keep making things better. See the video clip here: https://youtu.be/Udi_FBaGNKU
I’m not much on lessons learned after the parade and everything. Sure, we cover whatever bad happened, if there was any bad, and we figure out how to fix it. But the momentum that I try to inject in our team is how do you do it better? How do you do it better? It’s our job to bring great things to the city, and we take it very, very seriously.
Corp! The Parade Company offers a lot of events, and they’re all free to the people, but they’re not cost-free. People might not understand what it takes to fund. Talk about what your budget is and how you fill it.
Michaels: We do not get endowments and grants. That’s not how we live. We live on our sponsorships. That’s why I stress so much about us stepping up and doing a better job on an ongoing basis. These are costly. There’s no question. We have two fundraisers; one connected each to the Ford Fireworks and the parade. Hob Nobble Gobble presented by Ford at Ford Field is the black tie for kids from one to 95. That’s a large fundraiser of ours. That money goes in a pot along with the sponsor money. Then at the Ford Fireworks, we do the rooftop party for 2,500 guests. It’s an amazing summer bash, right where the fireworks are broadcast on WDIV. There are a few tickets available, not many, but it sells out very fast. So, it’s that money along with the sponsorship money that gets us to where we need to be. We operate with revenues just between $8 and $9 million a year. Our expenses are around $7 million a year.
Corp! You talk about the team a lot. You’ve said you had to convince them to come along with you on the journey and buy into what you guys wanted to get done as a collective. Because of the success all these events have, you were obviously able to accomplish that. How’d you do it?
Michaels: It didn’t take some of them very long at all. Others took a little bit longer. A couple people left along the way. They were looking for bigger companies. They found it. It was simply, if you understand the word, great, if you really understand it and forget the money, we’ll make that happen. That follows. That’s how I did it. And all of a sudden, these amazing people like Jessica Kaminski, who’s now our chief operating officer, she had been there for years, started as an intern. She was thirsty for the word great. They didn’t have the resources to make things great. So, I come along saying, I don’t care about the resources. Let’s just go and make it great. Let’s take floats from 35 feet to 120 feet. Let’s change the banners. Let’s not let people march in the parade in blue jeans and hoodies. Let’s make this a professional company in every aspect. We changed over 5,000 different things at the company.
They’re the ones who all of a sudden got it and understood it and started then coming to me saying, this isn’t good enough. So that’s the culture that we embedded into this organization. See the video clip here: https://youtu.be/DzKJhnZSXBU
