The alarms were sounding this week all around Mackinac Island during the Detroit Chamber of Commerce Leadership Conference.
We heard alarms about future energy needs while ignoring the exorbitant costs to consumers of the alternative fuel ideas being promoted and the plentiful energy supply that exists.
We heard alarms about the state’s health care costs and proposed future changes even while we enjoy the best medical care system on earth.
But the most serious alarm, which requires urgent attention, was sounded over the continuing inaction of state and local officials, a dereliction of duty that has led Detroit to the precipice of losing one of its most important events — the North American International Auto Show.
Executives of the Detroit Auto Dealers Association — who have built the auto show into a critical economic component of Metro Detroit — have, for the first time, begun discussing the possibility of abandoning their home base as the site of their highly desirable show.
For more than five years, officials have debated one plan or another, at proposed costs ranging from $90 million to $900 million, for a needed expansion of ancient Cobo Center, home of the auto show. The discussion has revealed a rare unanimity in Michigan, with widespread agreement over the expansion’s necessity, but widespread disagreement over the exact plan and financing of the project.
Meantime, the vultures have been circling.
As Detroit and Michigan have dawdled, other auto shows have been angling for advantage over the esteemed Detroit show and nibbling meat from its bones.
At the recent Beijing Auto Show this year, officials of the competing Chicago Auto Show “followed us around in meetings with manufacturers,” says Doug Fox, the senior co-chairman of the 2009 NAIAS.
“They (Chicago officials) told the Chineses manufacturers that we were putting them in the basement at Cobo while they were positioning them next to General Motors and the other major brands on the same floor,” Fox bemoaned.
And the competition to Detroit is gaining ground.
Detroit has seen the defection of manufacturers like Porsche from its show. It has seen the number of new car launches and major press announcements decline in recent years.
The Detroit auto dealer leadership is now openly discussing alternatives.
“The show is a commodity that can be traded,” Fox says.
Fox and his junior co-chair, Joe Serra, have introduced two bombshell possibilities in the absence of quick movement on a definitive Cobo plan by this fall.
Under the first plan, the Detroit auto dealers would take the NAIAS banner and, on a rotating basis, place it over the auto shows in other cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York — which has already begun to bill its show as international.
Under the more severe, plan, the dealers would permanently sell its International Auto Show franchise to one of its competitors and reduce the Detroit show to a much smaller, regional event.
Serra, who says the Detroit area dealers’ goal remains “to stay in Detroit,” nevertheless warns that time for action is quickly expiring. His group’s understandable frustration is reaching a breaking point.
The dealers have watched while Michigan and Metro Detroit officials have bent over backwards, finding comity and resources to land occasional major sporting events like the Super Bowl, the Detroit Grand Prix and the Major League Baseball All-Star Game.
But these same politicos have been incapable of satisfying the needs of the area’s biggest regular draw in the NAIAS, which accounts for $600 million in annual economic activity, not to mention 16,000 jobs and $6 million in charitable contributions.
One would think that a state that quickly adopted a plan to hand out $140 million in cash incentives to the Hollywood movie industry would act with similar alacrity to develop a funding plan benefiting Detroit’s outmoded convention center and its most important client.
The Cobo project demands similar swift and immediate action.
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