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Guest: Jared Fleisher, CEO, Bedrock
Jared Fleisher is CEO of Bedrock, the Detroit- and Cleveland-based real estate development company founded by Dan Gilbert that has invested billions into urban revitalization, developing and restoring more than 140 properties and 21 million square feet. A Harvard Law-trained attorney who spent years in Washington on government relations before joining Gilbert’s orbit, Fleisher helped build Michigan’s transformational brownfield financing program and negotiate General Motors’ headquarters relocation to Hudson’s Detroit before being named CEO in 2025.
Bedrock CEO Jared Fleisher joined No Cap hosts Jack Stone and Alex Gornick to tell what he calls one of the greatest comeback stories in America: Detroit’s transformation from a bankrupt city to a top-50 travel destination. Fleisher walked through Bedrock’s plan to redevelop the Renaissance Center and Detroit’s riverfront, the public financing tools that make Rust Belt redevelopment pencil, and why he thinks downtown cores, from Detroit to Dallas, are existential to their regions’ long-term health.
Key Takeaways
Bedrock and GM are converting the 5.5-million-square-foot Renaissance Center, more than twice the size of the Empire State Building, in what Fleisher calls the country’s toughest adaptive reuse project.
“I believe it is the most complicated adaptive reuse project challenge in the United States of America.”
Jared Fleisher, [17:57]
GM is contributing $250 million plus property to the redevelopment, while Dan Gilbert is committing more than $1 billion in equity and debt, in a deal Fleisher says wouldn’t pencil on business terms alone.
“Dan is looking to put in over a billion dollars of equity and debt. Nobody would ever do this on business terms.”
Jared Fleisher, [22:02]
The riverfront redevelopment depends on Michigan’s transformational brownfield financing tool, which Fleisher helped create in 2017, but a standoff with state lawmakers is currently holding up the funding.
“The state is close to killing the golden goose of Dan Gilbert.”
Jared Fleisher, [30:03]
Bedrock’s core thesis is that place, not incentives, is what attracts talent, which then draws business and drives wage growth, modeled on Nashville’s transformation before its tech boom.
“Business chases talent, and then young talent in particular is the fuel of a high-wage economy. That’s how you grow an economy.”
Jared Fleisher, [42:23]
Fleisher argues a struggling downtown core drags down its entire region regardless of suburban growth, pointing to Dallas and San Francisco as cautionary examples.
“These cities and regions are organisms. And a cell ain’t going to live with no nucleus. It’s going to catch up with you at the end of the day.”
Jared Fleisher, [50:04]
