By ANDREA POTEET
Sunday Times Newspaper
ALLEN PARK – The city has retained a new marketing firm to represent its failed studio property.
At its meeting Tuesday, the city council voted to hire Los Angeles-based CBRE Group Inc. to market the property, for which it pays $2 million from its general fund to subsidize annually after its main tenants, Unity Studios and the Lifton Center for Media Skills, left nearly two years ago.
The city has been without a marketing firm for the company since its former firm, Lormax Stern, quit in May. They had represented the property since August 2011.
Like its predecessor, CBRE will work on commission, with no monthly cost to the city, but Councilman Bob Keenan said the new firm brings with it global contacts, a selling point other interesting companies did not have.
Keenan said the far-reaching contacts are much needed for the property, which has sat largely unoccupied for the last two years but which the city council has gradually began renting out in small parcels. All recent contracts have included plans about what would happen to the renters should the entire building be sold.
“We certainly need to look elsewhere,” Keenan said. “We can’t have it sitting empty.”