ANOUNCER: Welcome to Urban Diversions Radio brought to you by Urban Diversions fine furnishings, antiques, and architectural elements of Traverse City. And now, here’s your host John Bentley.
JOHN BENTLEY: Welcome to Urban Diversions Radio. Today in the studio we have the owner of urban diversions Dale Campbell and his special guest Tino Breithaupt. Tino is the Senior Vice President of Economic Development of the Traverse City Area Chamber of Commerce. Welcome to the program gentlemen.
DALE CAMPBELL: Thank you John.
TINO BREITHAUPT: Thank you. Thanks for having us.
JOHN: Let’s start with Tino first. Tino, what are some of the advantages of doing business of doing business in Northern Michigan?
TINO: Really, we believe the Northern Michigan advantages are pretty clear when people, who are not necessarily familiar with the Traverse City area, once they get here they just fall in love with this place. We have such a vibrant sense of community and a vibrant sense of place and so many opportunities to recreate in our community, that people really look at the opportunities to potentially setup business opportunities here. We have got just a whole sense of place in our region. I think that when people see this place it sells itself and they want to figure out a way to be in Traverse City, Michigan year round or maybe three quarters of a given year as opposed to just coming up here and vacationing for a week.
JOHN: Now, certainly there are specific advantages of doing business in Northern Michigan, besides just falling in love with the community. I certainly feel like that was something that brought me to the area. It was just so beautiful. Isn’t the Traverse City area one of the largest growing populations in Michigan?
TINO: Well, certainly if we’re not the largest, we’re one of the largest. We have a movement going on here in Northern Michigan called the Grand Vision and there have a been a number of studies done that have indicated that our population, our five county population here in Northern Michigan and it’s about 100,000 people and it is projected that our population is going to double or triple over the next twenty or thirty years. So, we’re going to realize continued growth here in Northern Michigan and we do have growing demographic trends in the 60 to 69 year old age range and the 30 to 39 year old age range. So, we have really this kind of retirement population looking to retire and live here. But, then also, in that young professional age bracket of 30 to 39 really people moving here and looking to develop their own business or bring a component of an existing business, maybe outside of this region, to Northern Michigan.
JOHN: What types of business are you seeing moving into the Northwestern Michigan?
TINO: We’re actually seeing a variety of different types of businesses and really that speaks to the nature of Northern Michigan and our region. We are not dependant on one particular industry. I think that a lot of people think that we are solely dependant on travel and tourism and I’m here to tell that while it’s an important component to our regional economy it’s not what we’re dependant on. We have over 550 manufacturing firms in our five county region. We have technology companies. We have professional and technical services. We have art and other types of talent in the arts and culture area. We have a burgeoning wine industry associated to the agriculture industry. So, the strength of our region is really in the diversity of our region and we’ve been saying that for several years now. But, we’re just seeing an across the board, and again from artisans and culture activity and opportunities, we’re in the process right now of relocating a company out of Colorado which is a manufacturer of hunting market products and they’ll be here and up and running probably in a couple of months. So, some manufacturing, some technology oriented activity, professional technical services, but then arts and culture certainly playing a big role as well.
JOHN: Let’s bring Dale into the conversation. Dale, what brought you to the Traverse City area?
DALE: I think Traverse City is a real diverse area where there is a lot of people who really appreciate the culture that is available in this area from theater and arts, and like Tino said, all the recreation, the beautiful scenery. In my opinion, traveling the world, it’s one of the most perfect places.
JOHN: How has the Chamber helped Urban Diversions?
DALE: Tino has been instrumental in bringing organizations to meet with us to discuss manufacturing the line of furniture that I design, Vin Modern, and it’s progressing very nicely.
JOHN: Gentlemen we’re going to step aside here for just a minute here. We’ll be right back on Urban Diversions. More with Dale Campbell and Tino Breithaupt.
ANNOUNCER: Urban Diversions of Traverse City is your source for fine furnishings, antiques, and architectural elements. With 45 years of experience and award winning designs Urban Diversions creates beautiful limited edition furniture. It is made in the U.S. and is made to stand the test of time. For more information on Urban Diversions fine furnishings please visit them on the web at www.urban-diversions.com or call 231-946-6600. Urban Diversions Fine Furnishings. Vertio Talk Radio. We now return you to Urban Diversions Radio with your host John Bentley.
JOHN: Welcome back to Urban Diversions Radio. We’re in the studio with the owner of Urban Diversions Dale Campbell and his special guest today Tino Breithaupt Senior Vice President of Economic Development for the Traverse City Area Chamber of Commerce. Welcome again to the program gentlemen.
DALE: Thank you, John.
TINO: Thank you.
JOHN: There’s lots of reasons for people to bring their business to Northern Michigan. Let’s talk a little bit more about some of the benefits of doing business here in the Traverse City area, Tino. Now, I understand that we have a lot of industrial parks, business oriented areas. Tell us a little bit about that.
TINO: We do. We’ve got about 13 or 14 different business and industrial parks throughout our four county region that we cover as an economic development corporation as a division of the Chamber. But really as it goes into Grand Traverse County specifically we have six business and industrial parks within about five minutes of the airport. I don’t think that was designed in that manner by accident. You take a look at just the geographic proximity of Traverse City and we’re not going to be home to a major manufacturing operation that has to load everything up on a truck and haul it down to major markets. A lot of those types of things just don’t make sense given the fact that we are a peninsula on a peninsula essentially here in Michigan. So, you think about the types of businesses and the types of companies that we have in those business and industrial parks and with today’s technology and with the way things are getting faster, cheaper, smaller, a lot of those products that companies are making can be shipped via air and so, to be right there near the airport to ship essentially your cargo out of Traverse City, you can be anywhere in the world. It’s really why we have FedEx and UPS and other shipping companies in those parks as well. They’re right near the airport.
JOHN: Tino, there’s something called Renaissance Zones, also. Can you inform our listening audience what a Renaissance Zone is?
TINO: Absolutely. Many years ago the State of Michigan and the Michigan Economic Development Corporation developed a renaissance zone program. Essentially what those renaissance zones are tax free zones. There’s been a designated geographic boundary or territory where they have said, throughout various parts of the state, if you locate your residence or if you locate your business in this zone you will essentially pay no taxes; no property taxes, no income tax, no Michigan business tax. It is essentially a tax free zone. We’re fortunate enough to have one of those types of zones within the city of Traverse City at the former state hospital site commonly know today as the Grand Traverse Commons. So, companies and individuals who are living in portions of that development are currently realizing tax free status over a certain period of time.
JOHN: Let’s bring Dale back into the conversation. Dale, I know that Urban Diversions has expanded recently. Can you tell us a little about the expansion and how some of these offerings at the TC Chamber of Commerce have helped you in that regard?
DALE: The expansion here, as you know, we have half of the railroad station, the main depot building and recently the remainder of the building came available to us. We started on March 1st renovating the building back to its original luster. We ground all the terrazzo floors down and re-polished them and we removed a lot of tile on the floor and we found the original maple hardwood floor that is from the date the depot was built in 1926. So, we found a lot of treasures renovating this building and it’s all put back to its original luster. And, of course, it shows off our furniture just fabulous. With the terrazzo floors and all the brick walls and the hardwood floors, I mean, it showcases the furniture just absolutely beautiful.
JOHN: It really is a beautiful location. I was discussing it earlier with my wife. Very beautiful interior and it’s really a neat place for a business. What are some of the existing programs at the Chamber that have helped you with this expansion, Dale?
DALE: Tino and I really didn’t work together on this particular expansion. We’re working together more on the business development side with the manufacturing.
TINO: I guess I’ll jump in. Dale and I first met in mid-December where he, kind of, unveiled his plans to me and to our staff. As we sat around the table and he threw out a bunch of ideas, and we do so much of this with young growing businesses in our region, new start up companies in our region that are looking to call Traverse City, Michigan their home and their headquarters, we kicked around these ideas of identifying furniture manufacturers for their business. They had an established relationship with a company in Grand Rapids and they were really looking ideally for establishing a different relationship with another company in Northern Michigan. As we really kind of kicked around these ideas, nothing was really coming to mind that made sense to break that relationship in Grand Rapids for something in Traverse City. So, our advice was, ‘Hey, if you’ve got a good thing going it will ultimately benefit what you’re doing in Traverse City, you should keep the relationship with the company you’re talking to in Grand Rapids.’ From there we went into what about grant and loan programs, low interest programs, etc., and we kicked around just a number of programs that are just out there in existence. Meeting up with Dale yesterday to tour his facility was pleased to hear that he was working with a company called Northern Initiatives for potential financing as a resource. That’s an organization that we work with here and there as appropriate.
JOHN: Obviously the TC area Chamber of Commerce is offering small business counseling.
TINO: Yes.
JOHN: Hence, what you are doing here with Dale. And, also, site location assistance here in the Traverse City area.
TINO: We do.
JOHN: Anybody that’s interested in looking into the TC Chamber you can find them on the net at TCChamber.org, as well as, anybody that is interested in Urban Diversions Fine Furnishings located at the historic train station in Traverse City, Michigan, you can locate them on urban-diversion.com. I want to thank you gentlemen for joining us today on Urban Diversions Radio.
DALE: Thank you, John. It was a pleasure.
TINO: Yeah, John, thank you very much for having us.
JOHN: We’ve been in the studio with Tino Breithaupt. He is the Senior Vice President for Economic Development for the Traverse City Area Chamber of Commerce and, of course, Dale Campbell owner of Urban Diversions Fine Furnishings. You’ve been listening to Urban Diversions Radio. I’m your host John Bentley. Thanks for tuning in. We’ll see you next time on the program.
ANNOUNCER: You’ve been listening to Urban Diversions Radio at www.urban-diversions.com. Urban Diversions Radio is powered by VTalk Radio and Vertio.net. Talk radio for the 21st century.
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