[animatedmartian]

Little Caesars to build 8-story downtown HQ next to Fox
By Tom Walsh and By John Gallagher, Detroit Free Press, December 10, 2014





A quarter century after moving its corporate hub from the suburbs to the Fox Theatre building in downtown Detroit, the Ilitch family is unveiling plans this morning for a new 8-story office tower next door, more than doubling the size of the Little Caesars pizza headquarters campus.

Company executives, including founders Mike and Marian Ilitch, are sharing the news with employees in a theatrical presentation today in the Fox Theatre and lobby.

Along with a new arena for the Ilitch-owned Detroit Red Wings hockey team, the new 205,000-square-foot Little Caesars structure will be one of 14 new buildings in the Ilitches' expansive $650-million arena district development, which aims to transform dozens of underutilized blocks between downtown and Midtown into a world-class sports and entertainment district.

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The new Little Caesars tower on Woodward Avenue and across from Comerica Park will be Detroit's first new corporate headquarters building in more than a decade: The Compuware building was finished in 2003 and the American Axle and Manufacturing headquarters at I-75 and Holbrook Avenue was erected in 2004.

The new tower, slated to be completed by December 2016, will be smaller than the Fox Office Center building, which houses both the iconic Fox Theatre and 186,000 square feet of office space for Little Caesars and other Ilitch-affiliated ventures. The two buildings will be the same height, but the new tower will be just eight stories — versus 10 for the Fox — because it will have higher ceilings.

"We are bursting at the seams," Scrivano, president of Little Caesars, said of the pizza firm's current cramped and scattered quarters. With no room to expand in the old Fox building, for example, Scrivano put a new pizza innovation center and test kitchen inside Comerica Park a few years ago.

"We've had people in temporary space at our sister companies, some people are working out of their homes, we keep doing meetings out by the airport," Scrivano added, noting that the new building will solve those problems and provide room for future growth.

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Little Caesars' new headquarters

Details of the project, slated for completion in December 2016, include:

■An overhead bridge and walkway over Columbia Street, connecting the Fox with the new Little Caesars Global Resource Center

■Space for 600 additional high-skill jobs to be brought to Detroit in the next decade

■A flagship Little Caesars Pizza storefront on Woodward Avenue

■A Columbia Street neighborhood to be activated with retail and green space

■Innovation kitchens

■An auditorium, meeting rooms and child care facility

■Training facilities for franchisees, crew and employees

http://www.freep.com/story/money/bus...alsh/20184917/