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Albion College works to revitalize struggling downtown

When the local college's finances gets the sniffles, the whole town feels ill. When enrollment is booming, everyone is doing swell.

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An aerial of Albion Michigan downtown looking east toward Albion College campus from N. Superior Street Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2021. Junfu Han and Mandi Wright, Detroit Free Press

Bill Dobbins strolls through downtown Albion, telling stories about buildings as he goes. 

When there's a lull in the conversation, he is asked a simple question: What do you think about when you walk down here? 

"I think about what was — this was the J.C. Penney's," he says, pointing to a building as the walk continues. "I think about family outings, coming down here. Then I think about college, coming to Cascarelli's with my friends was important. And then I think about the reality of where we are today."

Bill Dobbins, president of Caster Concepts, in December in downtown Albion.
Bill Dobbins, president of Caster Concepts, in December in downtown Albion. Mandi Wright, Detroit Free Press

Albion's downtown, about 100 miles west of Detroit in southern mid-Michigan, is no longer booming. On a December morning, there's a handful of people waiting outside the Secretary of State office to renew driver's licenses and get car titles. A slow but steady stream of people stopping into the bakery Dobbins' family owns. A few cars in the Courtyard by Marriott's parking lot. Later in the day, Lopez Taco House will open, but only for takeout. Because of COVID-19, the children's museum is closed, as is the Bohm Theatre.

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But even if there wasn't a pandemic, there wouldn't be a ton more traffic. Downtown's buildings are 80% empty of tenants. The town's future relies heavily on nearby Albion College, a small private liberal arts school with issues of its own. The college has been drawing from its endowment to cover budget shortfalls for several years. It has seen increased enrollment, but largely because of steep discounts offered to students, meaning the college hasn't been making as much tuition revenue as it needs.

Without the college? "It all just falls down," Dobbins says of downtown. "It is so heavily influenced and driven by the college."

That's not just empty rhetoric. 

Albion College and groups closely tied to it own the majority of property on S. Superior Street, the downtown main drag. The groups, working together, have pitched a plan to rehab and fill the buildings with stores and apartments, making the town a more attractive place to live, which can help the college in recruiting students and faculty. 

But if the college goes under, would investors tied to the college but not living in the community still want to invest in a small town's rebirth?

Just like here, the Midwest's small colleges, many of which are struggling, are often located in small towns of 3,000, 4,000 or 7,000. Towns like Upland, Indiana, and Jacksonville, Illinois. The futures of those towns and colleges are often closely tied. When college enrollment rises there are more parents buying meals for their student in the restaurants. When enrollment drops, as is the trend, there are fewer students making a midnight run to the grocery store.

The town of Albion is, perhaps, more closely tied than most to its college. When Dobbins was a child and downtown was booming, there were all sorts of anchor institutions and industry, led by iron foundries, in town.

Historic photos of the foundry industry that was once the main occupation in Albion on Tuesday decorate the walls of the Foundry Bakehouse and Deli in downtown Albion.
Historic photos of the foundry industry that was once the main occupation in Albion on Tuesday decorate the walls of the Foundry Bakehouse and Deli in downtown Albion. Mandi Wright, Detroit Free Press

Parents spent the workweek toiling at places like Hayes-Albion, Albion Malleable Iron Company, Gale Manufacturing and Brooks Foundry. Families came downtown for shopping, eating out or a movie at the Bohm, which opened its doors on Christmas Day 1929 and featured the Barton Theatre organ, which provided the sound for the era's silent movies.

Then the foundries began leaving in the 1980s, taking good-paying jobs with them.

Then the hospital left. The local school district folded into a neighboring school district and the town didn't have a middle school or high school. Albion College is the only anchor institution remaining. If it also disappears — well, nobody wants to even think about that, let alone see it happen.

The water bill

When students leave Taylor University in northeastern Indiana for the summer or another extended break, it causes a budgetary issue not only for the college, but also for the small town where it's located.

Not quite in the way one might think.

Fewer students on campus means fewer showers, less dish washing in the dining hall and fewer drinking fountains tapped to fill water bottles.

That means a much smaller water bill, and a loss of revenue for the city of Upland. When students aren't in session, Taylor's monthly water bill drops by up to $30,000 a month. A city official wouldn't characterize how big of a hit that is for Upland, but there's not doubting it's painful for the town of 3,700 — about half of whom are Taylor students.

Taylor University in Upland, Indiana.
Taylor University in Upland, Indiana. Jenna Watson/IndyStar

Other than property taxes — Taylor, like other nonprofits, doesn't pay them — utility payments are the biggest chunk of Upland's revenue, City Manager Jonathan Perez said.

Upland is a bedroom community located on Interstate-69 about halfway between Indianapolis and Fort Wayne. Taylor, a private Christian liberal arts college, is by far the largest employer in town. The town has slowly been growing, bucking the trend of the rest of the area, with residents looking for a small-town feel.

Without the college, Upland would be hurting.

"We depend on them as much as they depend on us for services," Perez said. "If Taylor is doing well, it benefits us."

Upland is like many small college towns across the Midwest. When the local college's finances gets the sniffles, the whole town feels ill. When enrollment is booming, everyone is doing swell.

Perhaps no town knows that better than a small Michigan town about 90 minutes west of Detroit.

Albion's past

In the 1970s, Albion and its downtown were hopping. There were mom-and-pop stores, restaurants, a dentist office and a bank. There were the foundries in town, hiring and paying good wages.

Victoria Snyder
Victoria Snyder Provided

"We had a lot of employment and families," current Albion Mayor Victoria Snyder, who grew up there, said. "The infrastructure was strong."

The college was strong as well, but the town and gown didn't really mix. The college did its recruiting in the more moneyed areas of Michigan, especially with managers at the auto companies in metro Detroit.

"It was a different world" on campus, Snyder, who graduated from the college in 1989, said. "Not many of us folks had that kind of money. It was a bit of a culture shock living with people who showed up on campus with these types of means."

Albion students didn't spend time in the city. "We lived in an education bubble," Snyder said of her time on campus. "For the most part, it was not encouraged to leave campus."

The city had a higher percentage of minorities — Census figures show the city was 28.7% black in 1980 while students who attended the college around that time say the percentage on campus was much lower. On campus, the racist trope that Albion was "unsafe" hung in the air, even if no one came right out and said it. It wouldn't be until the presidency of Peter Mitchell, who served from 1997 to 2007, that students were really encouraged to connect with the community, according to Snyder, who served in the college's multicultural affairs office.

The disconnect was more than just race. It also was class. The median household income in Albion in 2019 was just over $34,000, according to Census estimates, with about 28% of people below the poverty line. It also was politics. Albion College was known for decades for being Republican and conservative. The town leans Democratic.

Meanwhile, the town of Albion had begun to slide downward. The foundries started to close in the 1980s. The last one open, Hayes-Albion, closed in 2002. That was the same year Trillium Hospital announced it was shutting down, taking with it 200 jobs. In 2016, voters approved a consolidation of the local schools with the Marshall school district. 

"It was devastating to the community," Dobbins said. "Not only were the jobs gone, but so were the people who invested in the community."

As jobs left Albion, families followed. Population, which had been 10,066 in 1990, slid to 9,144 in 2000; then 8,613 in 2010 and down to a Census estimate of 8,402 in 2019. That a 16.5% drop.

Downtown began to fall as well.

"It really did look like a ghost town," Snyder said. 

Buildings reflect in an empty storefront on S. Superior Street in December in Albion.
Buildings reflect in an empty storefront on S. Superior Street in December in Albion. Mandi Wright, Detroit Free Press

That was a problem — not only for the city, but also for the college.

"I was working in the admissions office at the time. We knew that was a deterrent to students coming here," Snyder said. Students and parents would come to Albion for a visit, see the college and the town. Then they'd start comparing the city of Albion with other Michigan small college towns: Holland, home to Hope College, or Adrian, home to Adrian College. When they did so, the other towns were thought of as having more to offer, Snyder said. 

"We could read between the lines when they let us know where they were sending their kids," Snyder said. "A lot of the buildings downtown (Albion) are very old. They didn't have the attention paid to their upkeep they needed. It didn't look appealing. There wasn't money for the investment that was needed."

Who owns downtown Albion?

On a blustery winter day in mid-December, there's a steady rhythm of customers entering the bakery on the far corner of downtown. Thanks to COVID-19 rules, there's no sitting down and catching up on the latest gossip over coffee and a pastry. Most of the chairs and tables are stacked out of the way.

At one table, one of Dobbins' daughters is in a long online queue with the state, trying to apply for a state small business COVID-19 relief program.

Dobbins is sitting across the room. On the wall above his head are photographs from various foundries, documenting the city's past.

Historic photos of foundry workers in Albion hang on the walls of the Foundry Bakehouse and Deli in downtown Albion.
Historic photos of foundry workers in Albion hang on the walls of the Foundry Bakehouse and Deli in downtown Albion. Mandi Wright, Detroit Free Press

Dobbins isn't a baker or restaurant owner by trade. He's a medical doctor turned manufacturing business  owner. He's also a landowner, one of a handful downtown. The major owners have direct ties to Albion College and its board, including Dobbins, a 1974 graduate. 

Zoom into our map to see Albion's downtown investments:

He was one of three people who made up the board of Forks Associates, formed in 2012 to buy up land  downtown. The others were the college's vice president for finance and administration at the time, and another man who is a 1978 Albion alumnus.

But the group ran into a snag. It wasn't a nonprofit and couldn't take donations. So, the Albion Reinvestment Corp. was formed as a nonprofit. Four of the six ARC board members are also Albion College trustees. Dobbins is one of two non-college board members. A local pastor is the other. Dobbins is the president of the ARC board.

The ARC is the largest property owner downtown, with nine of the 32 parcels.

Another six parcels are owned by Downtown Albion Hotel LLC, a group that bought land that now houses a nearly new Courtyard by Marriott. State records show that group is registered to Samuel Shaheen, the executive director of Central Michigan University medical education partners and a professor of surgery at the CMU College of Medicine. Shaheen is the vice president of ARC and a member of Albion College's board.

Downtown Albion in December.
Downtown Albion in December. Mandi Wright, Detroit Free Press

The college itself owns two properties — one a nearly block long building named the Ludington Center and a former bank that is currently empty. There are plans to develop the old bank and the old drive-through next to it into one end of a pedestrian path connecting the campus and the downtown.

Dobbins has two buildings, the Foundry Bakehouse, which has loft apartments on the second floor and a building next to it he's converting into more apartments. The goal with the apartments is to attract young professionals, perhaps working at the college, or those looking for a small-town feel and willing to drive a little bit to Jackson, Marshall or Lansing for work. Dobbins' upstairs apartments rent for about $1,300 a month, all brand-new and top-of-the-line. He has attracted renters to the ones he has already refurbished.

Just under 60% of downtown property is owned either directly by the college or groups with strong ties to it.

The Calhoun County Land Bank owns six of the remaining properties. 

Building something better?

At an early meeting of Forks Associates, someone suggested bringing a hotel to town.

The group gathered money, including from the state of Michigan, and $12 million later, the Courtyard by Marriott opened in 2018. On a recent visit, there were about a dozen cars in the parking lot overnight. COVID-19's closure of face-to-face instruction at the college meant no lines of parents staying there before taking students home for the holiday break. Earlier in the pandemic, at least one floor of the 75-room, three-floor hotel was closed for lack of business.

When the hotel first opened, it joined the already rehabbed children's museum and the Bohm Theatre as jewels of downtown. A new brewery opened in 2018 and Dobbins' bakery opened in 2019. The college had turned an old mattress store into the Ludington Center in 2017. It houses various college centers and community groups.

The real estate has been cheap. Dobbins paid $30,000 for an appliance store he then invested in with more than $1 million in private capital and state grants. The building had been owned by the Peabody family, one of the area's early settlers, and was built in 1852. It's the oldest brick building in the city. The upstairs, where there are now apartments, had been unused for 40 years.

As Forks morphed into Albion Reinvestment Corp., it raised about $800,000 and began a buying spree. The goal is to redevelop the bottom floors of buildings into storefronts and the upstairs into apartments. The group wants to use the apartments to help subsidize the storefronts to keep rent low to encourage small businesses to start downtown.

The overall plan, known as the Big Albion Plan, calls for work to be done on 18 buildings. turning them into 29 commercial units and 73 residential units. The project is expected to cost about $19 million. The city is using tax capture funds and brownfield redevelopment funds to help.

While the fronts of the buildings facing Superior Street look to be in decent shape, the backs of the buildings showcase the work that needs to be done. Weeds and vines cover walls. On several buildings, the bricks have crumbled, leaving gaping holes. Gutters have overflowed during storms, the coursing water damaging the walls. If work isn't done soon, the buildings will be unsafe and will have to be torn down.

The backsides of some buildings that run along S. Superior St. in Albion. Photo taken in December.
The backsides of some buildings that run along S. Superior St. in Albion. Photo taken in December. Mandi Wright, Detroit Free Press

There's no guarantee the plan will work.

"There's no leading indicators, or study, on how to rebuild a small community in the rust belt of Michigan," Dobbins said. "I'm not sure a build-it-and-they-will-come plan will work. We hope so. Our industry now is Albion College. We need it to bring students to town. That brings money to the community."

The plan hasn't met with universal praise in the community.

"In theory, ARC was a positive development," said Garrett Brown, a lifelong resident who was mayor in Albion from 2016 to 2018. "The majority of council, myself included, wanted to make sure that as economic tides rise, those people who weathered the storm weren't left behind. (I'm) not against the project. We need more investment. I just want it to be equitable."

Brown, and others in the city, want to make sure residents and local business owners aren't priced out by rising rents.

Tying things together

The college is already planning to increase its presence in the rest of town. A new collection of welcome signs will go up as people arrive. Made of steel and iron to reflect the foundries, the signs will welcome visitors to Albion — both the town and the college.

There will be significant upgrades to buildings along Michigan Avenue leading into downtown as part of a broader investment into campus buildings. Each of the buildings will have some sort of tie to the community and the college.

The centerpiece will be a renovation of the Washington Gardner school, which has stood along Michigan Avenue since the 1870s. The YMCA will be on the first floor, with its own entrance. The college's music, theater and education departments will also be housed there. A new athletic center will be built there as well. 

The plan, which doesn't yet have an official start date or cost, will more closely tie college students to the community and the community to the campus.

No students, no town

It's about a 10-minute walk from the heart of campus to the heart of downtown. With a car, it's a whole lot quicker to cover that half-mile.

Samantha Semerau, a junior, enjoys going downtown, at least when the pandemic didn't make it hard to do. She saw movies at the Bohm and "I love going to the antique shop. It would be great if there was more there."

Jada Stewart, also a junior, mentors young students coming to college, especially those making the jump from a big city to a small town. Stewart understands that move — she's from Chicago.

She said she didn't look at the town when visiting the college and applying, but did once she got on campus. She tells new students what she learned: "You have to keep yourself" entertained, whether that's with movies at the Bohm or going to Family Dollar and getting some games to play back in the dorms.

The Kellogg Center on campus at Albion College in January welcomes students back for the start of the winter semester.
The Kellogg Center on campus at Albion College in January welcomes students back for the start of the winter semester. Eric Seals, Detroit Free Press

Even going to the movies requires an adjustment: "They only play movies at certain times. I was used to movies playing all the time."

If the plan works, there will be a lot more going on for students downtown.

"The board recognized we needed to really partner with the city of Albion and help redevelop the downtown," current board Chairman Michael Harrington said. "Their future and our future are tied intimately together."

The city also needs the plan to work, Mayor Snyder said. 

"I'm happy to see money has been invested downtown. We need to have this as a win-win. We can have local ownership and investment from (ARC)."

With the college's demographics changing — it's tracking to be a minority-majority institution soon — it's now mirroring the makeup of the town better. That, and a concerted push by college leaders to engage with the town, has helped the two integrate more.

"We still have to work on perceptions, especially with the older members of the community," Snyder said. "There's a lot more of a feel of students wanting to engage. We want that."

This story was supported by the Spencer Education Fellowship at Columbia Journalism School. David Jesse is a 2020-21 Spencer Education Reporting Fellow at Columbia University and the 2018 Education Writers Association's best education reporter. Contact David Jesse: 313-222-8851 or djesse@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter: @reporterdavidj. Subscribe to the Detroit Free Press.

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