Council Minutes

Quicken Loans and its Family of Companies to Open Technology Office in Windsor

Detroit, October 11, 2018 – Quicken Loans, the largest home mortgage lender in the United States, and its family of affiliated companies, today announced plans to open a new location in the historic Old Fish Market Building (156 Chatham St. West) in downtown Windsor, Ontario.

The expansion into Canada will allow Quicken Loans and its Family of Companies to recruit top talent from Windsor, Toronto, Waterloo and all of Ontario to support the company’s growing need for additional technology talent.

“We learned a lot more about Ontario’s deep technology talent pool over the past couple of years as we explored pitching the international border of Windsor/Detroit to various companies,” said Jay Farner, CEO of Quicken Loans. “As Quicken Loans continues to grow and set the standard for innovation, we remain focused on recruiting more technology talent to our brainforce.  With our headquarters located in downtown Detroit, we have a tremendous opportunity to tap into the rich technology pipeline both stateside and in Canada.”

Quicken Loans and the Family of Companies will lease more than 9,000 square feet of office space in the Old Fish Market Building.  Renovation of the new location is expected to be completed in the first or second quarter of 2019. The company plans to grow the office to more than 100 tech workers. 

“We are excited that Quicken Loans and its Family of Companies have made the decision to open an office in downtown Windsor.  The relationship we developed recently with them as we jointly pursued various technology companies to our international border cities helped us share the strong value proposition of Windsor,” said Windsor Mayor, Drew Dilkens.  “Quicken Loans is an amazing company with a great work culture.  We look forward to working closely with them in the months and years ahead as they grow their presence in our city.”

Quicken Loans currently does not offer mortgages in the Canadian market, although it has publicly stated its interest in learning about the Canadian home mortgage market.  This will be the second foray into Canada for the Detroit-based home lender. In 2016, Rocket Homes, a subsidiary of the same holding company as Quicken Loans (Rock Holdings Inc.), purchased Toronto-based OpenHouse Realty - a company specializing in the development of proprietary home and real estate agent search technology.

Quicken Loans has also appeared in the top-30 of FORTUNE magazine’s list of the 100 Best Companies to work for 15 consecutive years, and has been named the #1 place to work in technology six consecutive years by Computerworld magazine.  More workplace award information can be found at www.quickenloans.com/press-room/fast-facts/.

Terms of the lease agreement were not made available.

Detroit-based real estate firm Bedrock led the search for the new office location with the support of Mark Lalovich and Russel Lalovich of Windsor’s Remax Preferred Realty.

Kauth Opens North American HQ in Windsor

Global manufacturer Kauth unveiled its new North American Head Quarters in Windsor today at an event hosted by the WindsorEssex Economic Development Corporation.

Windsor-Essex County, Ontario, - Thursday, October 4, 2018 - Kauth a global leader in manufacturing from Germany opened the doors of their North America headquarters today at their facility located at 3485 Wheelton Drive in Windsor, Ontario.

Steffen May, CFO/Managing Director with Kauth was joined today with Windsor Mayor, Drew Dilkens, Essex County Warden, Tom Bain, Stephen MacKenzie, CEO of WindsorEssex Economic Development Corporation (WE EDC) and a number of stakeholders and business leaders from the surrounding area.

Christian Kauth, CEO/Owner-Kauth stated, “Today, it’s my pleasure to announce the opening of Kauth’s North America headquarters in Windsor, Ontario Canada. Initially, this new location will serve as Kauth North America’s distribution and warehousing center with up to 25 employees with plans to eventually evolve and expand to include a manufacturing facility that will employ up to 350 employees overtime. Kauth conducted an extensive search in a number of communities throughout North America and determined that Windsor provides the best business case and advantages to assist us to achieve our goals and growth in North America. I would like to thank City of Windsor Mayor, Drew Dilkens as well as, Stephen MacKenzie and his team at the WE EDC for they were instrumental in presenting the Windsor-Essex advantages and life-style strengths to us. We would also like to thank Detlef Engler with the Canadian Embassy in Berlin and the Ontario Investment Office for their support.”

Drew Dilkens, Mayor, City of Windsor said, “The locating of Kauth North America to the City of Windsor represents a significant investment in Windsor’s economy and its people. Kauth is a leader in the field of tube and forming technology and this phased move will add up to 350 jobs to our regional economy.  This announcement has been over a year in the making and I extend my very best wishes to the team at Kauth as we embark on this new partnership – this new friendship – together.  Welcome to Windsor.”

Kauth has an outstanding corporate culture and sees itself not only as a business, but as an active member of the community by supporting sports; educational and cultural projects and they have recently demonstrated this by being the main jersey sponsor for the Belle River Atom Minor AA hockey team. We are proud to have Kauth North America call Windsor-Essex home and we assure them we will continue to support them in any way that we can.”

You can watch the full news conference on the City of Windsor Facebook page or see the highlights on the City of Windsor YouTube channel.

Process for City of Windsor Vendor Payments In the Event of a Canada Post Mail Disruption

• An official letter from the vendor authorizing the individual to pick up the cheque
• One piece of government issued photo identification
• Signature for any cheques that are picked up

Museum Windsor - What is this?