Tent Party

Rich and Helen DeVos, who provided the lead gift for the L. William Seidman Center campaign, have established a dollar-for-dollar match for all new and additional gifts made to the Seidman Center from now until June 30. Nearly $23 million of the $25 million in private funds needed has been raised. The total cost of the project is $40 million. The Seidman Center, to be built at 38 Front Ave. in downtown Grand Rapids, is scheduled to be completed in spring 2013, with classes to begin that fall. A state-of-the-art trading room will accommodate 42 students and simulate a trading room environment for students to learn about investment and portfolio analyses. Student collaboration and study spaces include rooms that can be reserved using web-based technology for group work. The college’s many outreach programs will be located on the first floor of the building for easier access by local businesses.

Comerica Bank, now the 20th largest in the U.S., accumulated vast experience in the manufacturing sector since its founding in Detroit in 1849, and was one of few to survive the Great Depression (no, that wasn’t in 2008). Readers of the Business Journal are most likely to think of it for its 2007 move to Dallas, leaving its name on the new baseball park in Detroit in memory of the last of Michigan-based banking institutions.