The proposed $111 million tower in downtown Detroit that would consolidate Detroit-based Meridian Health Plan's offices is not the first time the Cotton family has backed high-profile project, write Chad Halcom and Kirk Pinho in Crain's Detroit Business
The Cottons — Meridian founder-CEO David Cotton, wife Shery, and sons Jon, Sean and Michael compose a family whose involvement in a variety of projects is raising its profile among metro Detroit power-broker clans.
As Crain's reports, in addition to the tower, that would sit on the northeast corner of Campus Martius, the Cottons:
* Took part in St. John Providence Health System's capital campaign to support $163 million of construction at the hospital campus on Moross Road five years ago.
* Support several ongoing programs at St. John.
* Funded development of a boardwalk at the Cotton Family Wetlands in 2012 at the Detroit Zoo, where Shery Cotton sits on the board of directors.
* Will help support, through St. John, a federally qualified health center at the Grace Community Church campus near St. John on Moross later this year.
* Are redeveloping an old section of Grosse Pointe Park: In a few weeks, construction should wrap at the Cotton-owned Bona Fide Bakery Co. building in Grosse Pointe Park, and the outdoor Atwater in the Park biergarten will open nearby while remodeling is underway at the Grace United Church of Christ building the Cottons bought in January, said Mark Rieth of Detroit's Atwater Brewing Co. and Grosse Pointe Park Manager Dale Krajniak.
Halcom and Pinho report the powerhouse behind the Cottons and their expanding prominence in real estate development and philanthropy is the rapid growth of Meridian's contracts for managed care health plans.
Meridian Health, founded in 1997 as Health Plan of Michigan Inc., is a physician-owned, physician-operated group of health plans and related companies based in Detroit. It has expanded to 10 lines of business over the past five years and employs 1,300 people in seven states.
