PRESIDENT AND CEO
PRINCE CONCEPTS, DETROIT
EMPLOYEES: 6
REVENUE: NA
COLLEGE: NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
What led Philip Kafka to pursue real estate development in Detroit was an experience he found curiously similar: leasing and selling billboards in New York City.
“Billboards kind of operate like real estate,” Kafka says. “I would get a zoning map and I would go around the city looking for places that worked for advertising signs. And I had to see value where other people weren’t seeing it.
“I had to create the value there. And that kind of thinking led me to Detroit, because I have to go somewhere people don’t see the value in.”
That somewhere for Dallas native Kafka turned out to be the Core City area of Detroit, which is located south of I-94 and between I-96 on the west and the Lodge Freeway on the east.
Kafka arrived in Detroit in 2012 — before the city went into municipal bankruptcy — and found himself intrigued by the discovery that the city had more viable infrastructure than it had population.
“I’d never seen a condition like it,” Kafka says. “Typically cities are outgrowing their infrastructure. I looked at the underlying culture — the history, the music, the innovation — and I was convinced this was an area that needed development.”
Enter Prince Concepts, an investment and development firm that acquires land and uses it as a place to create a product people would want. His first acquisition in Detroit was a structure at 2520 Michigan Ave. that consisted of little more than three walls and a roof. Kafka renovated the building and partnered with Chef Brad Greenhill to open a Thai-inspired restaurant known today as Takoi.
The success of that project led to the acquisition of 25,000 square feet of contiguous land and a residential development called True North (completed in 2017 with architect Edwin Chan), as well as The Caterpillar, an apartment building.
The common theme throughout the projects has been Kafka’s insistence on seeing the properties differently than other professionals in the real estate market.
“This was an area that wasn’t attracting anyone at the time,” he says. “No one had thought to go there for decades. And that’s how my work started — thinking about architectural ideas and thinking about real estate as a product, not an asset.”
To date, Kafka has renovated more than 60,000 square feet of previously derelict buildings, completed four new-construction housing projects with a total of 45 units, created 25,000 square feet of public space, and planted 800 trees. He remains committed to operating exclusively in the Core City area.
He also became heavily involved with New York architect Ishtiaq Rafiuddian, who has since relocated to Detroit.
Moving forward, Kafka has completed a master plan for the area, and intends to eventually bring in some partners to move forward with it. But he foresees taking a breather as a possible next step.
“Since I sold my billboard business in 2015, I’ve never taken a break, and I’ve just been developing like a madman,” Kafka says, “because Detroit needs you to show up and work and do things. I might step back and take a moment and observe it all.”
— Dan Calabrese
