The Pfizer Pfactor
The big news yesterday was that Pfizer plans to shutter its entire Ann Arbor campus by the end of 2008. That's 2,160 jobs, 2 million square feet of facilities on 177 acres, and the City of Ann Arbor's largest property tax payer. Governor Granholm characterized Pfizer's decision (which also nailed smaller operations elsewhere in Michigan) as a "punch in the gut". Indeed.



I'm not familiar enough with Pfizer's business or financials to make an informed comment on the wisdom of their decisions, but, on the face of it, it seems like the age-old sin of managing your business for the short-term quarterly results while undermining your long-term viability. Us Michiganders have seen this played out on a grand scale over the decades by pinheads in pinstripes at places with names like General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler. This feels like more of the same. For one, Pfizer has pumped millions into expanding its Ann Arbor operation over the last five years, only to shutter it now?

I'm going to assume that the Pfizer decision is set in stone. The big question is what now? Pfizer claims that 70% of employees will be offered positions elsewhere in the company — meaning out of state. The governor is trying to prevent a brain drain out of state, but at the moment all she has is a notion, not a solution.

I do wonder how many buyers there might be for a parcel that large with such specialized facilities. Any multinational pharmaceutical or specialty chemical companies looking for a whole new worksite in a state where the economy has been "trailing edge" for eons?

In Flint, when their bizarre Autoworld theme park/museum thing died (shocking dozens), the property was eventually purchased by the Regents of the University of Michigan to expand the Flint campus. UM might be looking to pick up some of its old Ann Arbor land at distress prices with some nice improvements — it would certainly be cheaper than building new, although renovations would probably cost a fortune.

If all the University of Michigan did was to purchase the property to add to its physcial plant, that might be defensible and reasonable given the cost of building new in southeast Michigan (think midtown Manhattan costs — really!). But if that is all the U does, it will have missed an interesting opportunity.

What if the University of Michigan and the State of Michigan partnered with major health players like the Gates Foundation and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to create something new? It could be a vastly enlarged UM Life Sciences Institute, it could be a Vaccine Institute (since pharmaceutical companies hate vaccines), it could be a small drug factory (and training sites for a College of Pharmacy production and operations degree) or parts of all of the above and a bunch of other things I haven't thought of yet.

All that is required is vision and dollars. The right vision pitched to the right people will bring the dollars. It is a tall order that will take the concerted efforts of a great many people.