Detroit is hiring its first retail attraction director to court national chains

Detroit is creating a job whose entire purpose is convincing national and regional retailers to open stores in the city.

The position, a Senior Director of Retail Attraction, will sit at the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation and work alongside Mayor Mary Sheffield's administration, according to the city's own posting on its "Detroit is Open for Retail Business" page. The city says it is looking for someone with a proven record of landing national and regional brands. It is the first role of its kind for Detroit.

The hire fits a larger plan Sheffield laid out in her first State of the City address on March 31, 2026, where she said she wants to make Detroit the easiest and most attractive city in America for retail. Per the city and the Detroit Regional Chamber's account of that speech, the plan pairs aggressive recruitment of retailers with same day building permits for commercial rehab projects and expedited permitting meant to clear the way for new storefronts.

The downtown stretch of Woodward Avenue is the showcase the city points to. National names like Warby Parker, Lululemon, and H&M already operate there, and they represent the kind of mid tier chain that tends to chase dense, walkable corridors. The new director's job is to turn that handful of anchors into a pattern, both downtown and in neighborhood business districts further out.

Creating a dedicated recruiter is a specific kind of bet. Most city economic development work runs through general purpose offices juggling site selection, small business support, and permitting all at once. Carving out one full time role for retail signals that Detroit wants a single person whose only assignment is making the pitch to corporate real estate teams that may not have Detroit on their expansion lists yet.

The push is not only about downtown logos. In neighborhood districts, residents and small business owners frame the gap in everyday terms. "We still have to go to the suburbs to enjoy multi-level retail opportunities like Walmart," East Side resident Lawrence Hancock told ClickOnDetroit. Mac Farr, executive director of the Villages Community Development Corporation, told the station that keeping shoppers in the city would be a major win: "If you take everybody who drives outside the city of Detroit that goes to Costco every day, because we are now able to keep them here, because we get a Costco, that would be a huge win."

Local operators want a seat at that table too. "We're the backbone of the community," Morningside Cafe owner Jeffrey Lewis II told ClickOnDetroit. "No one knows the neighborhood the way we do." Whether a single recruiter can move national chains off slow updating market studies is the open question, but Detroit is now staffing the effort as if the answer is worth paying for.