Amanda Elias Helps Revitalize Detroit

By Paul Natinsky

It was a marketing professor at Wayne State University that lured Amanda Elias away from her private sector job to her current home as a Senior Advisor to Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan.

“The way he talked about Detroit changed how I look at the city,” said Elias. She wondered why people were spending all of their money in the suburbs and wondered if Detroit could capture these dollars.

Lured from private sector

Elias had not planned to leave her job with International Outdoor Inc., a metro Detroit billboard company, but when the offer from the City of Detroit came, she saw that “Duggan was about to do some cool stuff.” She was intrigued.

“The mayor was building the city back after bankruptcy,” said Elias. She was attracted by Duggan’s ambitious revitalization plans.

When she joined Detroit’s economic development team, Elias started off overseeing all of the federal funding opportunities coming out of Washington, D.C. Elias said the federal Infrastructure bill was taking center stage at the time she started. She is now focused on the Inflation Reduction Act and has been assigned to manage opportunities emerging from Lansing.

“My job is to oversee all of the spending that is coming down the pipe in the form of competitive grants and making sure that the city has positioned itself to be the most competitive to go after that funding,” said Elias. “The strategy is don’t leave a dollar on the table; we have to go after everything.”

Duggan’s ambitions haven’t ebbed, and Elias’ interest hasn’t waned as Detroit sees new opportunities and faces further challenges.

“The mayor’s biggest focus this term is the physical landscape of the city. I think what people will start to see even more of is funding infrastructure projects—anything that changes the physical landscape of the city.”

Detroit as an event venue

In addition to rebuilding the city’s infrastructure, Duggan has his eye on making Detroit an attractive venue for events, which will bring money and jobs to a city long in need of both.

“We’re focused on pouring money into commercial corridors and cleaning up the corridors, we’re getting ready for the NFL Draft in 2024—that’s a huge focus right now—the mayor is obsessed with the 500,000 people that the draft will attract to the city and making sure people want to come back here and are excited to come back here,” said Elias.

Elias’ career has evolved in the same timeframe as Detroit’s comeback. She started with the mayor in June of 2014 on the economic development team as executive assistant to Tom Lewand, who ran economic development for the mayor. She then worked her way up to workforce development manager in 2018. After doing that for a year, she decided she didn’t like it and came back to the  economic development team as an economic advisor. That was her last stop until a year ago when she landed at government affairs.

Overcoming frustration

Her work at the mayor’s office opened Elias’ eyes to how frustrating the processes and protocols of big city regulations and operations can be, even to veteran businesspeople.

“I really enjoy the operational part of it and how to streamline it, navigate it. To get people to their end goal, whether that’s opening a business or putting a shovel in the ground,” said Elias. She enjoys helping people navigate the city process. Business owners and developers need apartments, right of way, zoning changes, business licenses. “No one really knows what to do next or where to start,” she said.

In addition to her economic development duties, Elias has become a de facto Director of the “office of development services,” her term for the yet-to-be-established position and department she envisions.

She is frustrated that people face so many barriers when they try to get projects done in the city. “There is no website or guidebook to go to that is intuitive. It’s the most important job in the city and we don’t have it.”

A bright future

Elias is the most senior level Chaldean employee in the Duggan Administration. She grew up in Madison Heights as the oldest of three children; she has a younger brother and sister.

This suburbanite who has been charmed by the City of Detroit sees a bright future for her adopted city.

“A new Detroit, different than what people remember from bankruptcy. More money coming into the city for infrastructure projects. That’s a huge focus for us.”

Onward and upward, Amanda.