Posted on 08/07/2017 3:54:10 AM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
Diane Hendricks and her late husband saw opportunity in Beloit, a decaying industrial town. Now, she dreams of turning it into a mecca for start-ups.
When Diane Hendricks sees something she doesn’t like here, she buys it.
A bankrupt country club. A half-empty mall. Abandoned buildings. The rusting foundry down by the river. Beloit used to be a town that made papermaking machines and diesel engines. Ms. Hendricks thinks it can be a place where start-ups create the next billion-dollar idea, and she is remaking the town to fit her vision. She can do so because she is the second-richest self-made woman in the United States, behind only Marian Ilitch of Little Caesars Pizza, according to Forbes magazine.
“I see old buildings, and I see an opportunity for putting things in them,” says Ms. Hendricks, 70, who got her start fixing up houses here as a single mother and made her billions selling roofing felt, copper gutters and cement with her late husband, Ken.
Now Ms. Hendricks is fixing up Beloit.
She took the library from its historic location downtown and resurrected it inside a failing mall at the edge of town, replacing the original with a performing arts center where dance and music students from Beloit College can study and perform each year. Then she scooped up nearly every building on a downtown block and knocked each one down, making way for a sushi restaurant, a high-quality burger joint and modern apartments with marble countertops and exposed-brick walls.
Lyndon French for The New York Times “It’s the one thing that Ken and I said we’d never do: buy restaurants or a golf course. And now we have both.” Diane Hendricks, founder and chairwoman of ABC Supply.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
If you’re wondering where she got her money, she and her late husband started ABC Supply to do commercial and private roofing, window and similar jobs. Since 1980’s has grown to about $5B.
Evil rich! They should be taxed more so the government can support important programs, like supporting transgender muslim programs.
And isn’t it sad that he died from injuries suffered from falling through a roof!
What a wonderful story. I just hope that Beloit citizens will recognize her.
ABC Supply sponsors A. J. Foyt’s Indy Car team.
That is right! Take all of the money from the rich this year to provide free stuff for the poor.
Next year, we will do the same thing!
What do you mean, the rich won’t have any money! That isn’t fair! They are supposed to always have more money!
Throw them in jail until they have more money!
Yeah! That’ll work!
I am surprised that Pravda On The Hudson didn’t go after this woman on the charge of “gentrification”. /sarc
ah yes, “gentrification”. I always remember how Spike Lee was lamenting how his old Brooklyn neighborhood was gentrifying. He noted how these “white mothers pushing their strollers” don’t have the proper appreciation for the history and culture of the neighborhood as they come in and change things.
Yep, you get these yuppies moving in, and there goes the neighborhood. (sarcasm)
Yep, renovating a ghetto is bad per the liberal activist types.
Irony is that Spike Lee got out of Brooklyn and moved to Manhattan when he became wealthy and successful.
You mean on Indian land??
LOL, ya, Spike Lee moved to Indian country.
Beloit would be a GREAT place for a revival. Rockford, Illinois is still hurting, and long term prospects are best found just over the boarder. Foxconn is looking to locate JUST north of Chicago in Wisconsin. Beloit is looking to locate JUST north of Rockford, at the Wisconsin border. Coincidence? Even Ryan’s turf in Janesville would benefit. Janesville has recovered better than Rockford, but it is not where it was before the GM plant closed.
Wow! Didn’t know that.
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