Doner CEO David DeMuth floated a hell of a trial balloon Wednesday afternoon during an interview about the Southfield-based advertising agency's small new co-working space downtown.

"It's a toe in the water to see if we want to move the whole company down there when our lease is up next in 2020," he said this afternoon.

Wait ... what?

That's a big statement for a major CEO to make, whether it's a message to the company's current landlord or somewhat of a come-hither to downtown property owners to make their best offers. You can imagine the players scrambling to lure a major office tenant to take 100,000-square feet or more of office space.

While DeMuth said Doner has not retained a brokerage firm to look around for downtown space for its 450 or so employees, the company has "been talking to various entities about it."