Detroit can't be a "world-class city" without more major anchor retailers choosing to locate there, an official at construction company Barton Malow Co. said Wednesday during a real estate panel as part of the annual Detroit Homecoming event.

Dannis Mitchell, the client and community engagement manager for the Southfield-based company that is working on Dan Gilbert's Hudson's site development downtown, joined other players in Detroit real estate: Dietrich Knoer, president and CEO of Detroit-based developer The Platform; Paula Carethers, who is heading up Corktown campus development for Ford Land; Mark Bennett, managing director of MJBennett PLLC; and Sherry Wang, managing director of Goldman Sachs' Urban Investment Group.

Crain's produces Detroit Homecoming, which is in its sixth year and draws former metro Detroit residents to the city to learn and potentially invest. The panel moderated by Crain's reporter Kirk Pinho focused on the evolution of the city's real estate market.

"Detroit needs major anchor tenants," Mitchell said during the panel. ""We can't be a world-class city without that. It's impossible."

She referenced the Wednesday morning news that Troy mall Somerset Collection is leasing space in the historic Metropolitan Building in downtown Detroit for temporary, rotating space for its 180 or so retailers:

"The pop-up shops have been happening for two to three years now," Mitchell said. "We need places like Somerset (Collection) to make a substantial commitment to the city of Detroit ... Local is great, I love local, but we also have to have more major anchor tenants ..."

Many Detroiters shop for goods and services outside the city. They spend $2.6 billion in retail stores in the suburbs each year, according to an oft-cited study the Detroit Economic Growth Corp. released in 2018. Knoer brought it up during the panel Wednesday.

The DEGC intended to use the data to convince more property owners and retailers to invest in commercial corridors outside downtown Detroit, where it found ample demand for grocers, restaurants and service businesses.

There are restaurants near Ford Motor Co.'s planned $740 million campus in the Corktown neighborhood, but what's "really needed" are amenities and "basic stuff" such as pharmacies, Carethers said.

Ford doesn't want to do all the development itself, but it's looking at how it can support the neighborhood, Carethers said later Wednesday during a tour of the Dearborn-based automaker's Corktown real estate information center.

Though Carethers brought up grocers, and pointed to Meijer Inc. as a big company whose small-format stores can incorporate often-desired local elements such as florists or butchers, she said it is "unlikely" a big-box grocery store would come to a Ford building in Corktown any time soon.

Ford has been approached by grocery chains wanting to locate in Corktown, she told Crain's after the panel, but the company is "not going to put one" in its Michigan Central Station.

Meijer has long planned a small-format grocery store in Detroit on East Jefferson Avenue. Another is expected to open early next year along Woodward Avenue in Royal Oak.

"... Detroit does feel under-retailed," said Wang of Goldman Sachs, which invested in redevelopment on Detroit's east riverfront. "(But) I have to say that ... I think the city has an opportunity to really cultivate and create retail in a way that makes sense for the 21st century. And, in many ways, really leap-frog a lot of other cities that are trying to figure out what to do with mega, Class C malls that are no longer really attracting as many shoppers ..."