“Didn’t quite mesh with the surroundings”
ELIZABETH NELSON:
Welcome to Episode 18 of Hollow Hype. In Episode 17, Heidi explains away her criminal past with excuses that do not match the facts. What happened in Ohio and West Virginia is not ancient history: in 2010, Heidi narrowly avoided prison. Just three years later, in 2013, Heidi bought her first house in Ann Arbor.
On October 16, 2026, Heidi appeared at bankruptcy court in Detroit. This hearing should have confirmed plans to pay off creditors and resolve the bankruptcy of Southtown, but the money isn’t there. Agile Solar has not delivered the $54 million they promised. The court agreed to give Heidi more time.
[2026 court recording]
JUDGE:
Is there gonna be enough money? even if agile comes through with the money Is it going to be enough? So that's why knowing what it needs to what it's going to take, while it seems like it's just something that you have to fix up by the time of the confirmation hearing, maybe not. You need to know now. I would think. That's not something to be left to guesswork at the 11th hour,
HEIDI:
It's possible that we didn't get Schedule A properly into this last filing and I think that that is about a million dollars. What we put in here might be about a million dollars lower than what schedule A was. It's just whatever's left over from paying all the allowable claims is what goes to the project moving forward.
JUDGE:
where it says post plan confirmation development proceeds 10 million that- I'm speaking colloquially and I apologize -It's sort of a slush fund, a cushion.
HEIDI:
If you'd like, I can ask them to rewrite the letter with more specificity around how that number will be arrived at.
JUDGE:
I'm going to defer to Mr. Welford on that
HEIDI:
Ok
[MUSIC]
ELIZABETH NELSON:
My name is Elizabeth Nelson. From 2018 to 2022, I served on Ann Arbor City Council. That experience taught me a lot. Mostly, I learned: people will say just about anything if they think you’ll believe it. This is HOLLOW HYPE.
Heidi’s story includes a lot of numbers:
the $130,000 that she stole from clients in California
the 50 jobs that she promised but failed to deliver in Ohio and West Virginia
the millions in federal, state, and local funds that she laundered through Sequelle
the $848,000 in restitution she was required to pay back after her conviction
the millions that Heidi would receive from life insurance policies after Marge died
the $31 million in debt from the Southtown development
the $17 million that Heidi hopes to collect from investors in Southtown.
But, what Heidi has done in Ann Arbor is more than just numbers.
In 2023, when Heidi first asked for a rezoning of Southtown, the chair of the planning commission, Shannon Gibb Randall, pointed out the problem of rezoning in a way that would permit every single unit to function as full-time Airbnbs.
[2023 recorded meeting]
COMMISSION CHAIR SHANNON GIBB RANDALL:
I have a hard time seeing how this could not just turn into Airbnb land. And that is exactly the opposite of what we want. Because if this becomes all Airbnb in my mind, it's better if you leave those existing houses which are at least affordable.
I want this thing to have people living in it. That's what I want.
ELIZABETH NELSON:
Planning Commissioner Ellie Abrons did not find this argument compelling. She focused on the numbers.
COMMISSIONER ELLIE ABRONS:
the rezoning petition in front of us to C1AR is undoubtedly, no matter what, would get built there better than what exists. Would you agree?
But 200 units of housing is better than 38.
ELIZABETH NELSON:
The future site of Southtown is currently an empty lot. It’s been that way for nearly a year. The homes were levelled just weeks before Heidi initiated the bankruptcy for Southtown. There are now zero units of housing on that block, and currently no money to build anything new.
Real people used to live there.
[MUSIC]
PAUL:
I was there for, I was here for about two years. And that, yeah, you know, I did, you know, develop pretty friendly relationship with the gentleman on my floor and the Reyes family on the first floor.
ELIZABETH NELSON:
Paul lived on White Street.
PAUL:
For me at that place in my life, it let me stay here, let me stay in Ann Arbor for a period of time when I needed to be here. And, you know, it wasn't tied to the university or anything like that. It was a different aspect of the community that I needed to be here for.
ELIZABETH NELSON:
Paul came to Ann Arbor to find a supportive place for someone in recovery.
PAUL:
I lived in Traverse City for a little bit after school, and again, didn't have it at this point, didn't have a driver's license, was in a bad place, and ultimately went to a residential treatment out of state, did that, stayed in housing down there, and ultimately came back and didn't stay sober when I returned to Michigan. What I needed to do was go be somewhere that I could be a part of a community of people in recovery. I understood that that was in Ann Arbor. I understood that there was public transit in Ann Arbor. I understood that there would be job opportunities in Ann Arbor. So ultimately that is what brought me here, and that would have been in 2020.
Yeah, I mean, since I couldn't drive, I was, prior to that, living in the sublet that I had prior to living here. I was taking the bus and I was waking up early and it was challenging and I got real tired of that. It was really convenient. It was really convenient to kind of just roll out of bed and stroll across the street and the CVS right here, you know, I could pick up my drugs and small things that I might need. When I really had to do the laundry, what I ended up doing is - this is, I hope this wouldn't upset anybody from the Salvation Army but - you know, I would snag a shopping cart from Salvation Army and throw my laundry in and wheel it over to Mr. Stadium over there and get it all done at once.
ELIZABETH NELSON:
The housing that Paul found on White Street was centrally located and affordable, compared to elsewhere.
PAUL:
Yeah, it was four units. There was one, the largest unit was on the first floor. And again, that was the Reyes family, who, again, it was the mother and father and the adult daughter and an infant. And I wouldn't know how much they were paying. On the second floor, it was myself and a middle-aged career professional gentleman, again, who was really just looking for a temporary landing zone for work purposes. I was paying 950, and I don't know what he was paying, but it must've been something similar. And we were both sharing a bathroom on that floor. And then there was kind of a loft, attic kind of setup all the way upstairs. She had her own personal bathroom up there.
ELIZABETH NELSON:
Heidi’s company, Prentice Partners, bought the property in 2022.
Paul’s house wasn’t in great shape. One day he came home to a notice posted on the door.
PAUL:
(reading)
“This building or portion thereof is non-compliant due to the following conditions. Failure to obtain or appear for scheduled inspection of premises. Failure to correct violations within the time limit specified. Failure to obtain a current certificate of compliance with the city of Ann Arbor."
ELIZABETH NELSON:
Squirrels had gotten in the walls.
PAUL:
I could hear them crawling around in the ceiling, probably they climbed up through a tree and into the gutter or however they got in there, but they were living in there. And to, you know, Prentice Partners credit, I mean, that's who came and addressed it. When I look back through my emails, they did come and address it.
ELIZABETH NELSON:
Paul left White street in 2023, around the time his lease ended.
PAUL:
It's great that I ended up where I did and it helped bridge that gap for me at that point in time to help me get to where I am now.
ELIZABETH NELSON:
In the years since he left, he got his drivers license back. He has a much better job now, working for a local nonprofit, helping other people in recovery. He’s preparing to buy a house, with help from his mother.
PAUL:
I feel very fortunate to have the opportunity to do that because I know it's not just me. There's just like people my age like understand this is happening. It's not realistic. It's not sustainable, what is going on in terms of housing and that. You know, I feel like you stick to the script and get an education and go to work, and try your best, and this and that. It's just not, not what we thought we were signing up for. That’s why I’m just saying, I know that it’s not me and I'm very lucky to be in the position to become a home owner right now
[MUSIC]
TYLER STONE:
My first time in Ann Arbor was when we moved here, essentially. And that was in 2013, 2014-ish. And we moved to 1608 White Street. That was kind of the first place that we lived. And then it was the only place that we lived up until the building got demolished and we bought a home just about a mile down the road.
ELIZABETH NELSON:
That’s Tyler. He and his wife lived on White street for ten years. They had a different landlord than Paul.
TYLER STONE:
I was in 1608. So 1608 was under Pat Burwald. And then some of the houses on State Street, It was four or five of them were all owned by Pat.
She was just kind of this like really nice but a little kooky old lady that just loved gardening. And bird watching. And she was just kind of in it because she loved the buildings.
And all of the backyards were connected. And Pat, who loved the garden, was just kind of always around like in the backyard, just like planting flowers and doing this and that. So it always looked really pretty. They were outdated and old, but also the rent was really cheap. 1608 was broken into four apartments. The first floor was all one. There was a studio in the basement. There was a two bedroom upstairs and a studio upstairs. And there was a gentleman that lived in the studio upstairs and had lived there for 10 years. And I think that he was only paying like $400 a month or something. And that would be and that was all utilities included except for Internet. There was a woman that lived in one of the houses behind ours that had been there for like 20 years.
Day to day, it was quiet. It was fun. It was a great place to live. And so we would - when somebody was moving out, usually because they were graduating - Pat would let us know and we would talk amongst our friends and be like, hey, is anybody looking for a place to live? We've got a it's a great location. It's right on a bus line. You technically can walk to campus if it's a nice day, take you about 40 minutes.
ELIZABETH NELSON
When Heidi started buying up properties on the block, Tyler knew that Pat would be selling soon.
TYLER STONE:
I knew that the sale was happening.
I knew that it was coming. I knew that we were not paying very much for rent. Maybe 1250. And it was probably thirteen hundred square feet.
We knew that we weren't going to be leaving quite yet. So I did talk to Pat beforehand and reached out and was like, hey, like, can we renew for two years? And Pat was like, oh, sure. Happy to do it. Same rate? Yeah, we'd love that. That's great. Thank you, Pat. So after Prentice Partners bought it, I don't know how well they looked at the paperwork, but, you know, they ended up reaching out to us and like, oh, hey, we're going to be raising your rent. And I very gleefully got to respond, “not for two years, like I'm actually settled in place. But thank you. I'll talk to you then.”
ELIZABETH NELSON:
Other people on the block were not so lucky.
TYLER STONE:
The whole, all of the people that were in Pat's properties, I think almost everybody, if not everybody left once they took over. Because why would you pay double, triple, quadruple what you were paying before? Because it's not like they came in and updated. They just bought the house.
Oh yeah, oh, they jacked, they jacked rent up. Like, the old boy that was living in that studio. That was paying what, like 450 or whatever I said. I think they raised his rent to maybe 1250. And honestly, it doesn't matter even if that was market. I would say market was probably 950 or 1000 at the time. That's probably what the going rate would have been. But you can't quadruple somebody's rent and expect them to take it on the chin. It doesn't matter. It doesn’t matter If they can't find something cheaper somewhere else, they'll leave.
ELIZABETH NELSON:
Tyler has some experience in real estate.
TYLER STONE:
I was originally a high school theater teacher before we moved here. When we got here, there just wasn't anywhere that was hiring. And so I just started applying for anything that I could get.
Within a year of us moving in here, I was working in residential. Yeah.
I worked in residential real estate for seven or eight years. And then I transitioned into commercial real estate for three or four. Here in Ann Arbor only, yeah.
ELIZABETH NELSON:
I asked him what he thought of Heidi and Marge
[MUSIC]
TYLER STONE:
My initial impression was that they were out of towners, out of touch out of towners. A lot of residential property management people look at Ann Arbor, and they go, “Oh my god, this is incredible. Look at what the rents are that people are paying here. We got to get in on this!” And what they don't realize is that those rents are inflated by the students. Because when you're close to campus, when you're within that mile, you can charge almost whatever you want and the students will pay it.
So, you know, rent is two thousand dollars for one bedroom in a larger apartment. No problem. I'll use my parents credit card and pay it off. You get outside of that bubble, though, and you try and charge those rates. And there are a couple of properties that have attempted that around here. And you can't fill it. There's not going to be this plethora of young professionals that are looking to spend thousands and thousands of dollars in rent, because if they have that income, they're going to be looking to purchase.
I know that the rent that they're charging is exorbitant and it's just not gonna, they're just not gonna get it. Right, which tells me either they're so out of touch that they don't know what market is or they put way too much money into construction and are desperately trying to crawl themselves out of a hole.
When I worked in the residential market, I was mostly doing leasing, apartment leasing. I do know the market and I do know where people that would pay that amount live, and it is not right here. It is 100% not right here because there is a reason that affordable housing is there and there's a reason affordable housing is right there because this is not a sexy place to live. It's a great place to live. I loved living here. We lived here for 10 years. If the timing had been different, we might've even tried to buy the house from Pat. We loved that house, truly, truly loved it.
[sound effect, steps on gravel]
ELIZABETH NELSON:
I met Paul and Tyler on the block where they used to live. We set up folding chairs in the rubble, just outside the fencing that now circles an empty lot full of weeds.
[sound effect, wheels on pavement]
ELIZABETH NELSON:
Where we sat, we were maybe 100 feet away from the Salvation Army store where Paul used to borrow a shopping cart to carry his clothes to the laundromat. We sat directly across the street from subsidized housing to the east and within sight of more subsidized housing to the north. Southtown is surrounded by intentional, subsidized, affordable housing.
TYLER STONE:
This area was kind of just a lovely little holdout of some of the greater gentrification that's happening in Ann Arbor, which is gonna happen, right, you know? But it was all of, you know, it was a couple small apartment buildings, but it was a lot of old homes that had been turned into apartment buildings, and they were affordable. You could live here not because your parents are wealthy. You could live here as a human being under whatever small amount of money you were working or making as a graduate student or as like somebody that was working local to the area, And the location was great. At the time, Lucky's was still open, Venue is now where Lucky's was. And so that was a grocery store you could walk to.
ELIZABETH NELSON:
The Lucky’s grocery store was gone by the time Paul moved to White Street. When he moved in, Heidi and Marge had already established Venue.
PAUL:
Myself and the gentleman who lived on the floor with me, we did go over into Venue a couple of times and, it was weird but, you know, they obviously put a lot of work into it .I remember going in there and kind of being surprised, I was like, oh, this is just like, this is just like a really big restaurant. This is like the huge footprint for a restaurant here. And again, it just, to me, it just felt, it just didn't quite mesh with the surroundings in terms of just being, upper scale type menu and atmosphere and not that there's anything wrong with that. It just felt a little out of place. It was never a grocery store while I lived here, but that would have made my life a lot easier during that period of time if it was.
ELIZABETH NELSON:
Compared to some residents, Paul and Tyler haven’t lived in Ann Arbor very long. They haven’t lived here long enough to feel nostalgia about it.
PAUL:
I would have gotten here about six years ago. So I don't have a lot of reference for like the good old days of Ann Arbor, but I do hear people talk about it, you know, that it's lost a lot of its ethos, and there's not one person that I've talked to that is like, wow, isn't it great that we have all these, luxury high-rises? Like, they just look great. Like, no, all I hear is people complaining about it, and it does leave you wondering, but again, at the end of the day, it's not, it's really not all that much of a surprise when you come down to the dollars and cents of things, that there's people that, you know, that's how decisions get made. Especially if you wrap it up in a nice, neat package that aligns with, sustainability goals, or whatever the case may be. Again, I'm not bashing sustainability, but that, again, it just bothers me, you know?
TYLER STONE:
Were the houses super nice? No. Were they pretty outdated? Absolutely they were outdated. Were they well loved? Yes. And to have it just be an empty lot now, seems like such a shame. And it seems like such a shame to lose, to lose something that can't and won't be recreated.
And to lose that, is just like, it feels like the city loses a little bit of its soul. It loses a little bit of that something that makes it unique and charming and makes Ann Arbor Ann Arbor. Because any town can have a high rise. Any town can have a mid rise. But to have these old houses, you can't recreate that. And ultimately, you know, will it be better to have a mid-rise here that can fit more people? Sure, people need a place to live. But it does come at the cost of like, it being a place where people could live affordably.
ELIZABETH NELSON:
Paul and Tyler lived next door to each other, but had very different experiences on that block. Paul’s apartment was poorly maintained. His landlord did not take care of the house.
PAUL:
I don't miss it. I don't miss the squirrels in the ceiling.
ELIZABETH NELSON:
Tyler’s landlord, Pat, cared about the homes and her tenants.
TYLER STONE:
During the summer, sometimes we’d just get a knock on our door and we'd open it up and there she’d be and she’d just have like a bag of tomatoes and be like, I grew way too many tomatoes again. Do you want some? Yeah, absolutely. Thanks. And she was a lovely landlord, she clearly cared for the property and she clearly loved those homes.
Pat was very much an exception. Landlords are not in the business of providing homes to people. Landlords are in the business of making themselves money. And providing homes is the means of which they do it, but it's not their primary goal.
ELIZABETH NELSON:
In the sale records for that block, a handful of transactions stand out. Tyler’s landlord, Pat, sold six homes to Heidi and Marge for bargain prices. Pat sold 1605 State Street for just $310,000. Of the six properties, the house Tyler lived in sold for the highest price: $468,000.
Paul’s house was not owned by Pat and it was in rough shape. But Paul’s landlord struck a better deal when he sold out. Heidi and Marge were motivated. They paid $850,000 for a house with squirrels in the ceiling.
[MUSIC]
ELIZABETH NELSON:
Heidi and Marge bought the entire block of Southtown for just $7.2 million. After City Council rezoned it, the property was appraised and valued at almost $30 million.
In Ann Arbor, rezonings like Southtown are the new norm. Every plan to bulldoze and build bigger is framed as a step towards efficiency, equity and inclusion. The magic of supply and demand. City Council is expected to approve every rezoning, as fast as possible. Their largest campaign donors demand it.
In just the last four years, one such donor has given almost $25,000 to Mayor Christopher Taylor, his endorsed candidates for City Council, and the political action committee that supports all of them.
In 2023, when Heidi asked for a rezoning, he was one of Southtown’s most enthusiastic cheerleaders.
He spoke to the Planning Commission.
ADAM GOODMAN:
Hello Adam Goodman I'm here tonight because I'm really excited about this project I think that it is um almost everything that our city has been asking for from developers.
With all these great benefits uh I would think that you know we should be, the city should be bending over backwards to make sure that this gets approved as efficiently as and expediently as possible um and unfortunately it doesn't seem like that's quite what's happening it seems like this project is getting run through the ringer
ELIZABETH NELSON:
When the Planning commission postponed a decision, he was exasperated. He didn’t care that it might become, as one commissioner said, Airbnb land.
ADAM GOODMAN:
I really just think we need to be more permissive in our zoning, in our deliberations, to make it possible for developers to give us the things that we do want,
I do, in fact, think that just about any C1A/R development in the proposed South Town location would be better than than the current R4C. I guess if I did have one concern about the development it would be that it’s too perfect, it might give us the idea that developments with similar features could succeed everywhere in Ann Arbor.
ELIZABETH NELSON:
Not everyone agrees.
TYLER STONE:
As you can see, we have a beautiful empty lot with overgrown plants and leaves where formerly an assortment of very charming little houses were and a few small apartment buildings. What an improvement. What a glorious, glorious state of affairs to be in.
[MUSIC]
ELIZABETH NELSON:
Beyond the vacant lot at Southtown, this neighborhood is forever changed, since Heidi and Marge set their sights on it.
A house at 809 Henry street used to be a homeless shelter for Veterans, called Haven of Hope. In 2022, Heidi and Marge bought the Haven of Hope house and immediately converted it into an upscale Airbnb. That’s the home they were living in one year ago, the home where Marge was found dead.
Heidi saw opportunities to redevelop other parts of the neighborhood. She talked about buying out the Salvation Army store and the CVS. Marge’s estate reported thousands of dollars in donations to Avalon, the nonprofit that owns subsidized housing just across the street from Southtown. Did they hope to buy up those properties, too?
PAUL:
I feel like we're going backwards in some of these ways, you know? Because again I’m seeing people that, the reason that they’re in this community is because there are resources, there’s resources for people who need them, that other places in Michigan simply don’t have. But then at the end of it, access to housing is not one of those, it’s just not one of those. And so it just feels wrong to me that people invest this time and energy into working on themselves. But they're not millionaires, and they don't have master's degrees, so they don’t get to live in Ann Arbor.
Thanks for listening. Visit HollowHype.com to find more information about this episode.
Coming up in episode 19: how does a community react when someone like Heidi is exposed? What is happening in Ann Arbor and what happened in Ohio?
If you have something to share about Heidi’s activities in Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia, or California. Please reach out to hollowhypepodcast@gmail.com
