News

Excerpt:

After months of delays, construction workers are busy getting Craftwork at 8047 Agnes St. in Detroit ready for a November opening. 

But Hugh Yaro, owner of the West Village restaurant as well as Commonwealth Cafe in Birmingham and Ronin Sushi in Royal Oak, first had to find a new executive chef. Michael Geiger, whom Yaro had originally tapped to be executive chef, diminished his role to consultant. 

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Everyone agrees that most cities and suburbs in our country are difficult to get around in without a car. Decentralized development has resulted in automobile-centric streets. But today, cities are re-purposing their streetscapes in a variety of ways, converting them into multifunctional civic spaces using the principles of Complete Streets.

These principles generally seek to create safe and efficient access to our movement corridors for a full array of transportation modes including cars, buses, pedestrians, wheelchairs, bicyclists, light rail, etc.

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Excerpt:

Delane Parnell had an idea: Bring tech-savvy entrepreneurs to Detroit, host them in a “fireside chat” format and let the conversation and connections flow from there.

So what would any 20-year-old guy do next? Find a name. Find a venue. Find some sponsors. Take his idea from conception to reality. Because Parnell, like any native Detroiter, knows that if you don’t do it yourself, it will never get done.

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Detroit filed the largest city bankruptcy in the history of the United States on Thursday. And that’s a great thing, according to the growing and vital cadre of startups that are helping to repopulate the city’s downtown core.

“It’s time to stop tinkering and rip the Band-Aid off to help us start fresh,” Bob Marsh, the CEO of job gamification startup Level Eleven, told me via email. “I see great potential for Detroit, and that’s why I started our company in the city nine months ago. The bankruptcy announcement is just one more step in the right direction.

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Amanda Brewington talks about why she choose Detroit as the location for her new coffee shop. 

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While Detroit has now earned the notorious distinction of being the largest municipality ever to file bankruptcy in U.S. history, over the years its food, arts and cultural scene has been thriving. Business owners and community members have been hard at work trying to push for a rebirth of the Rust Belt town, and as a result has created a city filled with unique cultural and culinary treasures. Here are 10 great reasons to visit Detroit --and not to write it off.

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Review proposals for new art and businesses on Livernois
Opening reception July 25, 6:00 – 9:00 PM
Open daily from 3:00 – 5:00 PM through August 3

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The idea of importing cachet to New York from Detroit might seem counterintuitive. But it makes sense when that cachet is coming from one of the more interesting recent start-ups in the Motor City, which, despite its continuing fiscal woes, has become a magnet for creative enterprise. The design brand Shinola, which started last year and takes its name from an iconic American shoe polish, has quickly acquired cult status for the watches, bicycles, leather goods and notebooks it produces in its downtown Detroit factory. Now, a month after opening a shop in its hometown, the company will introduce its New York flagship store tomorrow at 177 Franklin Street in TriBeCa. Daniel Caudill, the company’s creative director, emphasized that while Shinola is a heritage name, the company itself is a modern one. The space, he said, will feel “as if it had been there a while, but still be modern and clean.”

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Ann Arbor-based myfab5 is launching its software platform in Detroit this month, the startup's first foray outside of Washtenaw County. It's the latest sign of how the entrepreneurial ecosystems of each city are becoming increasingly intertwined.

The 1-year-old start-up is creating a social media platform that allows users to name their favorite eateries and bars. What separates myfab5 from more traditional websites like Yelp! is myfab5 allows its users to rank its top five restaurants in a metro area according to category, such as top five Chinese restaurants. It launched its Beta version earlier this year and is expanding to Detroit this summer.

"We felt Detroit was perfect," says Calvin Schemanski, co-founder of myfab5. "It has really good food but also because it's kind of hidden around town."

The startup is one of a growing number of new economy companies that either have roots in Ann Arbor and have moved to Detroit or are leveraging the Motor City's assets early to establish themselves. For instance, myfab5 and Savvy Languages (both Ann Arbor-based startups) are participating in TechTown's Launch Detroit program, a summer boot camp for aspiring entrepreneurs in college (both graduate and undergraduate) that want to launch tech startups. In myfab5's case, its three co-founders and six interns are leveraging both TechTown and its home base of TechArb.

Another new development tying the two cities together is EntreSlam expanding into Detroit. The Ann Arbor-based event got its start at Zingerman's a little more than a year ago. The event showcases local entrepreneurs telling stories about the ups and downs of their businesses.

EntreSlam's first Detroit event will take place at 7 p.m. Sunday at Bleu Detroit, 1540 Woodward Ave in downtown. The event will allow new and veteran entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs to tell stories about how they are "still standing." For information, click here.

Source: Calvin Schemanski, co-founder of myfab5
Writer: Jon Zemke

Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.

FoodLab Detroit is a network of triple-bottom-line food businesses in Detroit, founded by Jess Daniel, a Local Economy Fellow at Business Alliance for Local Living Economies. FoodLab launched in 2011 and has become a significant resource for food start-ups in the city, a place where entrepreneurs can share information, resources, provide mutual support, and learn how to balance their triple-focus businesses.  
 
One of the unique functions of FoodLab has been inadvertently performing is that of an informal connector between entrepreneurs and commercial kitchens in the city that will allow small start-up food businesses to use their space to make their products, a necessity for many of the food start-ups that aren't classified as cottage industry (the Cottage Food Law specifically excludes all items made with dairy and other products like salsa, pickles, and barbecue sauce) and for those that need more space than a home kitchen provides. From this emerging need for rentable commercial kitchen space, Kitchen Connect was born.
 
Daniel says that they were fielding inquiries both from entrepreneurs as well as churches and community organizations with kitchens that they wanted to open up for entrepreneurs to use. "We found out that it's pretty difficult," says Daniel. "A lot of these community organizations can't be there to open and close the doors, haven't necessarily thought through insurance or making sure their kitchen is up to code, or what to do if someone leaves it a mess. Over time the kitchen realizes, 'Oh, you've been using our hood and now utilities have gone up and you're only paying this much; we can't afford it,' and kick them out."
 
Kitchen Connect eliminates all of that by working with two partner community kitchens: St. Peter and Paul Orthodox Church in Southwest Detroit and Matrix Human Services in Osborn. These community kitchens in Detroit neighborhoods act as a preamble to the community kitchen that will open next year in Shed 5 in Eastern Market, which just received a $1 million grant from the MEDC. "These are community-driven spaces," says Devita Davison, Community Kitchen Coordinator at Eastern Market Corporation. "To be partnering with two kitchens that understand the power of community and bring folks together – I couldn't ask for better partners."
 
Kitchen Connect is a collaboration between Eastern Market, the fiduciary partner, and FoodLab, which is handling all technical assistance. They are also working with the city to show off the growing good food economy (and, ideally, make it easier for more businesses to launch). Davison references the 119 products from Michigan vendors on the shelves of the new Whole Foods Market, and emphasizes the need for our entrepreneurs to be able to utilize commercial kitchens and have that kind of opportunity.
 
Kitchen Connect is an incubator of sorts, but once the spaces are activated they will have additional programming, offering community cooking classes and other workshops, even host pop-ups. The partner kitchens also provide people in their respective communities access to a commercial kitchen, which might not have otherwise been easily accessible if they had been limited to the sort of usual suspect hubs (Midtown et.al.). "(Kitchen Connect) speaks to entrepreneurship opportunities that may open up to folks local in their own neighborhood," Davison says. Daniel adds, "A lot of the entrepreneurs we work with have issues with access. (Kitchen Connect) also means there are these hubs of incubation activity in a lot of different spaces."
 
They will start accepting applications at the end of June and will celebrate with a launch party on July 22.
 
Source: Jess Daniel, Founder of Foodlab and Local Economy Fellow at Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, and Devita Davison, Community Kitchen Coordinator at Eastern Market Corporation
Writer: Nicole Rupersburg

Got a Development News story to share? Email Nicole here.

Joe Uhl knows there is more to tea than what comes in a variety box from Lipton. The challenge for him is that finding that sort of high-end tea is difficult in North America, so he is starting his own company to meet that demand, Joseph Wesley Black Tea.

Uhl discovered the world of high-end, hand-harvested teas while studying in Malaysia in the early 1990s. Uhl was instantly hooked.

"I could see that tea can be something other than what I was exposed to in North America," says Joe Uhl, founder of Joseph Wesley Black Tea.

Enjoying these sorts of teas became a passion as his finished college and became an attorney. He went on to practice employment law for Miller Canfield. That career continued until early this year when he launched Joseph Wesley Black Tea from the city's East Side.

The slow-tea company specializes in selling high-end, hand-harvested teas. It has seven different styles and plans to introduce two more later this year. The one-man operation is now Uhl's full-time job as he focuses on growing Internet sales and the number of retail outlets carrying his teas. His teas can be found in the Stella International Cafe, Pure Detroit, Nest and Village Market, among other a handful of other stores.

"We're going to find out if America is ready to be introduced to really great, high-end teas," Uhl says.

Source: Joe Uhl, founder of Joseph Wesley Black Tea
Writer: Jon Zemke

Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.

The Work of Art is focused on bringing more art into Detroit's K-12 classrooms but not in the traditional way of proving resources for art classes. The new nonprofit wants to infuse art into the rest of the classes.

The downtown Detroit-based organization gives out grants, think small four-figures, to local teachers so they can put art into their lessons plans. For instance, the nonprofit supported a history teacher at the University Prepatory Academy who had her students write, put on and perform an original play about U.S. history.

"It's meant for a teacher to integrate art education into their classroom," says Amanda Kokas, founder of The Work of Art. "We want to give them the opportunity to expose their students to art."

Kokas is a former teacher in New York City who recently moved back to Michigan. Her passion for art education inspired her to start The Work of Art last year. In its first year, it awarded $10,000 to four teachers to inject more art into their professions. This year Kokas has raised $14,000 and is aiming for hit $20,000 by the start of the school year.

"We are hoping to at least double the number of grants we are giving out," Kokas says.

Source: Amanda Kokas, founder of The Work of Art
Writer: Jon Zemke

Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.

Detroit Sound Conservancy founder Carleton Gholz wants all to be aware of the city's globally massive music heritage. Even buildings that currently stand empty, like the United Sound studio, need protection. 

An excerpt: 

It's where Berry Gordy Jr. cut the first record that would lead the way to the Motown dynasty. Aretha Franklin used the studio to record the vocals to her 1985 hit "Freeway of Love." (Editor's note: Ironic, yes, that the building is now potentially in the way of an expanding 1-94 project?)

Funkadelic, which included George Clinton, recorded most of its music there. Miles Davis, the Dramatics, John Lee Hooker, Luther Vandross and Eminem also are among those who recorded tracks at 5840 Second Ave.

But the recording studio where the Motown sound got its start could be leveled as part of a project to reconstruct I-94 by adding a lane on both sides and installing continuous service drives along the freeway. 

Read more here.

The Compuware urban garden Lafayette Greens is now home to the first-ever farmers market in downtown Detroit. Located on the site of the former Lafayette Building, which was demolished in 2010, the garden is a result of Peter Karmanos, Jr. – Compuware's co-founder and Executive Chairman and also a Master Gardener – working with the city of Detroit to transform the area into a greenspace.
 
Lafayette Greens is a goodwill project of Compuware tended by volunteers. They grow organic fruits, vegetables and flowers in raised beds and have an heirloom orchard with apples, peaches and pears. There is also an aromatic lavender garden. The productive site yielded over 1,800 pounds of produce last year, which was donated to local food banks. The space is also designed as a park with plenty of seating where workers in the area can come for lunch and anyone can simply enjoy. Utilizing reclaimed materials such as concrete blocks, wooden pallets, and galvanized steel (roofing material) with a highly geometric design by Birmingham's Kenneth Weikal Landscape Architecture, the park pays homage to its urban setting. There are also sculptures from local artists on display. "It satisfies design (aesthetics) that other gardens don't," says Gwen Meyer, Garden Coordinator.
 
The land is city-operated and the garden merely temporary. If and when a developer decides to buy the land, the garden will no longer exist. "(Lafayette Greens allows us to think about) how we engage open spaces in our city," Meyer says.
 
They were already hosting events like cooking demonstrations and pop-up yoga when Greg Willerer of Brother Nature Produce approached them about hosting a weekday farmers market. This presented another opportunity to actively engage the community and activate the space. Vendors include Brother Nature (pick up some salad greens to take home or enjoy a fresh salad for lunch or dinner), Brooklyn Street Local, Food Field, Detroit Zen Center Café, and Detroit Bulk Company.
 
"It's really important to recognize the agricultural history in Detroit," says Meyer. "We would really like to encourage and inspire other corporations downtown to think about what they can do to be a good corporate citizen. We at Compuware are always eager to share the process we went through to encourage this to happen."
 
The Downtown Farmer's Market Detroit is open Thursdays from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
 
Source: Gwen Meyer, Garden Coordinator
Writer: Nicole Rupersburg

Got a Development News story to share? Email Nicole here.

The Detroit River is one of the city's greatest assets and a handful of entrepreneurs are building a business on the idea of making that asset available to everyone.

Detroit River Sports began offering rentals for small watercraft on Belle Isle earlier this month. Patrons can rent kayaks, canoes and paddle boards at the lagoon next to the Detroit Yacht Club.

"For the people who don't have that luxury (of owning a boat), it's hard to get on the river," says Andy Dold, co-founder of Detroit River Sports. "We want to make it accessible to everybody."

Dold co-founded the 1-month-old company with Brian Ellison and Alex Howeert. All three love to kayak and enjoy the Detroit River with small watercraft. They saw a demand for helping people enjoy the same experience in the city so they secured funding from the Community Investment Support Fund to launch the business this spring.

Detroit River Sports will remain open until this fall as long as the weather permits. Dold says his company plans to find a permanent location later this year so it can offer both rental and retail options. It also hopes to break into offering tours and youth programs as it continues to grow.

Source: Andy Dold, co-founder of Detroit River Sports
Writer: Jon Zemke

Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.