Detroit Development News

[Lmichigan]

You know, I'm not sure I agree, Hud. While the economic development component of Woodward light rail has always been a huge component, I think the ridership has to make sense. A huge source of riders for the line current SMART and DDOT lines is the Fairgrounds, and it's the only thing that halfway justified the already kind of lowish potential ridership numbers. I think people don't realize how much of the ridership comes from north of New Center, sometimes.

I'm all for this line, if even it is now shortened and if only for the economic development potential, but I do question how its going to tie in with the DDOT and SMART lines. The Fairgrounds has always been a chokepoint for commuters trying to get to downtown and vice-versa. This essentially adds yet another point of transfer for anyone trying to get downtown or back up Woodward if you cut out bus service south of New Center. Ridership-wise, this really only makes sense for tourists and internal circulation of workers and visitors during the day; it's a lot like the People Mover in the practical function of it without it reaching even to the borders of the city to allow a transfer. To be honest, for regular commuters, this could actually make mass transit travel times along Woodward worse.

[hudkina]

From a commuter standpoint, you're right, but from a development standpoint, the stretch north of New Center was irrelevant. The new plan calls for BRT from New Center to Birmingham, and while people would likely have to transfer from the BRT to a streetcar, the speed and efficiency produced by both the streetcar and the BRT line would likely mean travel time would still be less than it is under current conditions.

The only reason to choose a streetcar over BRT or even a standard bus system is that it creates a sense of urbanism that helps attract new development. The reason they chose BRT over LRT is because it is cheaper to build and maintain and it has nearly the same speed and efficiency as LRT. The downside is that BRT doesn't have the same psychological effect on tourists and developers.

With a streetcar system, I think the best option is to cater to those who visit, live, and work in the greater downtown area. BRT is better suited for bringing people in from the suburbs and outer neighborhoods.

[Lmichigan]

Just a slight correction, but while BRT is cheaper up front, LRT is actually cheaper to maintain in the longrun.

BTW, I'm not convinced the BRT is even a real proposal. I think we might end up with the streetcar, but beyond that, I think SMART and DDOT will drag on until they absolutely won't be able to, anymore, given how the region waits to an imminent crisis before anything gets moving. The GOP legislature has already expressed disinterest (at best) in creating the regional transit authority. Without that, the BRT can't go anywhere since it's a regional project. It's crazy to realize, but the streetcar actually has moree of a chance since it doesn't cross municipal lines. lol

[Jim856796]

The cancelled light rail proposal called for 12 stations along Woodward Avenue, which would be reduced from 7 lanes to 5. I always thought the existing People Mover system was small and ineffective and only within the limits of the downtown area. But now the proposed light rail route would be replaced by a just-as-ineffective streetcar line.

[hudkina]

How would it be just as ineffective? It actually leaves the downtown neighborhood. It connects the three most important neighborhoods within the city. Someone who may live in Midtown, go to school in New Center, and work in downtown will find this WAY more effective than the people mover. A tourist wanting to visit the DIA and the Riverwalk without overpaying for a taxi would find this effective.

[Jim856796]

I should have supported Detroit's light rail proposal. Maybe a streetcar is too light?

[Lmichigan]

Originally Posted by Jim856796

I should have supported Detroit's light rail proposal. Maybe a streetcar is too light?

Honestly, what in the world are you going on about?

[Jim856796]

A streetcar just looks smaller than light rail. Proposal shouldn't have been dropped.

[hudkina]

In this case, streetcar and light rail are essentially synonymous. If you are imagining a little trolley like you'd see in parts of San Francisco (or that tourist trolley that ran on Washington Blvd in Detroit until the 90's) that's not what we are talking about.

[testdrive]

This might be an idea the could look at http://seattletransitblog.com/2011/1...ry-free-trams/

[Mudhen419]

http://www.wtol.com/story/16579905/p...wntown-lansing

Plans call for $245M casino in downtown Lansing

[Mudhen419]

http://www.wtol.com/story/16580151/d...ases-this-year

Detroit auto show attendance increases this year

[testdrive]

Interesting article in the Seattle Times today
New manufacturing jobs help Midwest Rust Belt gleam again

The economies of Michigan, Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania have improved faster than that of the rest of the country since the recession's depth in April 2009, according to the Philadelphia Federal Reserve. Michigan is expected to lead all 50 states during the next six months, the Fed data show.

By Jeff Green and Mark Niquette

Bloomberg News

SOUTHFIELD, Mich. — From Northern Michigan's iron mines to Pennsylvania's natural-gas fields, the industrial heartland of America is humming with jobs again as a region once left for dead recovers faster than the rest of the United States.

The turnaround may shape this year's race for the White House as President Obama seeks to reverse Republican gains in the Midwest.

The economies of Michigan, Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania — all states Obama won in 2008 — have improved faster than that of the rest of the country since the recession's depth in April 2009, according to the Philadelphia Federal Reserve. Michigan is expected to lead all 50 states during the next six months, the Fed data show.

"We're going back to a region we abandoned a long time ago to get energy again from rocks that were already drilled a thousand times," said Clay Williams, chief financial officer for Houston-based National Oilwell Varco, which started in Oil City, Pa., in 1862.

Economic recovery in Rust Belt states may bolster re-election chances for Obama, who pushed the government-backed bailout of Michigan-based General Motors and Chrysler.

From Detroit and Pittsburgh to Peoria, Ill., and the town of Mellen in Wisconsin's Penokee Hills, employers plan to add jobs and facilities. Automakers are ramping up production as demand returns, energy companies are exploiting oil and natural-gas sources, commodity prices are supporting a return to long-closed iron and copper mines, and agriculture companies are finding new export markets.

Improvement in unemployment, which dropped 19 percent in Ohio and 29 percent in Michigan from April 2009 through the end of last year, is a key driver for the Midwest recovery, said Jason Novak, senior economic analyst for the Philadelphia Fed.

Automakers are increasing production after U.S. light-vehicle sales rose at least 10 percent for two straight years for the first time since 1984. This month, GM announced it had regained the title as the top-selling global automaker, which it lost to Toyota as it slid into bankruptcy.

The Obama campaign is banking on the auto industry's comeback to damp the appeal of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in Michigan, where his father was a popular governor, as well as to reverse Ohio's swing to Republicans in the 2010 midterm elections.

Ohio added 72,400 jobs last year. That included 18,300 manufacturing positions after losing 419,400 such jobs from 1999 to 2009, federal data show.

Vallourec is completing a rolling mill in Youngstown next to its V&M Star facility to produce seamless tubes for hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. The plant is to employ 350 people.

U.S. Steel invested $100 million in its Lorain Tubular Operations to serve oil and natural-gas customers, creating about 150 temporary construction jobs and 100 full-time positions, spokeswoman Courtney Boone said.

Ohio's unemployment was 8.1 percent in December, down from 9.5 percent a year earlier and the lowest since December 2008, according to the Ohio Bureau of Labor Market Information.

A study commissioned by Ohio's oil and gas industry projects that by 2015 drilling could help fuel $12 billion in spending while creating and supporting more than 200,000 Ohio-based jobs.

"People in the eastern part of this state — who have been living, in many ways, in poverty with the shutdown of great industrial production in Ohio — they may have another chance," Republican Gov. John Kasich said in September.

The recovery isn't just about autos and shale; it's all sorts of related industries, said Huntington Bancshares CEO Steve Steinour.

The Columbus, Ohio-based bank, which recently opened its first branches in Detroit, is in the midst of a $2 billion lending binge in Michigan, where unemployment dropped to 9.3 percent in December from 11.1 percent a year earlier.

The state has created a team focused on exporting products to other countries, including a pilot program to identify 100 companies that can sell consumer goods to China, said Mike Finney, CEO of the Michigan Economic Development Corporation. Other industries also are improving.

"Mining is something that's picking up fairly aggressively here," said Finney, referring to iron-ore operations in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Also, "the agriculture sector here is really doing well."

Agricultural Co-op Cherry Growers is adding production lines with about 94 jobs during the next three years in Grawn to manufacture applesauce snacks for Materne-Confilux. The Gogo SqueeZ treats produced in the northern Michigan factory are sold at Wal-Mart, Target and Whole Foods.

The new jobs, which rely heavily on automation, are a good fit for unemployed autoworkers, Cherry Growers President Brian Mitchell said.

Michigan gained 66,000 jobs in 2011, according to a Jan. 13 state report. It was the first gain in the state since 2000.

The Rust Belt rebound also means office space is nearly full in Pittsburgh as natural-gas exploration companies and others move in, Steinour said. Pittsburgh just received improved outlooks on its credit ratings from Moody's Investors Service and Standard & Poor's, going to stable from negative, after shoring up its pension funds.

Pennsylvania has seen increases in jobs and tax revenue with the development of the Marcellus Shale. Activity has risen to 1,751 wells drilled in 2011 from 195 in 2008, according to the state's Environmental Protection Department. Republican Gov. Tom Corbett has said he wants his state to be the "Texas of the natural-gas boom."

Other Midwestern states are seeing moribund industries revive. In Wisconsin, the state Assembly on Jan. 26 sent to the Senate a bill designed to streamline the state's mining-permit process that supporters say will clear the way for Gogebic Taconite to create about 700 iron-mining jobs near Lake Superior in the town of Mellen.

In Illinois, where unemployment fell to 9.8 percent last month after hitting 11.2 percent in January 2010, Peoria's Caterpillar is expanding to meet demand for shovels and trucks that miners use to dig coal, copper and ore.

Caterpillar, the world's largest maker of construction and mining equipment, announced plans in November to invest $300 million to expand a Decatur factory that builds trucks, and $340 million to manufacture tractors in East Peoria.

"We've always heard this Rust Belt thing about our region, even just a few years ago," said Steinour, speaking of the disparaging image of closed factories and declining industry. "But you don't hear it so much now, and we might not have to hear it much in the future."

[deepdive282]

http://detroit2020.com/2012/02/01/ho...tney-building/

[hudkina]

I think the initial idea that Downtown's hotel market would be saturated for years is turning out to be somewhat unfounded. I can't wait to see this project start.

[Lmichigan]

I really like what's becoming of Grand Circus Park. Finally, the connection between Foxtown and Lower Woodward that we've all been waiting for. I'm sure the folks at Kales will enjoy having more night options in the neighborhood, too.

BTW, so long as no one size or kind of hotel is overdone in the district, saturation shouldn't be a problem. One of the silver linings of downtown's perpetually volatile hotel is market is that it's forced the ones that have survived to be creative creating a unique mix of hotel, downtown from the very barebones to the opulent, from huge to tiny. As the city gets healthier, we can get the generic bulk, later.

[deepdive282]

Buffalo Wild Wings to open in Detroit near Campus Martius, Greektown

Buffalo Wild Wings is coming to Detroit.

The restaurant will be in the Odd Fellows Building, at 1211 Randolph St. on the corner of Randolph and Monroe streets — on the border between Campus Martius and Greektown.

The 12,000-square-foot restaurant will seat 350 and is spread over three floors: the main bar on the first floor, a second-floor banquet operation and a rooftop patio bar.

Michael Ansley, CEO of Southfield-based Diversified Restaurant Holdings, said he has kept his eye on the Odd Fellows Building for several years.

"Literally, my broker and I have been working on this for 3½ years," Ansley said. "I knew I wanted to be down there, but what sold me was when I went there a couple years ago, sitting in Campus Martius, looking at that building. That is what sold me."

Construction on the project, which Ansley said is the largest he has worked on, is to begin in April. The restaurant should be running by November.

Ansley said the project will cost about $3 million, but he could not give a projected sales figure for the space.

Diversified Restaurant Holdings owns and operates 22 Buffalo Wild Wing franchises throughout Florida and Michigan. It also owns the Bagger Dave's Legendary Burgers and Fries restaurant franchise, which it also hopes to bring to Detroit.

http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article...tius-greektown

[GarfieldPark]

Nice building -- at least the top three floors. Not thrilled with the way the first floor looks - completely ignoring the style of the rest of the building. I'm not sure if this always happens with urban BW3's but - a new one opened in downtown Indy about three or four years ago and they completely disregarded the fact that it was in a limestone, 1920's era, deco style building. They slapped this same type of black and yellow stuff all over the first floor, covered up the windows and included some new rough-cut limestone blocks along the baseline of the building that completely clashed with the smooth cut limestone of the rest of the building. Anyway -- there might not be much that can be done. Its good to have a new restaurant -- I just wish they could figure out a way to design it to better match the style of the rest of the building.

[hudkina]

I'd say this "style" is common for most urban "franchise" stores, not just BWW. It's good to see this building has a bright future after almost being razed a few years ago.

[casamagda]

Originally Posted by deepdive282

http://detroit2020.com/2012/02/01/ho...tney-building/

Do any of you Detroit cats have an inside line on the sales and marketing firm selling the condo units in this building?
The David Whitney Building would make a great summer home!