Midtown : News

Excerpt: 

Last month, Mayor Mike Duggan announced the formation of Detroit's first "innovation district," stretching up Woodward Avenue from the riverfront to New Center.

Read more. 

Detroit, burdened with a 14.5 percent unemployment rate, high crime, and the largest U.S. municipal bankruptcy on record, doesn’t get a lot of good press. Most recently, a city task force argued for demolishing 10 percent of local buildings. That makes it tough for the city’s big businesses to lure talented professionals, even at the entry level. Play Detroit word association with job seekers from out of state, and “blight” will probably come to mind before “bars.”

Read more. 

Excerpt: 

Debates about gentrification notwithstanding, watching a blighted area get a new lease on life can be awfully heartening. We've listed a few of the most promising and unlikely rebirths below.

Read more. 

Excerpt:

Utility work for the $140 million M-1 Rail project has already begun, and Rock Ventures President and CEO Matt Cullen said he expects to officially break ground for the lightrail track this summer. Once that work begins, the project will be finished in about two years, Cullen said Wednesday at a Detroit Economic Club lunch panel.

Read more. 

Excerpt: 

“The car industry aside, Detroit is one of the historic hotbeds of design in America,” says New York–based event producer and installation artist David Stark, in anticipation of Culture Lab Detroit (April 24–26), a program designed to inspire collaboration between leading international talent and their local counterparts. “We often don’t remember that Detroit was once one of the most affluent cities in America, but go there now—you feel how much important design history abounds.”

Read more. 

Excerpt: 

Inside a sleek, modern storefront, a collection of Japanese tea pots shines in the February sunlight. Towels create a collage across one wall. And mobiles with bright, bold geometric shapes dangle from the ceiling.

A Brooklyn boutique? Try Nora on Cass Avenue right in Midtown Detroit.

Read more. 

Excerpt: 

To repurpose all of the vacant land in Detroit, many have called for large-scale urban farming. Now Carolyn and Scott Lowell, owners of the Traffic Jam & Snug and numerous apartments in Midtown, are bringing one of the pillars of the agricultural age to the Motor City — a family-owned dairy barn from the west side of Michigan.

Read more. 

Excerpt: 

Once famed for motors, Motown and Eminem, Detroit has more recently gained a reputation for bankruptcy and urban decay. But look beyond the empty buildings and there is an alternate Detroit appearing - one buoyed by the creative energy of an art- and culture-fuelled renaissance. In its wake, inventive restaurateurs are emerging to feed the hungry crowds who are flooding back to the city.

Read more. 

Excerpt:

IN SOME respects, Tom Kartsotis doesn’t take business too seriously. His company, Bedrock Manufacturing, is named for the Flintstone’s home town. Shinola, the most intriguing firm in Bedrock’s portfolio, bought its name from a long-dead brand of shoe polish best known for the insult “You can’t tell shit from Shinola”. Perfect, Mr Kartsotis believes, for a company that aims to become America’s largest manufacturer of high-quality watches—watches it is making in Detroit’s art-deco Argonaut Building, once home to General Motors’ research labs (pictured). “Someday”, claims one tongue-in-cheek Shinola advertisement, “they’ll call Geneva the Detroit of Switzerland”.

Read more. 

Excerpt:

Introducing the first garden grown on good intentions. #SayNiceThings.

Read more. 

Excerpt:

A slew of pop-up retailers from downtown to the neighborhoods are looking to open permanent locations in the city.

Read more. 

The hottest new industry in Detroit may be the co-working space as the shared work venues continue to multiply. The new trend in work life offers startups and freelancers the ability to network and grow while getting those who work from home out and into a more social environment.

As the list grows and grows, it can become increasingly difficult to keep track of them all. As a result, the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation has compiled a Detroit Co-Working Space Finder that's available on their website. The directory lists 13 different co-working spaces throughout the city. They are:

• An Office in Detroit
• Bamboo Detroit
• Bizdom
• Department of Alternatives
• Detroit Creative Corridor Center
• Eastside Technology Hub
• Grand Circus
• Green Garage
• Junction 440
• NextEnergy Center
• OmniCorpDetroit
• Ponyride
• Reeves Business Solutions, Inc.

The DEGC will have to update their directory rather quickly as another co-working space is already in the works. A new Detroit-based LLC called Quality Pheasant has announced plans to transform the former Saint Vincent Middle School into Saint Vincent Corktown, a boutique office space.

The 40,000 square foot building rests in the shadow of Michigan Central Station. Located at 2020 14th Street, Saint Vincent will be split into common work areas and private office suites with micro-lounges throughout. A skylit, stained-glass chapel tops the building, an architectural highlight.

As reported last week, Junction 440 is the latest co-working space to open in Detroit. It is one of seven co-working spaces to participate in the inaugural Co-Lab Detroit. The event was designed to create a community of co-working spaces rather than a competition. Open houses, tours, and free co-working days are available at each venue throughout the week. Co-Lab Detroit is happening now.

Source: DEGC, Saint Vincent press releases
Writer: MJ Galbraith

The Henry Ford Innovation Institute, the intellectual property incubator for Henry Ford Health System, has received a $3 million grant from the William Davidson Foundation aimed at expanding the hospital's entrepreneurial activity and educational outreach.

"This grant will allow us to start new programs and augment some programs we already have," says Dr. Scott Dulchavsky, CEO of the Henry Ford Innovation Institute.

The three-year grant establishes the William Davidson Center for Entrepreneurs in Digital Health. The center will help enable turning more of the healthcare innovations developed at Henry Ford Health System into commercially viable products.

Among the programs it plans to start is the Davidson Entrepreneurs in Residence, which will put about a dozen entrepreneurs to work in Henry Ford Innovation Institute helping commercialize new technologies. The Davidson Center will also help foster more collaboration between innovators, educators, and corporate partners to create new technologies, such as digital applications and platforms.

The $3 million grant will also help augment Henry Ford Health System’s education outreach programs. That includes helping fund and promote events about healthcare for everyone from middle school students to physicians' groups.

"We have a pretty robust plan in place for educating folks in the region," Dr. Dulchavsky says.

Source: Dr. Scott Dulchavsky, CEO of Henry Ford Innovation Institute
Writer: Jon Zemke

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

AutoHarvest is creating a new Internet platform that not only promises to make the purchase of intellectual property easier but will also open up innovation hubs in the automotive industry to more collaboration.

The 3-year-old nonprofit aims to foster collaboration and innovation in the auto industry by making things like tech labs and intellectual property more accessible. AutoHarvest has offices at the University of Michigan and TechTown. It has a team of six people after adding two more over the last year.

AutoHarvest has spent the last year and change developing a new software platform that it hopes will serve as a Amazon.com of intellectual property innovation. The online bazaar will allow inventors, entrepreneurs, businesses and institutions to buy, sell and collaborate on technology. It's currently in Beta-version and is aiming for a June release.

"There are several key communication features that need to be added," says Jayson Pankin, president & CEO of AutoHarvest. "We are in major bug-hunting mode."

Among the features in line for addition are the ability to broadcast the website in eight different languages, including Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Russian, French and German.

"We have companies from France and Germany that use our network now," Pankin says. "This will help them."

AutoHarvest is also looking to add an "Innovation Hub" tab to the site that will allow local research institutions to open up their labs and databases to the public. For instance, TARDEC (the U.S. Army's Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center in Warren) will make 70 of its laboratories open to the public that follows specific guidelines. The idea is to make the resources of big organizations available to startups.

"This way small companies can have access to software and databases they wouldn't otherwise," Pankin says.

Source: Jayson Pankin, president & CEO of AutoHarvest
Writer: Jon Zemke

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

Excerpt:

Think Motor City’s just corrupt mayors and crime rates? One of Detroit’s favorite chefs, Aaron Cozadd, makes a case for the city’s under-the-radar grub.

Read more.