Midtown : News

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A coat that transforms into a sleeping bag? How did you come up with that idea?
This started as a class project at the College for Creative Studies here in Detroit. The assignment was to design a product that filled a social need, and the biggest need I saw here in the city was homelessness.

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Take a walk through a number of Detroit neighborhoods — Corktown, Midtown, downtown — and you will see new and exciting things happening. New businesses, patrons walking on sidewalks, festivals and exciting initiatives working to better the city are popping up everywhere. A new energy is taking hold of the Motor City and the nation is taking note.

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"Get ready for an artful spring, Detroit. The biannual Art X Detroit festival is returning in April for five days of visual art, dance, musical and theatrical performances, literary readings, workshops, panel discussions and more."

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"Each holiday season, Drake Phifer — Facility Rental Manager at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History — and his many coworkers prepare for Noel Night, a holiday-themed venue crawl that draws throngs of people to the Detroit's Midtown district. This year, the holiday spectacular celebrates 40 years of Motor City merriment, and for folks like Phifer, it simply doesn't get much better."

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La Feria Tapas has won the 2012 Hatch Detroit contest and plans to use the prize money to help speed along its opening next spring.

La Feria Tapas, a Spanish-style tapas restaurant, is turning a vacant, non-descript building at 4130 Cass into a showpiece near the rapidly developing intersection of Cass Avenue and Willis Street. The stretch of Cass between Alexandrine and Canfield streets is quickly becoming a commercial hub in Midtown.

Five years ago it was best known as the home to Avalon International Breads but now it houses a number of other boutique business, such as Slows To Go and Curl Up & Dye, and several other newly renovated commercial spaces. The location helped make the decision easy for the co-founding trio of Pilar Baron-Hidalgo, Naomi Khalil and Elias Khalil.

"In my mind it's a no-brainer," Elias Khalil says, adding Detroit's lack of Spanish-style tapas restaurants has created a void in the market. "If you go to any other big city there are a lot of them. Here it's a major missing link."

La Feria Tapas plans to use the $50,000 first place prize from Hatch Detroit to pay for a large chunk of the kitchen equipment. The trio of partners have been working on the restaurant since January and expect to open in April.

Source: Elias Khalil, co-owner of La Feria Tapas
Writer: Jon Zemke

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

Forbes writer Tamara Warren was recently one of 125 "thinkers, doers, entrepreneurs and activists from across North America" invited to spend a weekend in Detroit. The purpose? To show these from all over the country that Another Detroit is Happening. They camped at Pony Ride, had coffee from Anthology, explored the DIA and MoCAD, had dinner in Roosevelt Park catered by Slows, and in a host of other ways experienced first-hand the creative grassroots energy that flows through the city.

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The inaugural Dlectricity, a contemporary nighttime light art festival in Detroit that will be held Oct. 5-6, will feature a parade of illuminated bicycles in addition to 35 works of illuminated art and installations by international artists.

This new festival is led by Sky Yaeger, head designer for the Detroit-based watch, leather goods and bike company Shinola. The Light Bike Parade will be comprised of riders on Shinola bikes making a nearly four-mile loop around Midtown. Sound cool? The ride is also open to the public, so get out your cruiser and glowsticks and join the fun! The parade begins at 7 p.m. on Oct. 6.

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Whole Foods is putting out a call for artists to create four murals at its new Detroit store in Midtown.

The high-end grocer plans to put up four murals on the exterior of the building on Mack Avenue between Woodward Avenue and John R Street. The murals would be facing John R and will measure 23 feet wide and 14 feet tall. The murals will be attached to the building and Whole Foods is looking for just about any and all ideas.

"That (what kind of murals) is really open at this point," says Amanda Musilli, community liason for Whole Foods' Detroit store. "It can be a mixed-media piece if that is what somebody does. We probably won't do a steel sculpture because of weight restrictions."

Whole Foods is willing to pay for $1,000 in material costs and $7,500 for each of the four murals. Individual artists could win one or multiple or all four commissions for the murals. The funding for the murals is being provided by Midtown Detroit Inc. For information on the mural project, send an email to [email protected]. The deadline for submissions is Oct. 15.

Whole Foods is building a grocery store on the north side of Mack, just east of Woodward. Construction is underway and work is largely finished on the structure's parking lot. The store is set to open in late May or early June of next year.

Source: Amanda Musilli, community liason for Whole Foods
Writer: Jon Zemke

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

The Detroit Creative Corridor Center is seeking new residents for their Creative Ventures program, and they enlisted the talented folks at DETROIT LIVES! to give us a better sense of how it works. Check out the video here:

"Be a Venture" - Detroit Creative Corridor Center from DETROIT LIVES! on Vimeo.