Development News

Birmingham's business development officials have been studying shoppers and retail trends for many months now, trying to figure out how to improve on downtown Birmingham as a shopping and free-time destination.

One question asked: When do you want to shop? The answer: evenings, after work or school.

That's when many downtown shops are closed. So in the interest of finding out if nighttime shopping will actually generate traffic, about 45 downtown stores will stay open until 9 p.m. on the first Thursday of each month, says John Heiney, director of Birmingham's Principal Shopping District.

The response will show if a mostly daytime downtown -- other than restaurants and movies -- will fly.

First Thursdays will run through September during the summer months, when strolling store to store at night is more likely. There will be a theme each month along with sales and special events and activities in stores and around downtown to promote First Thursdays.

Birmingham's Principal Shopping District, which is made up of downtown businesses and employs a retail consultant to keep downtown thriving, is hosting the event and "wants to get shoppers thinking about shopping in the evening," Heiney says.

Birmingham is a Main Street Oakland County community.

Writer: Kim North Shine
Source: John Heiney, director, Birmingham Principal Shopping District

An effort to increase Pontiac residents' access to fresh, healthy foods is spreading in Oakland County with the opening of a third goverment-run market.

The newest market will operate one day a week on Tuesdays and sell fresh fruits and vegetables at a low cost.

The markets are a project of the Healthy Pontiac We Can! Coalition and the Oakland Livingston Human Service Agency.

Two other markets sell on Fridays and Saturdays, and all three share recipes for meals using fresh foods, lead cooking demonstrations and offer free samples.

"This market is a part of Oakland County's strategy to improve the quality of life of our residents through healthier lifestyles," says Kathy Forzley, Oakland County Health Division manager and health officer. "Consuming a diet high in fruits and vegetables decreases the risk of many chronic diseases, including heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, diabetes and some cancers."

Writer: Kim North Shine
Source: Kathy Forzley, Oakland County Health Division

The Bozeman Watch Company's speciality, limited edition watches and accessories will soon fill a downtown Birmingham store, importing a Michigan native's high-end goods from the Montana and Wyoming showrooms where they're now sold.

Its handmade time pieces are known for their rugged styling -- the B1 Hellcat, Smokejumper GMT and Sidewinder are a few styles that convey manly man adventure. The company is also known for its hand-tooled leather luggage and handbags.

Christopher Wardle, a former Michigan resident started the company in Montana and is expanding from three stores in Bozeman and Whitefish, Montana and Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

The Birmingham store opens May 1 on Pierce Street in the spot formerly occupied by Stacy Leuliette home accessories, says Ed Nakfoor, spokesman for the Birmingham Principal Shopping District.

Birmingham is a Main Street Oakland County community.

Writer: Kim North Shine
Source: Ed Nakfoor, spokesman, Birmingham Principal Shopping District

Construction started this week on a project to turn a beat up, outdated main street in downtown Farmington into a boulevard streetscape of greenery, decorative lighting and stamped walkways.

The $1.1-million Grove Street Reconstruction Project will also add parking to downtown and make over a tired strip retail center as well as connect it to a major pedestrian crosswalk that will lead to another shopping center.

Water mains will also be replaced and a plaza space with seating will be part of the new downtown layout.

The goal of city officials and the Downtown Development Authority is to make downtown more attractive, walkable, and busy as well as match it to a streetscape already redone. The plans call for turning a swath of pavement into a boulevard separated by a center island with angled parking along parts of it.

Mayor Tom Buck says the project is as much about attracting families to downtown as it is attracting small businesses and boosting the local economy.

The project will completely remove and replace Grove Street from Grand River to Main Street. The work was delayed in 2009 due to the costs. It is expected to be completed in two phases over a 10-week period and ready to use sometime in July.

Farmington is a Main Street Oakland County community.

Writer: Kim North  Shine
Source: Annette Knowles, executive director, Farmington Downtown Development Authority

Local trampoline parks and playscapes are expanding. Canton's Have Fun Fly Safe will add new locations in Novi and Shelby Township later this year, while Air Time Trampoline Troy will open new locations in Auburn Hills and Shelby Township. 

Read more.

Munetrix® is a social media, web-based financial management and transparency database for municipalities and schools. It is a financial management and transparency tool that local units of government and school districts can use to network with each other and build long-range fiscal roadmaps in a fraction of the time legacy systems require. Launched in Michigan in 2011, Munetrix now has approximately 750 jurisdictions at low-level subscriptions and more than 140 at premium subscriptions with plans to add richer features and revenue channels. 

"Our new facility in Auburn Hills, Mich., gives us a great sense of place and allows us to begin forming our true culture," said Bob Kittle, co-founder of Munetrix.

"Besides being centrally located, with great access to amenities and highways, we are smack dab in the middle of a college corridor that offers access to talented and bright young adults who are looking for real world experience with internships. It doesn't get any better than that quite frankly. We're now home." 

Amy Butler, executive director of OU INC said, "Working with Munetrix is a true pleasure. We are excited for them in their new facility and the expansion of jobs within the community. It is also a great partnership in which OU INC can assist them in their business development, and the business is also able to give our students applied learning opportunities that help both them and the company. 

Auburn Hills City Manager Pete Auger also commented on the move. "We are very excited about our home-grown company 's success and growth in the community. Not only are they creating jobs, but they also work with local governments as well. We have a strong partnership with OU INC and Oakland University and look forward to their continued assistance in growing jobs and talent in our community, Munetrix notwithstanding."

To learn more about the company, visit the Munetrix website at munetrix.com.

OU INC is a SmartZone Business Accelerator and Clean Energy Research Center located on the campus of Oakland University that enables clients to Reach Beyond the Ordinary by providing entrepreneurial resources and strategic business solutions for accelerating ideas to market. Areas of focus are clean energy and energy efficiency, medical devices, and information technology. OU INC provides customized services to assist domestic and international businesses. To learn more about OU INC, visit oakland.edu/ouinc or contact Butler at (248) 648-4800 or abutler@oakland.edu.

Francesca's, a women's clothing store chain with differently-themed stores around the country, will open its first on-the-street, Main Street location in Michigan in downtown Birmingham.

Francesca's is expected to open by mid-April at 115 S. Woodward Avenue and become the fifth store in metro Detroit and the 10th in Michigan. All of the others are in shopping centers and malls.

Houston-based Francesca's is moving into a spot previously occupied by Ann Taylor Loft and will bring a very different approach than the Loft with its all-the-same-style stores.

At Francesca's, store managers are given creative control over store design, giving each store its own identity. One thing that carries through to all stores is a unique, "treasure hunt" feel created by offering only a few pieces of the same merchandise. Francesca's is known for an always changing, trendy, mostly affordable selection of clothing and accessories

Birmingham's Principal Shopping District recruiters are seeking out companies such as Francesca's as part of a push to attract younger shoppers to the city, says PSD spokesperson Ed Nakfoor.

"Recruiting a retailer like Francesca’s is part of the PSD tenant recruitment strategy of targeting fashion merchants reaching a younger demographic," he says. "The average age of the PSD core shopper was 39 in 2012 compared to 41 in 2006."

Writer: Kim North Shine
Source: Ed Nakfoor, spokesperson, Birmingham Principal Shopping District

L’esprit Academy, a cosmetology school, is opening a second education center in downtown Royal Oak, a move that helped the company double its workforce over the last year.

The 9-year-old business now employs 20 people after hiring 10 over the last year. It also has about half a dozen open positions now, mostly for administrative areas. It currently has six people working in downtown Royal Oak and expects to double that staff there by the end of the year.

The Livonia-based business choose downtown Royal Oak because of its location in Oakland County and because its urban setting is a nice contrast to its suburban-style headquarters. Plus, downtown Royal Oak is attractive because it has lots of energy, is a trendsetter and is home to a large concentration of creatives.

"It seemed like a natural fit on an aesthetic level," says Stacy Wells, CEO of L’esprit Academy.

L'espirit Academy has enjoyed high growth in recent years because of the staying power of the industry (hair stylist jobs can't be outsourced to India) and the flexibility it provides to its workforce (working moms can do this part-time on their schedule). Wells also points out cosmetology can be a more cost-effective career compared to getting a professional degree at a traditional university.

"People are getting four-year degrees and $150,000 in debt and still don't have a job," Wells says. "We find a lot of people who have either done a year or two of college or have graduated and can't find a job."

Source: Stacy Wells, CEO of L’esprit Academy
Writer: Jon Zemke

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

Doeren Mayhew is one of Metro Detroit's recognized growing firms because it's expanding outside of the Great Lakes State.

The Troy-based CPA agency, founded in 1932, had become one of the largest CPA firms with its workforce centered in one location until it began expanding its footprint in recent years. It has now begun expanding into other markets, merging with Houston-based MFR, P.C. last year. It also opened an office in Florida.

"That has been a major growth strategy for us," says Taryne Spirovski, director of marketing for Doeren Mayhew. "Our clients are not standing still in Michigan. We need to grow with them."

That strategy has allowed Doeren Mayhew to achieve a ranking of 67th among the top 100 accounting, tax and business consulting firms in the United States by Accounting Today. The rankings are based on annual revenue size. Doeren Mayhew continued to grow thanks to its mergers, which increased the firm's annual revenue by 14 percent.

That has also allowed the company to expand its workforce. The recent mergers have brought 50 new people to the company's payroll. It now employs 250 people, including 200 in Troy.

Source: Taryne Spirovski, director of marketing for Doeren Mayhew
Writer: Jon Zemke

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

Novi-based ITC Holdings, the nation's largest manager of the power grid, has reported an increase of revenue and profit for the first quarter of 2013. 

Read more. 

The nearly 100-year-old Chapman House in Rochester is in the process of a renovation that will make the former family home turned longtime home furnishings store into a restaurant and elegant event site.

For now the renovation is overshadowing what the Chapman House as a restaurant will be. Besides the painstaking daily details of preserving the historic structure itself, all sorts of historic keepsakes and fun finds are being uncovered.

A decades old Hershey's candy bar wrapper. A 1917 newspaper. Photographs. Original tile. A 200-plus-year-old gas light fixture.

The grand home was built in 1917 by William Clark Chapman, a prominent business owner and politiican, and remained in the Chapman family until 1973, according to the Rochester-Avon Historical Society. Several businesses operated there, most recently a furniture and interior design store. The home also survived two fires.

The renovation could be complete by spring, but developer Geoff Dancik can't yet announce a date. Historic renovation is an uncertain, windy road.

What is known is that a French-inspired restaurant will take up much of the first floor and most of the second floor of the Italian Renaissance-style mansion.

A terrace overlooking Walnut Street, just a few blocks from downtown Rochester, will offer outdoor seating as will part of the grounds behind the home.

The grounds and formal gardens will be available for private events.

As the renovations inside and outside continue, parts of the home such as the iron balconies have been sent away for proper restoration. A centerpiece of one patio, a five-burner gas fixture that dates back to the reign of King George IV during the mid to early 1830s, is also being restored.

Writer: Kim North Shine
Source: Geoff and Brenden Dancik, Chapman House

The fifth-generation recipe for Holy Cannoli's cream-filled pastries has caught on so much that the downtown Rochester business has opened a second location in Berkley.

The new store is at 2752 Coolidge Highway. The first, which opened about a year ago, is at 415 South Main St. in Rochester. The business has been in the making since at least 2010, when owners Nicole Franey, her mother Cathy Schulte and grandmother Sharon Beheler decided to sell to friends, to their friends' friends, and at festivals and farmers markets, and then make the jump from family service to anonymous consumers.

Franey calls the expansion "an anniversary gift to ouselves."

Holy Cannoli's cannolis come filled with traditional creams and specialties such as key lime, pistachio, Michigan cherry, cookies and cream, and revolving choices. The creams are piped in after customers order.

Holy Cannoli's is also known for baked goods like its cassata cake.

Although it's moved into retail spaces, Holy Cannoli's hasn't abandoned farmer's markets. Every Saturday, Eastern Market shoppers will find Holy Cannoli's at Shed #5 in Eastern Market.

Writer: Kim North Shine
Source: Nicole Franey, co-owner, Holy Cannoli's

A start-up with the goal of producing an easy-riding bike with an automatic shifter that will appeal to recreational and casual bike riders has moved into a 7,000-square-foot warehouse and production facility in Troy as the company prepares to enter the mainstream marketplace.

There, AutoBikes, which formed about two years ago, will be built and in the process the founders' motto to Evolve the Bike will be carried out. Shipping is expected to begin in late April to early May, says CEO and co-founder Sean Simpson.

The company will also work on designing and building a new commuter-style bike to complement its cruiser/comfort bikes, he says. Employees at AutoBike are re-applying their auto industry experience and engineering backgrounds to AutoBike.

Like all bikes, the AutoBike is pedal-powered but unlike others it shifts on its own so that the gear is always where it should be, whether going up a hill or riding fast. No clinking, clacking, missing gears or ignoring gears, something that makes bike riding less fun and more exhausting.

While automatic bikes have been tried before, Simpson and company have invented a promising continuous shifter, something they're refining. It's apparently catching on as sales are reaching the many states that AutoBike travels to for bike shows and special events.

AutoBike is getting a lot of press in the bike world. It was selected as one of the coolest products at the Seattle Bike Show and it took the $10,000 top prize at the University of Michigan Victors' Challenge -- a contest for the best entrepreneurial ideas -- just one of several pieces of funding it's received to get off the ground.


Writer: Kim North Shine
Source: Sean Simpson, CEO, AutoBike

The 500,000-square-foot vacant lot on Novi Road near I-96, formerly the home of the Novi Expo Center, will be redeveloped into commercial buildings which will include a hotel and business offices that will be known as the Adell Towers, taking its name from the iconic Adell Water Tower located on the property and the original owner/developer of the parcel of land, Frank Adell. 

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