Pontiac : Development News

A vacant brownfield in Pontiac where General Motors once operated could be the site of an auto-related business trend -- car condos. Basically storage sites and gathering places for car lovers, car condos not only provide a place to safely keep a car but also to service it.

The proposal for M1 Concourse calls for a complex of four to six buildings, each one with 14-16 garages that can be tricked out by owners. Other possibilities for the 89.5-acre property include entertainment aspects such as an amphitheater and restaurants for visitors who bring may come for car shows or special events.

The initial part of the plan to re-use the site at Woodward Avenue and South Boulevard has been OK'd by city officials but still has other approvals to clear as developers work to re-use the property.

At an announcement of the project Wednesday, city and county officials expressed support for the M1 Concourse and RACER Trust.

RACER, Revitalizing Auto Communities Environmental Response Trust, was created by a U.S. Bankruptcy Court settlement to help clean up and redevelop former General Motors properties in 14 states.

The car condo concept has taken off in other cities around the country, especially developments known for high-priced cars kept by deep-pocketed owners who want a club of like-minded car lovers.

Woodward Warehouse, a much smaller version of what the M1 Concourse could be, opened last summer in Royal Oak not far from the avenue that carries the Woodward Dream Cruise. It is finding a market in storage, detailing, rebuilding, event hosting and member socializing.

Writer: Kim North Shine
Source: Bill Callen, RACER Trust

Oakland County is trying to make starting a business or taking it to the next level easier for entrepreneurs by offering free, walk-in business counseling.

The One Stop Shop Business Center at the Oakland County Executive Office building, 2100 Pontiac Lake Road, in Waterford will open May 9 and offer regular walk-in hours after that. The hours for May 9 are 9:30-noon and 1:30-4:30. The business center is on the first floor of Building 41W.

“We usually operate on an appointment-only basis but many entrepreneurs walk into our One Stop Shop with questions on how to get started with their business idea,” says Greg Doyle, supervisor of the One Stop Shop Business Center. “By designating special walk-in days, we hope to reach more entrepreneurs and help them understand their next steps as well as present the resources we can make available to them. Our aim is to get them started quickly in a way that makes the most sense to their unique situation.”

Counselors at the business center can answer specific questions, suggest planning tools and give direction on where to go to solve problems or achieve goals. All sessions are confidential. The counselors have expertise in business development, community planning, financing and market research.

Writer: Kim North Shine
Source: Greg Doyle, supervisor, One Stop Shop Business Center

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

A plan to turn a busy 27-mile, automobile-loving stretch of Woodward Avenue into a road that's safe and welcoming for all forms of transportation is rolling along with a series of public planning events to begin soon.

The changes -- part of the Complete Streets approach that's happening in cities around Michigan and across the country -- would move Woodward away from a wide-swath of auto-centered roadway to one that's inviting and safe for bicyclists, pedestrians, disabled users, bus riders -- and, if it comes to pass, light rail passengers.

The Woodward Avenue Action Association, WA3, is heading up the effort in partnership with Parsons Brinckerhoff. Working with them are reps and policy makers from 11 Wayne and Oakland county municipalities that have Woodward running through them. The Michigan Department of Transportation, M1 Rail, and the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments are also part of the project that's been in the works since August 2011 and has $752,000 in federal funding to work with.

The next step is to host five interactive public events, a design charrette, in several of the Woodward-connected communities. From those meetings could come a master plan that will determine what changes and updates are needed to accommodate public transit, pedestrians, bicyclists and, ideally, economic development.

“We want to create a street that truly works for everyone. Imagine a corridor that accommodates people of all ages and abilities, including pedestrians, bicyclists, seniors, mobility-challenged individuals, transit riders and motorists,” says Jason Fowler, WA3 and Woodward Complete Streets program manager. “By engaging the residents and businesses along the corridor, as well as industry experts in this visioning process, we can develop a wide variety of innovative solutions and create a successful master plan.”

The first meetings, a three-day event, will focus on north Woodward in Detroit from McNichols to 8 Mile and Ferndale and be held at St. James Catholic Church, 241 Pearson Street in Ferndale, April 17-19.

During the meetings in Ferndale, Dan Burden, a walkability expert from the Walkable and Livable Communities Institute, will present a walking audit of Woodward and explain what lies ahead for a re-design he says "could be the single largest Complete Streets planning effort ever undertaken in North America.”

Other meetings will be held in Birmingham/Bloomfield Hills, May 20-22; in Bloomfield Township/Pontiac, June 3-5; Pleasant Ridge through Berkley, June 10-12; and in downtown Detroit/Highland Park, June 17-19.

Click on www.transformwoodward.com for exact locations, times and topics to be discussed.

Writer: Kim North Shine
Source: Lori Ella Miller, spokesperson, Woodward Avenue Action Association

The vision is to have a river running through downtown Pontiac, one with restaurants, offices and shops alongside and perhaps small boats bringing in people and, ideally, ripples of prosperity.

The Clinton River is currently covered up, piped underground beneath a parking lot and the Phoenix Center, a deteriorating city-owned structure that could come down if the vision to daylight the Clinton River is actually pursued. The river opens up on either side of downtown.

As it is now, the Phoenix Center is used only occasionally.

"By daylighting the Clinton River, if it winds up with a river walk along it, it's going to be something that can be used everyday," says Bill Watch, chairman of the Urban Land Institute Michigan.

The idea of daylighting the river, something done in other cities, including Kalamazoo, is being explored with a feasibility study in a partnership between the Urban Land Institute, Oakland County and the city of Pontiac.

In June, students from the institute's Larson Center for Leadership, 34 of them considered business leaders, will come up with a document that outlines what it would take as far as a process, expenses and time to uncover the river.

The student leaders work in real estate, development, planning and other areas and will complete the "Daylighting the Clinton River" feasibility study in order to graduate from Larson.

In part they will determine if the benefits of uncovering the river outweigh the costs. One cost barrier is out of the way as the county has agreed to pay for the demolition of the Phoenix Center, which has seen better days.

"Oakland County had come to us in the fall and they wanted ULI's help to study this," Watch says. "This is something they've been thinking about.The county wants to do something for downtown Pontiac. It's a sort of legacy project."

Uncovering the river, if approved, wouldn't take all that long, he says. It's bringing the investors and companies and residents in to build there, work, and live there.

"It's not going to happen tomorrow. It will be years or even decades," he says. "But this is going to be something that could provide an attraction. It will give Pontiac a feature to bring people in."

The Clinton River was once a scenic gathering place for downtown Pontiac, but it also came with flood issues. It was paved over, built on and covered with drainage projects in an era when the economic draw of having a town on a river -- if well designed -- was less appreciated.

San Antonio's Riverwalk was a flood control project turned top tourist attraction for the Texas city.

"On a smaller scale this is what the Clinton River could become," Watch says. "Kalamazoo daylighted the river there and we'll be looking to them to learn about their experience."

Oakland County  Executive L. Brooks Patterson has called for daylighting the river for several months now, telling the Oakland Press in June, "Every city would love to have a river running through it, and the ones that do use it very well. The river becomes a focal point....I think that's in Pontiac's future."

Writer: Kim North Shine
Source: Bill Watch, Michigan chairman, Urban Land Institute

A $13.7-million government program meant to stabilize struggling cities by targeting crumbling neighborhoods and re-building their decaying urban centers is complete in Pontiac. And, while still in the early stages, it appears to be achieving its mission.

The two-year-old Neighborhood Stabilization Program targeted Pontiac and about 10 other Michigan cities. It has led to the removal of dozens of blighted properties and building of new homes in Pontiac's Unity Park neighborhood, as well as two residential loft developments including the $20 million Lafayette Place Lofts, which sit atop the Lafayette Market and an Anytime Fitness, and the 10 West Lofts. Lafayette Place Lofts, a project of West Construction Services, is the city's largest development in 30 years or more.

The federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program was administered by the Michigan State Housing Development Authority in partnership with the Michigan Land Bank, Oakland County, and the city of Pontiac.

Funds from the program covered the demolition of 50 blighted homes in the Unity Park Neighborhood and the construction of 18 new single family homes there. All have been sold. Local members of the Michigan Association of Home Builders, Michigan Association of Realtors, lenders and developers marketed the homes.

Downtown, the 46 units at Lafayette Place Lofts in the former Sears & Roebuck Store, which opened to residents in December, are expected to be fully occupied within weeks and the Lafayette Market, a speciality grocer and coffee house, is filling the void of a fresh food source and take-out prepared meals for the city. The market and neighbor 24-hour Anytime Fitness, both on the ground floor of Lafayette Place Lofts, are generating traffic downtown.

Also downtown there is 10 West Lofts, another multi-use development in the downtown that has a skyline of historic buildings and a history of struggles.

Altogether, at least 300 construction jobs and 75 full-time jobshave been created.

Several other projects, though not a part of the stabilization program, are ongoing and more development is expected as a number of other initiatives roll out. One, the reconstruction of the main road leading into downtown, will direct motorists into the city instead of around it. Another, the opening of a new transit station, is for now a stop for Amtrak and local buses, but could function as a stop on a commuter light rail line between Detroit and Pontiac -- a proposal that is very preliminary and probably years away.

It all adds up to what may be an economic tide-turner for a city that has gone into bankruptcy, been taken over by an emergency financial manager and held back by the crime, hardship, and poor educational system that come with poverty.
 
Writer: Kim North Shine
Source: Michigan State Housing Development Authority

State transportation officials see record Amtrak ridership in Michigan as a sign that the public is more aware of train service and seeing the future of commuter train travel in a more positive light.

In 2012, 792,769 passengers boarded Michigan's three Amtrak routes -- the Wolverine between Pontiac and Detroit/Chicago), the Blue Water between Port Huron and East Lansing/Chicago), and the Pere Marquette between Grand Rapids and Chicago. In 2011, that number was 780,655.

The record ridership also led to record revenue of $27.8 million in 2012, a year that had Amtrak adding extra trains to supplement the regular service.

It comes as plans to bring light rail in to Woodward Avenue downtown Detroit move toward implementation and a move to bring a regional commuter train system to metro Detroit and to Michigan and nearby states moves from a limp to a steady walk. Both are aided by federal funds from a program that endorses mass transit development as an economic stimulant. But with Michigan being a stronghold for auto travel, it's been a tough sell in some parts.

At the same time, Amtrak and the Michigan Department of Transportation have been updating trains and making changes to allow for faster travel speeds and fewer route interruptions that will in turn make train travel more appealing.


Writer: Kim North Shine
Source: Janet Foran, spokesperson, Michigan Department of Transportation

Pontiac's Strand Theatre, a 1920-s era theater darkened since the mid-1980s, is the object of a major investment and revitalization project and one of several developments underway in a downtown that's lost most of its residents and businesses.

The theater renovation, which is funded by at least a $7 million in public investment, is a partnership between West Construction Services and the City of Pontiac and is the recipient of historic tax credits aimed at protecting historic structures and using them for economic revitalization.

The city owns the 1921-Renaissance style entertainment house on North Saginaw. Renovation is scheduled to to be completed in 2014.

West Construction Services is in experienced historic preservation and architecture and is owned by Kyle Westberg. He is developer of the $20-million Lafayette Place Lofts on North Saginaw, down the street from the theater. The lofts development in the center of downtown is taking tenants this month just weeks after ground floor retail tenants opened their doors.  Lafayette Market, a fresh food market, caterer, cafe and takeout business that opened just before Thanksgiving, and Anytime Fitness.

“I feel strongly that through our partnership with the City of Pontiac, the Strand will be restored to its original glory,” Westberg, CEO of West Construction Services, says in a statement announcing the public-private partnership.

“We are passionate about working to revive Pontiac’s wonderful downtown, and with our track record of successful historic projects we are excited about restoring this historic landmark and providing the community with a venue for creative and performance arts.”

The Strand was one of several booming theaters in downtown Pontiac's theater district and the only one to survive. The plan for the Strand is to bring back live theater and musical performances, show films and host community and private events.

The theater has been vacant since 2004, when previous renovation plans - also in the tens of millions of dollars - failed to pan out.

“The Strand is a long standing treasure in our community and we are excited to partner with an organization that has the best interest of our legacy and community needs in mind,” Mayor of Pontiac, Leon Jukowsk says in the announcement. “The team at West Construction has a proven record of excellence through their various investments in Pontiac. The community will reap the benefits of their work with increased community resources, services and now entertainment.”

Pontiac City Council President Lee Jones says a theater rebirth is an "opportunity to once again become one of the premiere meccas and showcase what this magnificent structure was built for," and Louis Schimmel, the emergency financial manager appointed to run the financially crumbling city, says the attorneys and accountants have worked for months on with West Construction in order to determine not only if it could "successfully complete the project, but to also make sure it could be finished with the proper financing.”

Writer: Kim North Shine
Source: Corinne Petras, spokesperson, West Construction Services and Push22

As regional transit authority legislation moves through Lansing, plans are going forward to bring rapid transit to the 27-mile stretch of the Woodward Avenue Corridor from Jefferson Avenue in Detroit to downtown Pontiac.

Several meetings will be hosted by the Woodward Avenue Action Association, the Michigan Suburbs Alliance and the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments and are part of an "alternative analysis, the first step in the process of developing a transit system," says Richard Murphy, programs director Michigan Suburbs Alliance.

The meetings, especially the comments from attendees, will be folded in with technical data, cost and other considerations, he says, as decisions about the exact route, the technology to be used, the station locations as well as connections to the M-1 Rail Streetcar project, high speed rail service and Complete Streets are wrapped into an overall plan.

"We’ll be talking about the purpose and need for the project…What is it that we need transit to do on Woodward and laying out the roadmap for the rest of the work. Over the course of 2013, we’ll have
additional meetings around major steps in the process," Murphy says.

Upcoming meetings are:

Thursday, December 6, 5-7 p.m., Baldwin Public Library, 300 West Merrill Street, Birmingham.
Tuesday, December 11, 4-6 p.m., Detroit Palmer Park Police Station, 12th Precinct, 1441 W. Seven Mile Road.
Wednesday, December 12, 6-8 p.m., Ferndale Public Library, 222 E. Nine Mile Road, Ferndale
Saturday, December 15, 11 a.m.-1 p.m., Bowen Senior Center, 52 Bagley Street, Pontiac.

Writer: Kim North Shine
Source: Richard Murphy, programs director, Michigan Suburbs Alliance

As efforts to improve passenger rail service between Pontiac and Jackson and Washtenaw and Livingston counties plugs along refurbished commuter rail cars are being tested on Amtrak lines.

Six bi-level, stainless steel cars, refurbished at a cost of $310,000 each by Owosso-based Great Lakes Central Railroad, came from Illinois and will eventually be used on the proposed Detroit-to-Ann Arbor line that is being planned by the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments and on the WALLY line between Livingston and Washtenaw counties, a project of the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority.

The refurbished cars were previously used by METRA, the northeast Illinois community rail system. They were paid for with federal and state grant from Departments of Transportation that are pushing commuter rail improvements as economic and community development.

Funding for the proposed commuter rail services is not yet lined up, but the testing is a step in the process to obtain funding.

Writer: Kim North Shine
Source: Janet Foran, Communications, Michigan Department of Transportation

In less than a month downtown Pontiac will have a grocery store, one with fresh foods, take-out lunch and dinner, a butcher, a cafe with coffee and baked goods and wide selection of merchandise like nothing the downtown has seen in years.

The 10,000-square-foot The Layfayette Market will be run by Chris Monette, who's managed a successful market at Oakland University, and is part of the larger Lafayette Place Lofts, a project of developer Kyle Westberg's West Construction Services.

Next door to the market, which is at 154 N. Saginaw, will be an Anytime Fitness, and above the two businesses will be 46 loft apartments. It's all inside the former Sears Department Store, a behemoth of a building that's been closed for years. The structure has historic architectural components that are being incorporated into the renovation, including the market's wood floors, which are original.

The Lafayette Market will open Saturday, Nov. 17, and the apartments are expected to be completed in December. The market and lofts are close to Oakland McLaren Oakland Hospital.

In the meantime there is an effort to learn what the community wants in the store through an online survey.

"The community is very excited about this," says spokesperson Corinne Petras. "But the survey is to make sure it's clear what the community wants."

Writer: Kim North Shine
Source: Corinne Petras, spokesperson, Lafayette Lofts

The Lafayette Place Lofts, billed as an urban chic, environmentally conscious renovation and an ideal downtown residential-commercial development, are entering the final phase of construction.

Lafayette Place Lofts, which are now accepting tenant applications, fill in the 80,000-square-foot historic, vacant Sears building downtown and at $19.8 million it is the largest construction project to come to downtown Pontiac about 30 years.

When construction is complete in December, 46 one- and two-bedroom rental lofts ranging in price from $675 to $1,295 per month, will set atop a fresh food grocer and cafe and an Anytime Fitness.

The grocer, Lafayette Market, will open Nov. 17, in time for Thanksgiving.

The apartments are designed with exposed brick walls, bamboo floors, open floor plans, historic large pane windows, granite countertops and other high-end or urban styled amenities.

The building will be heated and cooled with a geothermal system that spares the environment and costs less. Other eco-conscious features, from materials used to energy efficient designs, have earned the Lafayeete Place Lofts LEED certification from the U.S. Green Building Council.

Source: Corinne Petras, spokesperson, Lafayette Place Lofts
Writer: Kim North Shine

As plans to improve a 304-mile stretch of passenger rail line that runs through Michigan, Illinois and Indiana move forward, the public is invited to participate in the process that determines what the local impact will be.

For metro Detroiters, the Chicago-Detroit/Pontiac Passenger Rail Corridor could offer connections to places that improve economic situations or quality of life, but it could also affect neighborhoods.

A series of meetings will be held this month and hosted by the three states' Departments of Transportation. The meetings will explain more about the proposal to make changes to the line and also take comments from the public. They will also offer possible route alternatives and identify potential issues that should be considered in the planning. They are required as part of the plan formation and environmental impact assessment to be done before construction can begin.

The rail improvements come as several metro Detroit communities, including Detroit, Pontiac, Troy, Dearborn, and the federal government have invested in new transportation stations that have brought economic benefit to cities around the
country by opening up access to jobs, education and affordable transportation.

According to GreatLakesRail, "the purpose of the program is to improve intercity mobility by providing an improved passenger rail service that would be a competitive transportation alternative to automobile, bus and air service between Chicago and Detroit/Pontiac…The program will provide sufficient information for the FRA (Federal Railroad Administration) to potentially support future decisions to fund and implement a major investment in the passenger rail corridor."

The local meeting will be held Wednesday, Sept. 26 at 7 pm. at the Double Tree Hilton Hotel, 5801 Southfield Expressway, Detroit.

Comments about the changes can also be shared online at GreatLakesRail.org or by telephone, 877-351-0853.

Source: Janet Foran, communications, Michigan Department of Transportation
Writer: Kim North Shine

All the eco-conscious bells and whistles that earned Oakland County International Airport a LEED Gold certification are also saving the county money by running at about half the utility costs prior to energy-focused rebuild.

According to Oakland County the new airport operates at 44 percent greater efficiency. From October 2011 through March 2012 the average cost of utilities dropped from 49 cents per square foot to 27.5 cents per square foot.

Features such as wind and solar electricity generators, a solar hot water heater, geothermal heating and cooling, fluorescent and LED lighting and, one of the more obvious for passengers, a living wall of tropical plants that clean the indoor air.

“These are real savings,” Oakland County executive L. Brooks Patterson says in a statement announcing the utility cost analysis. “The energy efficient technology is part of the wow factor business and general aviation travelers encounter when they use the new terminal as their gateway to the region.”

“The airport has a great impact on southeast Michigan,” says Oakland County Director of Central Services J. David VanderVeen. He oversees the airport - the second busiest in Michigan. The airport, which is located in Waterford, underwent a $7.5 million update last August. Airport user fees and federal and state grants covered the cost.

“Nearly every Fortune 500 company flies through here in the course of a year and it has a $175 million impact on the region,” he says.

Source: Bill Mullan, media and communications officer, Oakland County
Writer: Kim North Shine

A $15.8 million project will add a new track between Detroit and Dearborn, giving Amtrak passengers and freight cars their own dedicated lines.

The changes to the West Detroit Connection Track, which is the key link between the new Dearborn multi-modal transportation station and Detroit's station downtown, were OK'd by the federal Department of Transportation last week. Feds will pay for half the project and the Michigan Department of Transportation will pay the other half as they look for ways to alleviate a bottleneck on portions of the track.

The West Detroit Connection Track is also a key part of the Detroit to Chicago line, known as Amtrak's Wolverine line.

The project, which will break ground later this year, will alleviate a bottleneck that is increasing waiting times for trains, costing companies money and slowing down travelers.

Carmine Palombo, director of transportation programs for the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments, says the changes make sense economically because they allow goods and people to move more quickly and efficiently.

"When you have 10 minute and more delays that are caused by the bottleneck that is there now, that is huge," Palombo says.

But metro Detroit and Michigan are still a long way off from trains carrying coffee-drinking, newspaper reading commuters. Improvements such as new stations, including in Dearborn, Detroit, Troy and Pontiac, as well as changes to increase train speeds up to 110 mph, are lining up to make Michigan a train-riding state.

"It's all part of the overall series of events to improve passenger service," he says.

As of now, the line is mostly for travelers and freight. He says a commuter train between Detroit and Ann Arbor is inching along but still far from a done deal.

"Part of what happens now is existing Amtrak trains start in Pontiac and go to Chicago…The problem is the times are not conducive for a lot of commuters .. The times are geared for getting you to Chicago, not points in between. And the costs are not necessarily in step with what commuters want to pay."

He says legislation that will have the state of Michigan financially supporting the train service could change that.
"When that happens we can have a little more say in the schedules and how that service is run," Palombo says.

In the meantime, the feds, who are executing President Barak Obama's High Speed Intercity Passenger Rail Program, see the project as a way to address congestion of the Midwest Regional Rail Network and promote alternative forms of transportation and to create jobs and spur economic development.

Source: U.S. Department of Transportation and Carmine Palombo director of transportation programs, Southeast Michigan Council of Governments
Writer: Kim North Shine