Crain's Detroit Business

01/25/2025

The closure comes two years after Lafayette was closed for a similar problem.

01/24/2025

A new 10-year plan to reduce traffic and improve safety and accessibility on Belle Isle calls for, among other things, bringing ferry service back to the island park and Detroit River.

Nearer term, recommendations for two-way bicycle lanes circling the island, completion of the Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Centennial Trail and new signs to help visitors find their way around are set to happen this year.

Developed by engineering firm Wade Trim, the Belle Isle Park Multimodal Mobility Study report outlines a phased 10-year implementation strategy to help visitors move more freely and easily throughout the park on roads, trails, sidewalks and parking areas.

The 2.5-year study and community survey was conducted by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, Michigan Department of Transportation and the Belle Isle Conservancy.

Last year, 5.5 million people visited Belle Isle, up from 2.5 million a decade ago, said Amanda Treadwell, urban area field planner for the Michigan DNR.

“As our attendance continues to increase, we will be very focused on diversifying our modes of transportation (onto the island) to reduce congestion,” she said, something that’s important to the quality of the experience at the park."

Read more: https://www.crainsdetroit.com/sports-recreation/belle-isle-mobility-plan-could-bring-back-ferry-service

01/23/2025

Enrollment has dropped in 80% of Michigan school districts over the past 15 years, a trend that has major implications for the state’s education system.

01/23/2025

2024 was a year of culminations. And our list of top Newsmakers of the year, led by our Newsmaker of the Year, Ford Motor Co. Executive Chairman Bill Ford, reflects many of those culminations.

The top Newsmakers for 2024 were selected by Crain's journalists for their influence on moving metro Detroit and the state of Michigan forward.

See the full list of 2024 Newsmakers here: https://www.crainsdetroit.com/awards/newsmakers-year-2024-meet-honorees

01/23/2025

The fate of what could be Michigan's largest-ever economic development project rests with the new administration.

01/23/2025

A pair of downtown Detroit parks are set for a makeover.

01/22/2025

A largely vacant office tower that’s part of the Renaissance Center complex on Detroit's riverfront is heading to auction.

The 334,000-square-foot 600 Tower — the downtown complex's easternmost building — is set to hit the online auction block March 17-19 with a starting bid of $2.75 million, according to the listing on Ten-X.com.

The 600 Tower is one of the two shorter towers not owned by General Motors.

Standing 21 stories and just 11% occupied, the tower, along with the companion 500 Tower developed in the 1980s, sits just east of GM’s separately owned main portion of the gargantuan complex that’s a defining symbol of Detroit’s skyline.

Brokers from Farmington Hills-based Friedman Real Estate are handling the online auction, which has a reserve price that is not being made public, said Steven Silverman, senior vice president of the company’s national investment and brokerage advisory and investment services.

The auction comes as GM and Dan Gilbert’s Bedrock LLC work on a plan that was revealed in late November proposing a new future for the automaker’s portion of the RenCen, which was designed by architect John Portman and sits as kind of a city-within-a-city south of Jefferson Avenue — and separated from the rest of downtown.

Read more: https://www.crainsdetroit.com/real-estate/renaissance-center-tower-be-auctioned

01/22/2025

The list includes 10 nominees from Detroit, Ann Arbor and outstate Michigan — including some first-timers.

01/22/2025

Bidding starts at $2.75 million.

01/22/2025

It's the latest milestone for Dan Gilbert's new skyscraper.

01/21/2025

The Michigan burger chain is poised for a resurgence.

01/17/2025

Farmington Hills isn’t the only Michigan community where Sheetz has run into speed bumps.

01/17/2025

Here's the latest vision for a greener I-75.

01/16/2025

A newly built house in Detroit's North Corktown neighborhood stands as an example of what two local architects believe could be one way out of the nation's housing shortage.

The principals with Detroit-based Houm PLLC say the goal with their company is to scale the methods used to build the house in a matter of months, done in a cost-efficient and environmentally sustainable manner. Doing so, they say, can greatly reduce the cost of building new in-fill housing in legacy cities such as Detroit.

Specifically, Houm principals Scott Shall and Breck Crandell have spent the last several years developing propriety design technology aimed at optimizing window placement for better efficiency and tailoring the design of the home to the make of the site where it's being constructed.

Essentially, the company's platform allows for inputting a digital map of the site and the general design parameters of the planned house — number of bedrooms, square footage, etc. — and the design algorithm will generate a design for the proposed home's optimized massing, roof overhang, window openings and other features.

Read more:

A newly built house in Detroit's North Corktown neighborhood is an example of what two local architects believe could be one way out of the nation's housing shortage.

01/15/2025

Livernois south of Eight Mile is set for another big change.

01/14/2025

The project will take eight miles of I-696 out of commission in Oakland County.

01/14/2025

The team behind Grey Ghost is planting a flag in the suburbs.

01/11/2025

After sitting vacant for the last 15 years, a church in Detroit’s Indian Village neighborhood is getting a new life as a local couple’s dream home.

Grosse Pointe couple has big plans for the 4,000-square-foot space in a historic Detroit neighborhood.