2010 – Page 15 of 78

Downtown Chelsea’s Longworth demo delayed until spring; adaptive reuse?

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October 6, 2010

Chelsea's Downtown Development Authority is still working on plans for its Longworth site, and some residents are relieved that the delay comes with a stay of demolition for the three buildings involved.Demolition has been postponed until April for three buildings on the north side of the city, commonly known as the Livery, the Mack building, and the Daniels addition. DDA president Mike Jackson says the group will be hiring an architect to create a plan to be presented to the public.The DDA-owned site has potential even though it's been empty for more than 20 years; a number of developers have looked at it and suggested a range of ideas, many of which included first-floor commercial with residential above. In the end they walked away because of the financial cost, Jackson says.Also complicating things is the odd configuration of the property and the unanticipated historical aspect. "It's a gateway into Chelsea," he says. "It's been this structure that doesn't look very good coming in from the north side. We wanted to make something that looked nice."Jan Bernath, a member of the Chelsea Connection team, which has been working to preserve the site, would like to see the buildings adaptively reused. The livery is one of the few remaining in the state, built in 1906 or thereabouts. The Mack building, to the west, served as a place for car production and other industrial uses, and the Daniels addition, to the front of the property, was built in 1947 as a car showroom and is the only remaining Art Moderne building in town.Bernath points out that with the livery, the Mack building, and the Daniels addition, there is a history of transportation in Chelsea. "It's really where Chelsea started," she says.Although there may be odds as to preserving versus demolishing the site, Jackson says a solution will be reached: "Something good will happen out of there," he says. "Obviously, not everyone is going to be happy. We're going to come up with a good plan, and who knows what might happen between now and then."Source: Mike Jackson, president of the Chelsea Downtown Development Authority; Jan Bernath, Chelsea ConnectionWriter: Kristin Lukowski

First Page Listed goes after search engine optimization business

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Entrepreneurship

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October 6, 2010

Casey Stanton is still figuring out exactly what he wants to do with his career, but he knows this much: He wants to be his own boss.To that end, the Ann Arbor resident, along with fellow recent college grad Benjamin Jenks, has started a search engine optimization company, First Page Listed, this year. The 1-year-old start-up focuses on helping local small businesses make the most of their customers' Internet searches. First Page Listed guarantees that its clients will make the first page of a Google search or the services are free."More and more there is a need for companies to dominate searches to bring in quality traffic," Stanton says.Stanton, a Michigan State University graduate, got his start in another company's sales force during the day and bartending at night. It didn't take the 20-something long to figure out that he didn't want to sling cocktails forever, so he started to focus on selling his product online. That led to a focus on Internet marketing over the last three years and the partnership with Jenks. The duo now hope to continue to grow First Page Listed's staff to 3-4 people over the next year and even open up a call center.Source: Casey Stanton, co-owner of First Page ListedWriter: Jon Zemke

U-M gets $7.2M to study climate change effects on Great Lakes

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Innovation News

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October 6, 2010

The Great Lakes are becoming a bigger area of focus for the University of Michigan, which recently pulled in almost $10 million in federal grants to study the effects of climate change on the world's largest bodies of fresh water.U-M and Michigan State University are splitting a $4.2 million grant to help Great Lakes-region residents anticipate and adapt to climate change. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is funding the five-year study that will focus on how climate change affects agriculture, watershed management, and natural resources-based recreation and tourism in the watersheds of lakes Erie and Huron.U-M also received another $5 million from the National Science Foundation to study how climate change affects water quality in the Great Lakes. For instance, extreme shifts in weather patterns caused by climate change could cause more water runoff into the lakes. All that extra water brings more fertilizers, creating algae blooms, which cause dead zones in the lakes because they block out the sun.That would be one of the direct effects. The team of 27 researchers from across a number of fields of study, ranging from biologists to economists, will also study indirect effects such as how dense population around the lakes will affect them in the long-term. That could mean everything from water quality to tourism."We're bringing together different communities that haven't traditionally worked together," says Anna Michalak, principal investigator for the study and an associate professor of civil & environmental engineering at U-M.Source: Anna Michalak, associate professor of civil & environmental engineering at the University of MichiganWriter: Jon Zemke

Ypsilanti’s RealKidz sells online, plans to hire

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Arts and Culture

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October 6, 2010

RealKidz is changing up its game and getting some points on the board with its new business plan.The 3-year-old firm, based in Ypsilanti's Depot Town, makes clothing that fits larger children, mainly girls. It started out selling these garments with direct sales, a la Mary Kay. It has since moved to a primary e-commerce platform after upgrading its website with a proven Internet retailing platform in August."We're starting to see some growth from that," says Merrill Guerra, founder and CEO of RealKidz. "We have doubled our website traffic and conversion rate over the last couple of months. It's moving exactly in the direction we were hoping."The two-person startup, also a former Ann Arbor SPARK East Incubator tenant, is now looking to raise a round of seed capital so it can flesh out its staff and business infrastructure. RealKidz hopes to hires a COO and webmaster, among other positions over the next year, with this capital.Source: Merrill Guerra, founder and CEO of RealKidzWriter: Jon Zemke

Orange Egg Advertising focuses on quality growth

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Economic Development

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October 6, 2010

Amy Grambeau's business, Orange Egg Advertising, is virtual yet real, without a home but run from Ann Arbor. The advertising solutions company keeps about half a dozen people working; most are independent contractors. Six-year-old Orange Egg is run from home computers, which means clients are often greeted by Grambeau's rottweilers when they visit her "office.""That's why people hire us in this day and age," Grambeau says. "We're lean and mean and virtual. Our customers don't have to pay for a lot of overhead."Orange Egg Advertising handles efforts ranging from website design to billboards to whole marketing packages. Grambeau was a sales media manager at WDIV in Detroit for 14 years before striking out on her own with a boutique firm. She plans to keep it small for the foreseeable future, maybe adding another 1099 contractor or two in the next year so she can keep tabs on her quality."I firmly believe the growth has to be quality and cautious," Grambeau says. "Our growth has to be managed."Source: Amy Grambeau, director of Orange Egg AdvertisingWriter: Jon Zemke

$46M U-M nanotech lab to be hotbed of innovation

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Community Development

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October 6, 2010

Groundwork is being laid to help the University of Michigan spin out even more technologies into new economy businesses. The latest part of that foundation is a multi-million dollar federal grant to build a new nano-mechanical engineering lab complex.The National Institute of Standards and Technology is paying $9.5 million of the $46 million tab for the Center of Excellence in Nano Mechanical Science and Engineering. The new facility will provide a state-of-the-art, centralized location for scientists to develop advanced nanotechnologies that could have implications in the energy, manufacturing, healthcare, and biotechnology industries."It will be an enabling platform for us to pursue a broader scope of much more exciting projects," says Jack Hu, professor of mechanical engineering at U-M's College of Engineering.U-M has aggressively gone after turning the inventions developed on its campus into spin-off companies and technologies with high potential to be licensed. The idea is reinvent the state's economy to be competitive in the 21st Century. This lab, which will combine nanotechnology and mechanical engineering, is expected to be another piece in the puzzle.U-M plans to break ground on the new Center of Excellence in Nano Mechanical Science and Engineering in late 2011 and open it in 2013. The three-story complex will include 60 lab modules and space for 18 professors in a 62,880 square-foot addition to the G.G. Brown Laboratories on Hayward Street on North Campus.Source: Jack Hu, professor of mechanical engineering at the University of MichiganWriter: Jon Zemke

Fusion Coolant Systems wraps up product development, plans for growth

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Economic Development

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October 6, 2010

Fusion Coolant Systems is getting ready to commercialize its technology, a move that should create a handful of jobs in Ann Arbor.The University of Michigan spinout has created an environmentally friendly fluid that eliminates toxic cutting fluids in metal processing for industrial sectors such as aerospace. The new technology also improves cutting tools performance while reducing the wear.The Ann Arbor-based company spent its first year developing this technology and expects to commercialize it within the next year. That means qualifying for Phase II Small Business Innovation Research grants and landing a few customers in the manufacturing arena."We expect to have a commercial relationship with a couple of aerospace manufacturing companies by next year," says James Giovanni, director of sales & marketing for Fusion Coolant Systems.The startup began with two employees and has expanded to a staff of six. It expects to bring on another 1-5 people over the next year.Source: James Giovanni, director of sales & marketing for Fusion Coolant SystemsWriter: Jon Zemke

Huron River Ventures, Michigan Accelerator Fund I score $50K in loans, start-up grants

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Economic Development

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October 6, 2010

Venture capital firms normally award seed capital, but two local VC startups are now on the receiving end thanks to a couple of grants from the Michigan Venture Capital Association.Ann Arbor-based Huron River Ventures and Michigan Accelerator Fund I each received a $25,000 grant and a $25,000 loan as winners of the Michigan Economic Development Corporation's Accelerator Fund program. The money will help pay for organizational costs, excluding salaries. They also received a three-year membership to the Michigan Venture Capital Association, which comes with in-kind professional service support."We want more venture capital firms to succeed in Michigan, so we are giving them a little push to help them cover their expenses," says LeAnn Auer, executive director of the Michigan Venture Capital Association.The idea behind the grants is to build up Michigan's seed capital environment by helping more fledgling venture capital firms get off the ground. Huron River Ventures, for example, is a VC firm recently started by two University of Michigan MBA graduates who plan to build their company around clean-tech investments.Source: LeAnn Auer, executive director of the Michigan Venture Capital AssociationWriter: Jon Zemke

Meet Ann Arbor’s newest VC firm: Huron River Ventures

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Economic Development

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September 29, 2010

"Venture capital" is becoming Ann Arbor's buzz words these days. Local start-ups are raising VC funds and new VC firms setting up shop here in Tree Town. Add Huron River Ventures to that list.Two University of Michigan graduates, Ryan Waddington and Tim Streit, are setting up the downtown Ann Arbor-based venture capital firm. The two friends have worked in seed capital jobs across the country for years, ranging from DTE Energy Ventures to HSBC New Business Development, giving them backgrounds in both investment and clean technology."We both decided to come back to Michigan to pursue venture opportunities," Waddington says. "We see great opportunities in clean tech in an underserved market."Huron River Ventures is in the process of establishing itself and lining up financial support from the state of Michigan. Waddington declines to elaborate further because of SEC regulations."We're in the process of putting together a marking-and-communications plan that will allow us to be a little more open," Waddington says.Source: Ryan Waddington, co-founder of Huron River VenturesWriter: Jon Zemke

Adaptive Materials shares in $750K grant for renewable energy software development

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Community Development

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September 29, 2010

Adaptive Materials has scored another round of seed funding, this time taking down $750,000 in cash from the federal government.The Ann Arbor-based firm is sharing the Small Business Innovation Research grant with fellow Ann Arbor firms, SRT Solutions and The Whole Brain Group. The three companies will use the funds, and potentially a follow-up grant, to create software that makes renewable energy suggestions."It allows our soldiers to pick the right energy sources when they're in the field," says Michelle Crumm, chief business officer of Adaptive Materials. "For instance, when it's a nice sunny day, use a solar panel."The grant will also allow Adaptive Materials to add to its staff of 56 employees, three independent contractors, and one intern. The company has hired six people over the last year and plans to add at least one more.Source: Michelle Crumm, chief business officer of Adaptive MaterialsWriter: Jon Zemke