In The News

Ann Arbor named great walkable vacation city

By Newsroom

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May 5, 2010

Walking through Ann Arbor is something many of its residents enjoy everyday. Well, it's residents and quite a few tourists it turns out.Excerpt:This college town is a remarkably sophisticated small community and its downtown is concentrated in 10 square blocks, with the University of Michigan’s campus in the heart of it. Day and night, the streets, lined with old two or three-story brick buildings, are crowded with pedestrians dropping into the bistros, theaters, galleries, coffee shops and bookstores. There are frequent street festivals and other events. A free hop-on, hop-off circulator bus (which runs August through April) will take you around town, stopping at Ann Arbor’s four major shopping areas and connecting with the campus.Read the rest of the story here.

Latest in In The News

Ann Arbor resident goes on a mushroom hunt

By Newsroom

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Economic Development

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May 5, 2010

Ann Arbor is known to have its quirkies and its foodies and its quirky foodies. This Ann Arborite likes to go on a mushroom hunt.Excerpt:If you want to join the legions of morel mushroom hunters hitting the Michigan woods in the coming weeks -- and you want have some success -- some veteran hunters have this piece of advice: Train your eyes.Because those succulent shrooms come in earth tones and grow among the leaf litter, broken twigs and small plants of the forest floor, deciding to find them isn't enough. If you don't know how to look you can spend fruitless hours knocking around the woods."I'm convinced that it's like a primal, instinctive sense of foraging that a lot of humanity has lost," Ann Arbor mushroom hunter Juri Geidans said. "They don't know how to look. Most people aren't in touch with their caveman self."Read the rest of the story here.

Zingerman’s is king of the food jungle in Ann Arbor

By Newsroom

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Health

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May 5, 2010

Just when you thought there wasn't anything else that could be written about Zingerman's, someone else goes and finds a new way to put the famous gourmet deli's name in lights.Excerpt:Gastronomically speaking, Ann Arbor, Mich. isn't your typical college town. The home of the maize and blue plays host to a surprisingly vibrant culinary counterculture; sure, there are the requisite pizza parlors and all-night diners, but there's also a bustling farmers' market, an uber-successful food coop, and a myriad of top-shelf, culture-crossing restaurants offering everything from bi bim bop to a chipati. However, the unrivaled valedictorian of the wolverine food scene for nearly 30 years has been Zingerman's.Read the rest of the story here.

Pres Obama wows crowds at U-M commencement

By Newsroom

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Community Development

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May 5, 2010

President Obama is used to wowing big crowds but he wowed tens of thousands at one of the country's biggest venues in Ann Arbor. Here is a round up of coverage on the event.Excerpt:Ann Arbor--President Barack Obama took aim at the mean-spirited political rhetoric circulating the country during his commencement address Saturday to graduates of the University of Michigan."We can't expect to solve our problems by tearing each other down," Obama said, using his speech to respond to some of his critics who depict the U.S. government as repressive. "It may grab headlines but it puts us on a level of murderous regimes."Obama appealed to the 80,000 in attendance at Michigan Stadium to hear him speak, calling for more civil discourse even though history suggests politics have never been a "nice business ... even during times of great change.""Despite all its flaws, our democracy has worked better than any form of government on earth," he said.Read the rest of the story here, more here and a whole lot more here.

U-M Credit Union looks at The Ann Arbor News building

By Newsroom

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Economic Development

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May 5, 2010

The University of Michigan Credit Union is looking for bigger and better space, and its considering The Ann Arbor News building. However, downtown Ann Arbor isn't the only place it's looking.Excerpt:The University of Michigan Credit Union is real-estate shopping and is looking at the now-vacant Ann Arbor News building on the southwest corner of Huron and Division streets.However, the three-story News building is only one of several properties being considered as a potential home for the credit union’s administrative offices, says Jeff Schillag, the institution’s vice president of marketing and community relations.Not all the potential sites are downtown, Schillag says. And any acquired space would replace leased office space.Read the rest of the story here.

Zoltan Mesko’s road to the American Dream kicks through U-M football

By Newsroom

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Education

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May 5, 2010

A football team's kicker rarely makes the headlines, let alone its punter. That's not the case at the University of Michigan where Zoltan Mesko is grabbing headlines, heading to the NFL and living the American Dream as a Romanian immigrant.Excerpt:ANN ARBOR, MI (Michigan Radio) - Zoltan Mesko was born and raised in Timisoara , Romania. Like his parents, Mihai and Elizabeta, he speaks both languages fluently. When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, travel improved dramatically behind the Iron Curtain - but not for Romanians. Zoltan's parents, both engineers, could not leave the country until they won Romania's Green Card lottery -- yes, they had one - in 1997. They quickly discovered Hollywood's depiction of America didn't quite match their apartment in Queens. It was dirty and cramped - even for three people -- and so expensive, they moved to Twinsburg, Ohio, near Cleveland. Zoltan learned English in about two months. His parents took two years, but understanding American culture took a little longer. When Mesko's class played kickball inside the gym one day, he boomed the ball so high it shattered a ceiling light. The teacher gave him a choice: "You're either going to pay for that light, or you're going to play football."Read the rest of the story here.

“Amadeus” director Hulce reflects on time in Ann Arbor

By Newsroom

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Arts & Culture

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April 28, 2010

Tom Hulce, of "Amadeus" and "Animal House" fame, grew up in Plymouth and came of acting age in Ann Arbor. Here he reflects on how strong the theater community was in the 1960s.Excerpt:The late-19th-Century teens in "Spring Awakening" wrestle with guilt and shame imposed by a repressive culture.Their anxious and unhappy existence is a far cry from the boisterous mid-20th-Century youth that Tom Hulce, one of the show's producers, enjoyed in the Detroit area.Hulce, 56, was raised in Plymouth (his mother still lives there) but had gravitated to the Ann Arbor theater community by the time he reached his teens in the mid-1960s."It was a strange, wonderful time in this country, especially in Ann Arbor," he says. "Just walking down the street would be an adventure. The coolest thing to do was the most rebellious and unacceptable, the least mainstream kind of thing."Read the rest of the story here.

Jones Lang LaSalle stakes claim in Ann Arbor real-estate market

By Newsroom

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Community Development

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April 28, 2010

One of Chicago's primary real-estate players, Jones Lang LaSalle, is staking its claim in the Ann Arbor market, recognizing it as one of the up-and-coming areas in not only Michigan but the entire Midwest.Excerpt:Though Bluestone Realty Advisors L.L.C. is losing two brokers and most of its real estate listings, the company's owner says the firm will still be an Ann Arbor presence — just much smaller.First reported in Crain's Detroit Business, Chicago-based commercial real estate firm Jones Lang LaSalle hired Bluestone co-founder Neal Warling and principal Newcombe Clark as Ann Arbor leasing specialists.But Bluestone's other co-founder, Jeff Hauptman, says the move is far from a business break-up between himself and Warling. As president of Ann Arbor-based Oxford Cos., Hauptman has hired Warling and Clark — through Jones Lang LaSalle — to oversee the leasing for most of Oxford's 1 million-square-foot property management portfolio.However, Hauptman will continue to operate the Bluestone firm, though only to market smaller properties and short-term vacancies that Jones Lang LaSalle might not handle. "Neal will be handling properties that might draw a national or regional tenant," said Hauptman. "And then we'll keep Bluestone to focus on local, smaller-scale properties. The Bluestone name is out there and has a positive reputation, so it will be a presence, just scaled-down."Read the rest of the story here.

Grant Thornton of Ann Arbor’s Merit Network named Innovator of Year

By Newsroom

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General

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April 28, 2010

Ann Arbor-based Merit Network's Grant Thornton beat out 46 other people to become the Innovator of the Year from Lawrence Technological University.Excerpt:Donald J. Welch Jr., president and CEO of Merit Network Inc. in Ann Arbor, has been named Grant Thornton Leader & Innovator of the Year.The award was announced at an April 22 reception at Lawrence Technological University, which co-sponsors the award along with Grant Thornton LLP and WWJ Newsradio 950. Welch was chosen from among 46 nominees profiled during the past 12 months in the radio station’s daily e-newsletter, the Great Lakes Innovation and Technology Report.Around 100 people attended the reception.The Leaders & Innovators program was developed by Lawrence Tech to recognize Michigan business executives who have demonstrated unique abilities or created unique products. The profiles that appear on Tuesdays in GLITR are edited by Matt Roush, who served as the MC at the reception.Since 2006, Welch has been the leader of Merit Network Inc., a nonprofit, member-owned organization formed in 1966. It developed the statewide backbone network that makes high-speed data networking available to all of Michigan’s universities, and many of its colleges and community colleges, schools, libraries, and research organizations. Merit provides connections to and from the global Internet for users at these organizations.Read the rest of the story here.

Q&A: How to get into U-M’s Ross School of Business

By Newsroom

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Education

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April 28, 2010

Getting into University of Michigan's Ross School of Business is one of the most sought after tickets in the nation. Here is some inside information on how to score one, thaks the U.S. News & World Report.Excerpt:We posed questions to admissions officials at the University of Michigan—Ann Arbor Stephen M. Ross School of Business regarding the application process, what they look for in applicants and what sets their school apart. These are their responses:1. What can applicants do to set themselves apart from their peers? They really don't need to do much to set themselves apart other than tell their unique stories—through their résumés, their essays, their interviews, and their recommendation letters. No two applicants, even if they live and work in the same place, will have the same stories to tell. Differentiation shouldn't be a goal; telling one's own story well should.2. What do you look for in the application essays? What do the essays tell you about a candidate?We look for several things in the essays: Do they have clear and compelling reasons for wanting to get an M.B.A. now? Do they have a clear sense of their goals and why they've set those goals? Can they communicate well?The essays tell us whether an applicant has taken the time to think about where they've been, what they hope to achieve and why. Essays tell us whether an applicant understands what an M.B.A. is about, whether our program is a good fit for them, and whether they'll be a good fit for our program.Read the rest of the story here.