Parking in SE Michigan usually means surface lots, driveways and the occasional garage. Ann Arbor's leaders are turning local conventional wisdom on its head, choosing to store cars underground and out of sight as a way to grow development, commerce and urban vibrancy.
Michigan's biggest intrastate hockey rivalry will get a chance to duke it out in front of a big crowd at the Big House in Ann Arbor.Excerpt:ANN ARBOR -- Hockey at the Big House? It's going to happen, according to Michigan associate athletic director Michael J. Stevenson. Michigan on Wednesday finalized plans to play Wisconsin in the Badgers' outdoor Camp Randall Stadium on Feb. 6, 2010. Meanwhile, Stevenson also initiated talks with Michigan State to play the Spartans in the Big House, Michigan Stadium, on Dec. 11 or 12, 2010. "Our goal would be to play in front of 100,000 fans," Stevenson said Wednesday morning, sitting behind his desk in the Michigan athletic department. "It's a big deal. It's exciting for the players and coaches. It would be a great opportunity for us and college hockey." Read the rest of the story here.
Google "Eli Cooper" and you're bound to get lots of transportation references. Then there's the inevitable and unofficial moniker: "Czar". As Tree Town's Transportation Program Manager, however, Cooper's title and catchy sobriquet do little to explain his passionate mission to help Ann Arbor rethink the meaning of transportation.
Excerpt:The last time most people in Pinckney saw him, Wesley Coller was a dropout, punk-rock skater with a Mohawk.Man, is he over that now.The Eastern Michigan University grad could be the next Joel Silver ("The Matrix") or Harvey Weinstein ("Lord of the Rings"), with today's release of the anticipated Hollywood blockbuster movie he co-produced - the granddaddy of all graphic novels, "Watchmen." The Watchmen are costumed heroes who guard an alternate-universe 1985 America. After the story opens with a Watchman's slaying, complex questions arise about who is watching the Watchmen. And about who - and what - are good. Or evil.The darkness isn't new for Cruel & Unusual Films; its logo is a pigtailed anime girl wielding a bloody ax.But the movie isn't about violence, Coller said during a phone interview from Los Angeles. Rather, "it says there is not violence without consequences," he said.Coller, 36, and his wife Celeste, toil with studio president and film director Zack Snyder, and his co-president and wife, Deborah Snyder.Snyder's 2007 flick, "300," with Coller as associate producer, grossed about $450 million by some estimates. Coller was about five when he moved from the Ann Arbor-Ypsilanti area to Pinckney. Read the rest of the story here.
The Karmanos Cancer Institute may be in Detroit but its reaching out to Ann Arbor to find some of its top talent.Excerpt:Ann Schwartz has been appointed interim CEO of the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute and the Karmanos Cancer Center. Schwartz, of Ann Arbor, will replace Dr. John Ruckdeschel, who is leaving in a few months to take a job in Las Vegas.Read the rest of the story here.
Hard times for new home building may or may not turn into good times for Ann Arbor's Greenbelt. Except:The depressed real estate market presents new challenges for Ann Arbor's greenbelt program.The first is that farm owners who might otherwise be prepared to sell may, instead, hold their land.For many farmers, the value of their land represents a retirement nest egg, said Peg Kohring of the nonprofit Conservation Fund, which staffs the city's greenbelt program. With the appreciation of the past decade wiped away, those who can will likely delay selling, she said. Read the rest of the story here and how the down economy could help the Greenbelt here.
Come one, come all and try and topple Ann Arbor's chess master, if you dare.Excerpt:International chess master Ben Finegold of Ann Arbor insists you don't have to be especially smart to be good at chess."Anyone can enjoy chess and get good at it," he said, adding with a smile: "I've been accused of being good at nothing but chess."Perhaps Finegold is being a bit modest."He's the best in the state," said Jennifer Skidmore of Pittsfield Township, the vice president and the scholastic coordinator of the Michigan Chess Association, the state organization that awards titles, organizes state championship events. "Ben recently won three state championship events in one weekend. He's brilliant. He's impressive."Finegold will undoubtedly impress people Saturday night when he simultaneously plays against 50 members of the Detroit City Chess Club at the Detroit Institute of Arts."I haven't played 50 boards in a while, so that'll be fun," said Finegold, 39. "I'll have to put my walking shoes on."Read the rest of the story here.
The devil may be in the details in this Ann Arbor home, but it sure has a pretty face.Excerpt:When Gerry Duprey bought his 1928 craftsman home at the corner of Pauline Boulevard and Hutchins Avenue in Ann Arbor, he wasn't looking for a new obsession. Instead, he wanted an affordable house close to his work. That it was adjacent to Allmendinger Park was a bonus. The exterior was wrapped in blue and white aluminum siding, and the inside was dominated by pink paint and white carpet. "It looked like a birthday cake," Duprey said. But that didn't bother him too much."I didn't know anything about Arts and Crafts," he said. "I was a Philistine." Read the rest of the story here.
Even Stevie Wonder could see one of Ypsilanti's brightest stars shining during his performance at the White House.Excerpt:Wayne Brady wants to buy her CD. President Barack Obama praised her "lovely" voice. "He had his arm around me, he touched me," she screamed to her mother.The women wanted to know who - not what - she was wearing.The Washington Post gushed about her "pure, gleaming" soprano rendering of Stevie Wonder's 1970s ballad, "I Never Dreamed You'd Leave in Summer."Wonder himself wants her to coach him on technique.Ypsilanti's own Anita Johnson's life changed this week, and everybody who's paying attention in the music world knows it.Johnson, Ann Arbor-born and Ypsilanti-raised, is a New York-based lyric coloratura operatic soprano, the kind of light and agile soprano whose range can extend two scales above high C.She sang Wednesday night at the White House, at the request of¬¬ pop legend Wonder, who was honored by the Library of Congress and Obama with the Gershwin Lifetime Achievement AwardRead the rest of the story here and The Washington Post's coverage of it here.
The University of Michigan's Ross Business School has a new identity to go with its new home.Excerpt:Robert Dolan noticed a problem when he arrived at the University of Michigan in 2001 as dean of the Stephen M. Ross School of Business.The school was a hodgepodge of buildings constructed since the 1940s on the northeast block where Hill Street and Tappan Street intersect in downtown Ann Arbor — not an ideal fit for the school's MBA program identity of team-based, action-based learning.But business students returning to class in January were greeted by the school's new, 270,000-square-foot, $175 million building, built to better fit with the school's identity.“We believe there are some important things you do in the classroom in terms of developing conceptual skills, but a lot of your leadership skill development is going to take place in a team setting, and so we do lots of project work around teams,” Dolan said.Read the rest of the story here.
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