Ann Arbor

Arbor Brewing Co puts on a new face after 20 years downtown

By Newsroom

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November 11, 2015

Big changes are coming to Arbor Brewing Co as the ownership plans to mark its 20th anniversary with a comprehensive face-lift of the brewpub.The microbrewery plans to revamp its bar, dining room seating, entryway, kitchen, and bathrooms in an effort to modernize the establishment and make it more accessible. The restaurant has also promoted one of its employees to executive chef and plans to launch a new menu when it reopens early next year. "We're doing a lot," says Rene Greff, who co-founded Arbor Brewing Co with her husband Matt Greff. When all the dust settles patrons will notice the changes right away, and throughout the eatery. The entryway will be reconfigured so the door is on the side of the entry vestibule. The bar will also be redesigned into a U shape by removing a faux wall behind the existing bar. The new bar will be able to accommodate more seating and make it easier for people to move through the dinning area. "It's going to make it a more pleasant entrance," Greff says. "It's also going to make it a more pleasant experience for the people at the bar." The connection between the main dinning room and game room will be enlarged by removing parts of the wall and a few booths. The downstairs bathrooms will also be renovated. The Greffs also plans to repaint the interior, tear out the old carpet, do some improvements to the kitchen, and upgrade the lighting. The $200,000 renovation will keep the overall capacity (210 people) and seating (150 people) neutral because of the larger bar and loss of some booths. Work is expected to begin January 4th in the basement. The whole brewpub will shut down for two weeks on January 11th. The new menu will debut when it reopens, featuring vegetarian- and vegan-friendly fare made from scratch inspired by a recent menu revamp at the Corner Brewery in Ypsilanti, which the Greffs also own. "I like to think of it as gastropub meets food truck," Greff says. "It's still pub fare but with more interesting ingredients." Source: Rene Greff, co-founder of Arbor Brewing Co Writer: Jon Zemke

New apt building planned for south of downtown Ann Arbor

By Newsroom

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General

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November 11, 2015

A new mid-rise apartment building is heading for the greater downtown Ann Arbor area. The Residences at 615 South Main will replace three commercial buildings on the 600 block of South Main with a six-story apartment building. Plans have recently been submitted to the city and the approval process is expected to go on through this winter. The development would go up across the street from 618 South Main, another mid-rise apartment building that opened earlier this year. The Residences at 615 S Main would feature ground floor commercial space and 245 units, including townhomes, micro-studios (less than 400 square feet), studios, two-bedroom, three-bedroom, four-bedroom, and five bedroom units. "We probably have the most diverse collection of housing for any development in the city," says Brad Moore, president of J Bradley Moore & Associates, which is the co-architect on the project. About 51 percent of the units are comprised of the studios, micro studios and townhomes. The larger bedroom-count units only account for a handful of units. The townhomes will feature two bedrooms and a flex space for a potential work-from-home business. Moore says the development isn’t targeting any one specific demographic. "Anybody who wants to live close to downtown," Moore says. "We imagine the micro studios will be popular with people who work downtown and want to live close to downtown without paying a lot of money." The development will also feature one floor of underground parking of about 180 parking spots. It will also have 5,000 square feet of commercial space where the builders plan to incorporate an 19th Century buggy factory into the overall development. The current businesses that occupy the commercial space The Residences at 615 South Main will replace will also be given an opportunity to reopen in the new building. "It's possible some of the tenants from the existing buildings could locate into the new buildings," Moore says. The development is currently scheduled to go before the city's Design Review Board later this month. The approval process is expected to take the rest of this winter and possibly go into the spring. A construction timeline is roughly set for 14-18 months. Source: Brad Moore, president of J Bradley Moore & Associates Writer: Jon Zemke

Argus Farm Stop expands with greenhouse conservatory

By Newsroom

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General

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November 4, 2015

Argus Farm Stop is becoming even more customer friendly, adding a greenhouse/convervatory space in downtown Ann Arbor. "You can see all of downtown when you're sitting there," says Bill Brinkerhoff, co-owner of Argus Farm Stop. Brinkerhoff and his partners took over an old gas station and turned it into a year-round all-local market and coffee shop called Argus Farm Shop. The 100-year-old building at 325 W Liberty, on the border of the Ann Arbor’s downtown and the Old West Side neighborhood, was an eyesore before Argus Farm Shop turned it into a hub of activity. "It's been a great first year," Brinkerhoff says. "We want to expand the space to have more seating inside." The expansion project will take the patio area of Argus Farm Shop and enclose it with a greenhouse-style space. The idea is to maintain the outside feel of the space but make it accessible to customers year round. It will have space for up to 15 people. Brinkeroff and his partners choose the greenhouse style so it would blend in with nearby architecture. Work is expected to begin on the space before the end of the year. Brinkerhoff hopes to finish it in time for the spring. Source: Bill Brinkerhoff, co-owner of Argus Farm Stop Writer: Jon Zemke Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.

Ann Arbor’s SkySpecs preps to launch drone technology

By Newsroom

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General

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November 4, 2015

SkySpecs is gearing up to launch its drone technology early next year. It's on the brink of raising a significant amount of seed capital and already testing its product with customers. The Ann Arbor-based startup is developing aerial drone technology that uses artificial intelligence to inspect infrastructure in dangerous locations, such as the blades of wind turbines. It's WingMan platform allows the aircraft to hover near an object without fear of hitting it. Check out a demonstration of the company's WingMan technology here. "Our first field prototypes are working well," says Danny Ellis, CEO of SkySpecs. "We have customers who are working with them in the field. We’re planning a full roll-out in 2016." SkySpecs got its start three years ago with aspirations of making drones in the rapidly growing industry. That focus shifted to creating technology that makes sure drones can avoid running into objects they are buzzing around, such as wind turbines or hard-to-reach parts of bridges. Now SkySpecs has shifted again to offering an end-to-end solution for its customers, equipping drones with its technology so operations are turn-key for its customers. Ellis noticed many of SkySpecs potential customers loved the technology but didn’t know much about drones. "It was extra work for us," Ellis says. "They would come to us and ask us which drones to buy." SkySpecs won the grand prize worth $500,000 from last year's Accelerate Michigan Innovation Competition and is part of the Techstars accelerator in New York City. It currently has a team of eight people mainly based in Ann Arbor after hiring a couple of engineers and a business development professional over the last year. The seed capital raise is expected to help SkySpecs grow out its team rapidly next year as it begins to roll out its technology on a national scale. It currently has two enterprise customers but Ellis doesn’t expect that his client list to remain that short for long. "We have more in the pipeline," Ellis says. Source: Danny Ellis, CEO of SkySpecs Writer: Jon Zemke Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.

U-M fellow comes close to living trash-free

By Newsroom

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Education

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November 4, 2015

Darshan Karwat is a post-doc at the University of Michigan. Aware that the average American generats nearly 1500 pounds of trash a year he set out to minimize his impact... and succeeded, reducing his annual trash output to roughly six pounds. Excerpt: "In many ways, though, my life didn’t change much. I had grown up in a humble setting in India, where I was accustomed to consuming as little as possible. I was a member of the People’s Food Co-op in Ann Arbor, where I bought my produce unpackaged. Most of my waste came from food packaging, so anything I could do to limit it reduced my trash and recycling significantly. I bought bread from the bakery, gave up most cheeses and drank milk only when it came in reusable bottles. Even though I seldom bought new gizmos or clothes, I stopped buying them entirely for this project, because I knew creating them, transporting them and selling them at retailers generated plenty of upstream waste. If I thought I really needed something, like a new mug or hoodie, I’d wait a week before buying it. And then I’d wait another week. Turns out I never bought those things, which means I never needed them. I had enough already. Compared with the way so many others live, it wasn’t much of a hardship." Read the rest here.

Mountain Labs brings big data muscle to healthcare industry

By Newsroom

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Economic Development

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November 4, 2015

Healthcare is known for its seemingly insurmountable bureaucracies and mountains of data. Mountain Labs wants to simplify that. The Ann Arbor-based startup recently launched a public health surveillance platform called "Symport" that helps hospitals and medical researchers simplify big data and complicated processes. The end goal is to streamline the healthcare system. "We're tracking clinical data to alert hospital administrators what they are doing that works," says Alex VanDerKolk, president of Mountain Labs. "It also helps clean and classify data sets." Mountain Labs counts the University of Michigan and Henry Ford health systems as customers, along with a smattering of other research health systems across the Midwest. It raised a $200,000 angel round last year and is in the process of securing more capital. "We raised another $350,000 on top of the seed round," VanDerKolk says. The 1-year-old company currently employs a team of eight people. VanDerKolk expects his staff to continue to grow as it targets more health systems as customers. "We are growing quickly," VanDerKolk says. "I'd like to have a presence in every state in the Midwest by the end of next year." Source: Alex VanDerKolk, president of Mountain Labs Writer: Jon Zemke

Ghostly Records featured in NY Times

By Newsroom

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Arts & Culture

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November 4, 2015

We here at Concentrate have long sung the praises of Ghostly Records, which was founded by U-M alum Sam Valenti. Heck, they even provided us with music for our videos. Now, the New York Times' business section is finally noticing this cooler-than-cool company. Excerpt: "A diversified product line can be a smart survival strategy in a struggling business, which the music industry continues to be 16 years after Napster shattered the highly profitable model of selling CDs. But according to Sam Valenti IV, Ghostly’s founder, the nonmusical goods that it sells are not a hedge against declining record sales. Music, he said, is profitable and by far Ghostly’s biggest product." Read the rest here.

L to R Michael Kondziolka and Jim Leija of UMS at the Charles Baird Carillon

Space to create: Why downtown Ann Arbor needs a community arts space

By Patrick Dunn

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Arts & Culture

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November 4, 2015

While there is little doubt that Ann Arbor is a community filled with artists, its status as an arts community has yet to be realized. Some local business and non profit leaders think that a downtown arts venue might improve the situation.

First electric scooters roll off GenZe’s Ann Arbor assembly line

By Newsroom

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Economic Development

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October 21, 2015

Michigan is famous for putting the world on four wheels in the 20th Century. Now Ann Arbor is making its mark in the world of two wheel vehicles. The first electric scooters are rolling off Ann Arbor-based GenZe production lines this month. Although the first order is just a few scooters, the company expects to hit its production goal of 3,000 scooters by next year. "We're going to ramp up pretty quickly," says Yesim Erez, head of marketing for GenZe. GenZe makes an electric scooter and an electric bike. The GenZe 2.0 electric scooter aims to make urban commuting more convenient by combining smart design with new technology. For instance, the scooter can recharge by plugging into a normal outlet but is equipped with a touch pad control center in the handlebars and mobile app so users can monitor power levels and travel plans through GPS. It has enough cargo to carry small loads, like groceries, but is small enough to fit in an elevator. ?Check out a video on it here. "They have the built-in capacity for urban commuting," Erez says. "It can satisfy the urban commuters needs throughout the day." GenZe plans to start retailing its electric scooters for $2,999. It's targeting markets in Portland, San Francisco and Michigan to start, but plans to expand in urban areas across North America over the next couple of years. GenZe, formerly Mahindra GenZe, opened a tech center in Ann Arbor in 2014. It has since expanded that presence to include a manufacturing facility. It currently employs 36 people, including 10 new hires. The number of staff is expected to increase with sales over the next year. "We have been hiring as we ramp up production," Erez says. "We plan to continue to build out our staff."

Dyson acquires Ann Arbor’s Sakti3 for $90M

By Newsroom

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Economic Development

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October 21, 2015

It's the kind of acquisition many a startup hopes will come true: lithium-ion battery developer Sakti3 was bought by UK vacuum-maker Dyson to the tune of $90 million. No plans have yet been announced for where the battery production facility will be based but Michigan is a possibility. Excerpt: "The $90 million acquisition — first reported by business-news site Quartz — reflects a win for clean-tech investors in Sakti3, including General Motors and Khosla Ventures. Dyson itself had already invested $15 million in Sakti3. The University of Michigan spinoff company's founder and CEO Ann Marie Sastry will lead development of her technology as an executive for Dyson." Read the rest here.