Ann Arbor

Pacific Rim expands into old Ehnis & Sons space in downtown Ann Arbor

By Newsroom

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October 15, 2008

The old Ennis & Sons storefront in downtown Ann Arbor is about to undergo a dramatic transformation now that the Pacific Rim By Kana plans to take over the space.Ennis & Sons spent nearly a century selling work boots and clothes at 116 W. Liberty St. before closing up two years ago. University of Michigan architects Tom Buresh and Danelle Guthrie bought the late 19th Century structure shortly after and turned the upper floors into a home.The ground floor storefront stayed empty until Duc Tang (pronounced Duke Tan) recently agreed to expand his pan-Asian restaurant into the space. The change promises to be striking, turning the home of blue-collar uniform essentials, such as Red Wing boots and Carhartt jackets into the modern, Far East-inspired decor that of Pacific Rim.The 1,500-square-foot restaurant will nearly double its space, adding more dinning space, a bar and a private dining room in the 1,400 square foot Ennis & Sons storefront. "I always felt the restaurant was incomplete without those elements," Tang says. "We've gotten a lot of requests for a private dining area."The 7-year-old restaurant has enjoyed a good bit of success recently in the face of a tough economy. Pacific Rim recently logged its best two weekends of business, and Tang expect that to continue once the restaurant is enlarged.He plans to start construction later this month and have it finished by early next year.Source: Duc Tang, chef and owner of Pacific Rim By KanaWriter: Jon Zemke

Survey: UM best public college in America, 18th-best in world

By Newsroom

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Education

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October 15, 2008

The University of Michigan is once again recognized as the leader and the best among public colleges in the U.S.Excerpt:The University of Michigan is the top-rated public university in the nation, and ranks among the top 20 public or private universities in the world, according to rankings released late Wednesday by London-based Times Higher Education magazine.The publication's 2008 World University Rankings rates UM 18th on a list of the world’s top 200 higher education institutions, immediately below Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif. The Ann Arbor-based university moves up from 38th in the 2007 rankings and 29th in 2006.Read the rest of the story here and how U-M set a new record in research spending here.

Radio Concentrate: Ann Arbor Transit

By Chris McCarus

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Transportation

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October 8, 2008

The City of Ann Arbor is trying to lead the state into mass transit. Officials held an open house recently to tell the public where they plan to go and by when. Michigan Now’s Chris McCarus has the story in Concentrate's latest podcast.

U-M brings in $27 million in new grants, scholarships

By Newsroom

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Education

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October 8, 2008

The University of Michigan is bringing in a little money for research and a little more for scholarships this week, however, it's all going to add up to a lot of studying.The Judy and Fred Wilpon Family Foundation (Fred Wilpon is the CEO of the New York Mets) donated half of the $10 million received for scholarships at the university's College of Literature, Science, and the Arts. U-M President Mary Sue Coleman’s Donor Challenge donated the other half.The Irene and Morris B. Kessler Presidential Scholarship Fund inducted its first class of 15 students at the university this year. The fund hopes to grow the sizes of those classes to as many as 75 people. The need-based scholarships are expected to create the largest scholarship cohort in LSA.That's for the undergraduates. U-M has won a $17 million new contract from the National Institutes of Health. That money will expand U-M's part of the National Children's Study, the largest and longest study conducted of the health and development of more than 100,000 children across the U.S. U-M's portion now exceeds $21 of the $75 million study.U-M's focus in the study is to follow 5,000 women from pre-conception until their child reaches the age of two, considering a wide range of environmental, health and developmental assessments. The idea is to create a better understanding of early childhood issues that may influence infant mortality, obesity, autism, asthma and behavior problems.U-M is working on the Michigan portion of the study with Michigan State University, Wayne State University, Children's Hospital of Michigan, Henry Ford Health System and the Michigan Department of Community Health. The study will take place over the next few years.Source: University of MichiganWriter: Jon Zemke

ADR North America expects to double sales this year in Ann Arbor

By Newsroom

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Economic Development

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October 8, 2008

It doesn't matter what the talking heads on TV are howling about when it comes to the national economy. The people behind ADR North America aren't listening to it. The Ann Arbor-based firm is bucking the gloom and doom news of the economy this year, expecting to double its sales revenue over a year ago. It has also hired three additional senior purchasing consultants and may hire two more staff members before the year is through."We're a perfect example of how the knowledge economy works even when the overall economy turns sour," says Bill Michels, CEO of ADR North America.This growth has been spurred by larger companies turning to ADR North America to help contain costs. What that means is when these firms need to tighten their belts, its ADR North America that is the cincher. And the company (which employs about a dozen people in Ann Arbor) has been pulling at those belts for a while. Its sales and revenue have grown 40 percent. The company originally started helping small- to mid-sized companies figure out the best technology to use and how to maximize it. It has since evolved to helping out bigger companies, such as Microsoft.Source: ADR North AmericaWriter: Jon Zemke

Ann Arbor holds meeting on underground parking garage plans

By Newsroom

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Community Development

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October 8, 2008

Just how the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority plans to make 770 parking spaces disappear beneath the surface parking lot adjacent to the Ann Arbor District Library downtown is about to be revealed.The DDA plans to hold a public meeting on the grandiose parking project at 7 p.m. Tuesday in its offices on 150 S. Fifth Ave. There DDA officials and planners will detail the plans.The devils in those details include creating a 4-story deep underground parking garage that runs beneath the current parking lot but adjacent Fifth Avenue, too. It will connect the old YMCA site and the site for the newly proposed downtown library branch. The DDA hired two firms, Walker Parking Consultants and Luckenbach/Ziegelman Architects, to design the underground structure. That subterranean garage will also feature a number of environmentally friendly features, such as natural lighting and LED lights.City officials are still debating what to put above the underground structure but there are reports of plans for a small convention center. The City Council should vote on the plan later this year.For information, call Susan Pollay at (734) 994-6697. Source: Susan Pollay, executive director of the Ann Arbor Downtown Development AuthorityWriter: Jon Zemke

Bottled Water at Issue in Great Lakes

By Newsroom

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Environment & Sustainability

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October 8, 2008

Once again, Ann Arbor is mentioned as one of the leaders in the U.S. environmentalism trends. This time its all about water. Excerpt: Even as a 10-year campaign to block wholesale export of Great Lakes water came to a successful conclusion in Congress last week, some legislators and environmentalists vowed to continue their fight to close a "bottled-water loophole," a campaign that taps into a national debate over sales of H2O in disposable containers. A provision of the Great Lakes Compact allows water to be diverted from the basin if it is in containers holding less than 5.7 gallons. The question is whether bottling water from the aquifers that feed the lakes, the largest repository of fresh water on Earth, should be seen as ordinary human consumption, commercial production, or export of a treasured natural resource. In August, Nestle Waters North America was granted permits for a new well and pipeline at its Ice Mountain facility in Mecosta County, Mich., where it bottles 700,000 gallons a day. Nestle also recently renewed permits for its plant in Guelph, Ontario. Both have sparked vocal opposition from those who say the industry is privatizing a public good and harming the environment. Americans drank 8.8 billion gallons of bottled water in 2007, up 7 percent from 2006, according to the Beverage Marketing Corp. But bottled water has drawn increasing criticism, leading San Francisco, Salt Lake City and Ann Arbor, Mich., among other municipalities, to ban buying bottled water with city funds. Read the rest of the story here.

The 9th Xchange becomes big fish in Ann Arbor’s pond

By Newsroom

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Entrepreneurship

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October 8, 2008

The 9th Xchange was founded in Florida, but it opened up an office in Ann Arbor two years ago looking for more room to grow. But not too much. "We like being a big fish in a small pond," says John Bonaccorso, CEO of The 9th Xchange.The Michigan Economic Development Corporation reached out to Bonaccorso a few years ago about expanding in Michigan. Bonaccorso liked the idea of thumbing his nose at conventional wisdom and decided to grow his business in Michigan. In particular, he was attracted to the talent in Ann Arbor."The most important thing was the amount of technical people there," Bonaccorso says.It has since grown its offices in Ann Arbor SPARK to 15 people of the firm's 40 employees. Bonaccorso expects to double the number of people each year to complement the firm's expected 100 percent annual growth.The 9th Xchange creates a market for used intellectual property. So if a firm is finished using a piece of software it needed for a project, it can resell it. The 9th Xchange makes sure the original creators still get their fair share of royalties.Source: John Bonaccorso, CEO of The 9th XchangeWriter: Jon Zemke

Developer shrinks 601 Forest high-rise project

By Newsroom

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Community Development

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October 8, 2008

Ann Arbor is literally growing up, up and away these days ...especially after the Ann Arbor City Council gave the green light to the 601 Forest project Monday night.It's also a sign that the verticals are winning out over the horizontals, as the city wrestles with whether to increase the density of its core neighborhoods or adopt the more suburban approach to horizontal growth. Building 601 Forest is definitely a win for the verticals.The building is 26 stories at its Zenith, flanked by two, 20-story shoulders at the corner of South University and Forest Streets. It will replace the Village Corner party store and an old apartment building, but leave the Mud Bowl intact. The developers, Hughes Properties and Omena Real Estate Investments, have previously said construction would begin this fall. However, they did not respond to attempts to reach them for comment.The project will have 342 residential units with 1,100 beds. These will stand over 16,000 square feet of first-floor retail space and 235 underground parking spaces. Each room will have a window overlooking the surrounding campus area. Each unit will come furnished with amenities like flat screen TVs and floor-to-ceiling windows. There will also be a café, fitness facility, business center and a landscaped roof garden. The building will incorporate environmentally friendly construction techniques, materials and systems, such as passive solar technologies, advanced water recapture systems and a green roof. The developers are going for at least silver LEED certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. Source: City of Ann ArborWriter: Jon Zemke

Oil drain will only get worse; oilman Pickens tells U-M audience

By Newsroom

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Education

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October 8, 2008

You know things are dire when a billionaire oilman says we've got to do something about our dependence on oil. With a plea to tap new alternative sources of energy T. Boone Pickens addressed an audience at the University of Michigan.Excerpt:Billionaire T. Boone Pickens brought his national campaign for wind and natural gas power to Ann Arbor Wednesday, telling a nearly full house at the Power Center that Americans will have a reduced standard of living unless they reduce their dependency on foreign oil.Pickens lamented the fact that the U.S. imports 70 percent of its oil at a cost of $700 billion a year. He said the country hasn't had an energy plan in 40 years, but it better get one soon because he predicts oil will be $300 a barrel in 10 years.Read the rest of the story here and how you can buy ultra cheap CFL light bulbs here.