Ypsilanti

EMU’s $42 million Pray-Harrold building revamp to be ready for students next month

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July 13, 2011

Next month marks a new year on campus, with the long-awaited renovation of Eastern Michigan University's Pray-Harrold building to be done in time to receive over 10,000 students a day. The seven-story building is the largest on EMU's campus – it houses 10 departments of the College of Arts and Sciences, about 60 classrooms, and over 25% of the university course offerings. Nearly 300 faculty and staff report to work there.The project entailed repairs or replacement of all major mechanical, electrical, and plumbing fixtures in the 235,791 square-foot building. All IT and audio-visual systems were also upgraded, and the curtain wall replaced. New finishes can be found throughout, and every classroom is getting new furnishings."The aging systems and antiquated amenities had reached their life cycle limits, and considering that this building was constructed prior to the advent of personal computers, infrastructure needs were also critical," Seán Braden, manager of planning and design at EMU, says in an email.The state of Michigan funded 75% of the $42 million capital outlay project, with EMU covering the balance.Source: Seán Braden, manager of planning and design at EMUWriter: Tanya Muzumdar

Ypsilanti’s W. Cross St. enhancements, Complete Streets ordinance bring walkers on par with drivers

By Tanya Muzumdar

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Development News

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July 13, 2011

The Ypsilanti city council's approval in June of a Complete Streets ordinance, together with the impending completion of the W. Cross Street non-motorized enhancement project, means a more balanced intersection between driving, walking, and other forms of non-motorized transport is on its way to the city's downtown.The enhancement project underway is revamping the stretch of W. Cross Street from N. Washington to Summit Street and in Depot Town from River to Rice Street. By August 1 damaged curbs will be repaired and all intersections will be ADA-compliant and sport new stamped concrete bump-outs, says Tim Colbeck, Ypsilanti DDA director. "[The bump-outs] have the measure of slowing traffic down and making the street easier to cross by reducing the amount of distance a person has to walk across the street," he explains.With the turning of the fall leaves will come 82 new trees of different varieties. And the bump-outs in the Depot Town section of Cross Street will get rain gardens landscaped with drought-resistant native grasses and flora such as black-eyed susans. The rain gardens will funnel runoff and improve the quality of water draining into the Huron River, Colbeck says. LED lighting fixtures will spark the stretch between Washington and Summit Streets and, in cooperation with Eastern Michigan University, be dark-sky compliant. The idea is to have light focusing downward onto the street rather than emitting upwards and adding to light pollution. The lightpoles will be the last item so they aren't damaged during the concrete work.The project is costing in the range of $850,000 to $1 million, Colbeck says. The city of Ypsilanti is covering $170,000 of the cost, the DDA portion is $87,500, and the Michigan Department of Transportation is picking up the balance.While the project, five years in the making, was on the city's agenda long before Complete Streets legislation, the gist of which is that streets need to be designed to accommodate cars plus all other non-motorized forms of transit, was formalized, "Everything that we're doing right now is to make it a safer and friendlier place for people to walk. In principle, [Complete Streets theory] already was implemented as part of this project," Colbeck says.Source: Tim Colbeck, Ypsilanti DDA directorWriter: Tanya Muzumdar

Local Libraries Navigate The Digital World

By Richard Retyi

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General

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June 29, 2011

With society's embrace of digital media, communication, and storage, public libraries are struggling to chart their future. From copyright to ownership to access, the tension between public and private concerns are as complicated as they are contentious. Luckily, Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti have leaders who understand that our local libraries must innovative and evolve in order to keep pace with technology.

Ypsilanti City Hall hopes to become a fixture in the LED light realm

By Tanya Muzumdar

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Development News

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June 29, 2011

Ypsilanti City Hall may become a showplace for LED lighting if its $100,000 grant application is approved.The funds are part of a $1 million pool made available earlier this spring by the Michigan Energy Office for municipalities to install advanced lighting technology demonstration projects. The grant would cover materials and equipment, with $86,000 from the city's revolving energy fund covering labor costs, says Stan Kirton, Ypsilanti's director of public services. "With the savings that we'll realize, we'll replenish that revolving fund and continue to do projects as we go along," Kirton says.Energy cost avoidance estimates are not yet available, but if all 400-plus light fixtures in City Hall were changed to LEDs, Kirton figures a minimum savings of 20-30% annually. Using the mayor's office as a demo for instance, when the city swapped four G12 florescent lights for a pair of LED fixtures, the electricity savings for that office alone was $195 per year. "If you consider all the hallways and all the other offices that we would upgrade, I think the amount will be substantial," he says.The public will be able to track savings and other stats on the Solar Ypsi website, Kirton adds.This is Ypsilanti's second shot at LED lighting grant funds; a prior application for an Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant grant round was unsuccessful. At that time, five times as many municipalities applied as there was money to give, according to the Michigan Energy Office.City officials expect to learn of the decision in July.Source: Stan Kirton, Ypsilanti's director of public servicesWriter: Tanya Muzumdar

Ann Arbor and Ypsi’s Kickstarter Culture

By Richard Retyi

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Economic Development

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June 8, 2011

It's not all about angel investing and venture capital at Concentrate. Some times you've got to focus on the little guy or gal. Which is what Kickstarter does, helping innovative ideas and people to find investment. From food to photography to music and movies, folks in Ann Arbor and Ypsi have used the crowd-sourcing financial service to get their pet projects off the ground.

Hello, sun! Ypsilanti Solar Project beams new numbers

By Newsroom

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Development News

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June 8, 2011

The Ypsilanti Solar Project, a network of solar installations around the city, is growing in power, with new and pending installations and increasing amounts of trackable solar energy generation data now available on the the Solar Ypsi.org website.Call the site the proof in the pudding, if you will. "My whole goal was to just get one spot where we could collect information about installations, parts lists, there's a lot of educational material there, and then do this real-time monitoring," Dave Strenski, an Ypsilanti Solar Project volunteer, says.For the year ended April 2011, the Ypsilanti Food Co-op was 34.4% solar-powered. City Hall, which which now has one full year of tracking data, was 2.6% solar. And after just five months, the River Street Bakery was 80.1% solar-powered, reaching levels in excess of 100% solar-powered for March and April, according to Strenski's figures.Strenski attributes the relatively low percentage at the four-story City Hall, which has a sunny exposure, to inefficient power usage. "The only way to make the percent solar bigger is by making the total power usage smaller," he explains. To that end, he's working with the city on a grant, up to $100,000, to fund the replacement of interior and parking lot lights with LEDs. In upcoming months, look for readings from the new 2.3kW solar photovoltaic panel system on Ypsilanti's Adams STEM Academy, funded by a grant from the Michigan Renewable Schools Program. Additionally, the Michigan Theater and Corner Brewery have their own solar works in the pipeline and may also make their data available on Solar Ypsi.org, Strenski says.Source: Dave Strenski, Ypsilanti Solar Project volunteerWriter: Tanya Muzumdar

Clean Energy Coalition moves to new HQ, to add up to 8 jobs

By Newsroom

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Community Development

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May 25, 2011

The Clean Energy Coalition is adding more staff members and space to house them, moving to a bigger office in Ann Arbor just north of downtown."We're continually expanding," says Sean Reed, executive director of the Clean Energy Coalition. "We're in the process of hiring three people right now. We have the potential for another 4-8 hires later this year as we continue to grow."That brings the sustainability-oriented non-profit's staff to 14 employees, four interns, and two independent contractors. That growth also prompted the organization to move into its fourth office in six years. It had been occupying two spaces (1,000 and 1,500 square feet, respectively) in Ypsilanti's Depot Town for the last few years. Today, it calls 6,000 square feet on the near north side of Ann Arbor home."This allows us to bring the staffs of the offices together under one roof," Reed says. He adds that it also gives adequate room for growth for the Clean Energy Coalition, which is debuting its new website this week.The Clean Energy Coalition has landed several million dollars in grant funding in recent years, including $15 million from the federal stimulus package. That money is part of Michigan's $31 million Green Fleets project, which will integrate more alternative fuels and advanced fuel-efficient technology (i.e. bio-diesel) into municipal vehicle fleets. The non-profit is also working to help make local government buildings more energy efficient.Source: Sean Reed, executive director of the Clean Energy CoalitionWriter: Jon ZemkeRead more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.

A Wall Of Their Own – Opportunities For New Artists

By Constance Crump

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Community Development

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May 25, 2011

Successful cities offer more than just good-paying jobs, they also provide opportunities for creative expression. Whether it's open stages for performers, literary groups for writers, or build spaces for makers, young professionals are looking for a place to exercise their right brain. And that includes our aspiring Rembrandts. Concentrate looks into where and how local artists display their work.

Washtenaw County holds its own in the Green Communities Challenge

By Newsroom

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Development News

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May 25, 2011

In what's deemed a friendly competition, the cities of Saline, Ypsilanti, and Ann Arbor, along with the village of Dexter, are taking part with roughly 90 other communities state-wide in the Michigan Municipal League (MML) Green Communities Challenge. The challenge began two years ago as a collaboration between the MML and the state to offer resources and information on eco-friendly activities and serve as a forum for local governments to share environmental intelligence.Any unit of local government in the state is eligible to join, says Project Coordinator Luke Forrest. While the MML stops short of directly offering financial resources, "we work with the state and federal government and share information about finding resources and other sorts of assistance that's available, so it's a good way for a local government official or activist to really stay on top of the cutting edge in terms of what communities can do in order to be more environmentally sustainable." Communities earn green brownie points for various qualifying activities. For instance, Ann Arbor is developing a comprehensive Sustainability Plan to meld over 20 documents the city has on environmental issues. "They'd be one of few cities in the state that have done something that ambitious," Forrest says.Ann Arbor is also the first city to offer a Property-Assessed Clean Energy program, which allows it to finance energy efficiency improvements for private commercial buildings through public bond offerings. Property owners reimburse the city by spreading payments out via several years' worth of property tax bills. In other examples, Dexter has replaced 124 streetlights downtown with LED lights.Saline installed solar photovoltaic (PV) systems on the roof of its city hall, and also has a water protection education and tree planting and preservation programs.Ypsilanti also has solar PV panels on its city hall. And it created an energy efficiency revolving loan fund to pay for future projects, including LEDs on Cross Street and in several city buildings. "Washtenaw [County] definitely has a lot of leader communities in this area," Forrest notes.In what officials hope will become an annual event, the MML will be hosting the Michigan Green Communities Conference in Lansing this fall to recognize exemplary work and serve as an information swap for local governing bodies. Source: Luke Forrest, project coordinator for the Michigan Municipal LeagueWriter: Tanya Muzumdar

Get ready for 2nd annual Accelerate Michigan Innovation Competition

By Newsroom

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Economic Development

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May 18, 2011

The Accelerate Michigan Innovation Competition will return for its second year this fall, bringing more than $1 million worth of seed capital cash and prizes for start-ups that plan to grow in the Great Lakes State."We're just excited to be back for a second year," says Lauren Bigelow, executive director of the Accelerate Michigan Innovation Competition. "We are excited to become a bigger part of Michigan's pipeline of start-ups."The competition works to showcase the best of the best start-ups in Michigan, along with attracting other out-of-state companies to move to the state. More than $1 million in cash and prizes were awarded last fall, including $500,000 to University of Michigan spin-off Armune Biosciences and $150,000 to Ann Arbor-based Arbor Photonics. This year's competition will feature the same prize pool and structure.Organizers are also pointing out that there is more at stake than just the seed capital prizes. Contestants will received valuable feedback from business experts, and get a chance to make their pitch to angel investors and venture capitalists from around the world. This year, organizers are working to have one-third of the people evaluating the start-ups to come from the coasts or outside of the U.S."We're looking to get a bigger critical mass of people looking at our deal flow," Bigelow says.The event will be held on Nov. 16-17 at the Eagle Crest Conference Center in Ypsilanti. The gala awards and dinner will be held at Henry Ford Museum on Nov. 17. Interested start-ups can submit applications starting on June 6, with a deadline of Aug. 10. The deadline for student-led start-ups is Sept. 21. For information, click here.Source: Lauren Bigelow, executive director of the Accelerate Michigan Innovation CompetitionWriter: Jon ZemkeRead more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.