From neighborhood breakfast salon to ag incubator to monthly happy hours to nonprofit organization, Selma Café has grown and evolved over its four years. Concentrate chats with its co-founder and president Lisa Gottlieb about how things are going and where they are headed next.
Hackerspaces, makerspaces, whatever you call them, they're pretty dang cool. All Hands Active churns out high, low and in-between tech inventions in downtown Ann Arbor, accomodating everyone from kids to start-ups. Concentrate's Tanya Muzumdar descends into their subterranean lair to get the low down.
A common criticism of government studies and plans is that after all the time and effort spent developing them, they are put into a binder and tucked into a shelf. With the recently launched "Shape Ypsilanti" website and social media campaign, the city of Ypsilanti intends to create a master planning process that defies such an outcome by being both active and flexible. The goal of a master plan is to establish a long-term vision for land use and development. The Shape Ypsilanti master planning process is a part of Washtenaw County’s Community Challenge Grant. The city will receive $180,000 to generate a master plan and zoning ordinance revisions. While the master plan itself garners most of the attention, the ordinance revisions are a major part of the project. "We’re hoping to have the master plan drafted by this summer," says Ypsilanti City Planner Teresa Gillotti. "Then we switch gears and start revising our zoning ordinance. Then we'll have a little bit of muscle in the master plan." According to Gillotti, building flexibility into the plan is the result a lesson the city learned after drastic changes to the economy altered the relevance of their 1998 master plan. Because no one can anticipate exactly what the future will hold, the Shape Ypsilanti process will include the unique feature of developing community values along with the land use vision. "We want to have consensus on our guiding principles, so when things change we still know where we’re going," says Gillotti. "Instead of saying, 'we can only do option A, B or C,' we can say, 'Does D fit our principles?' It’s a neat idea." The Shape Ypsilanti process launched Jan. 17 with an interactive website and social media. Public focus groups and charrettes will begin next month. Gillotti encourages members of the public to join in the planning process, and to visit the website for opportunities to get involved. Source: Teresa Gillotti, Ypsilanti City Planner Writer: Natalie Burg
Be it resolved that this harsh winter, arts boosters will get their day in the sun. The city of Saline's Arts and Culture Committee is putting forth the idea of a new arts and cultural center in Saline. The first of two meetings will be held this week in order to gauge public interest. "The purpose of this cultural "campus" or "mall" would be to offer established and growing arts and cultural organizations a common location with space to meet teaching, storage, rehearsal, performance, and display needs, as well as space to grow and expand," says an invitation letter for the meeting. The intention is not for Saline's arts and culture committee, the city, or its school system to either drive or fund the center. "It really needs to be a community effort," says Saline City Council Rep. Linda TerHaar, who is also a Saline Arts and Culture Committee member. "We see our role as the catalyst to get the discussion going." TerHaar says the center, which would be years away from fruition, is not intended to replace any current arts organizations or infrastructure in Saline. The committee is seeking a range of public input on everything from potential locations to funding sources to uses for such a center, according to TerHaar. One location that's been floated is Houghton School, which is not currently in use. The school is located near Saline's downtown and Mill Pond Park. It's also expected that the center would be funded privately, with options including private donations, grant funding, and charging users rent. "We've talked about studio space for individual artists. Houghton School has a kitchen, so if we're at Houghton School there could be culinary arts classes and demonstrations. The Saline Area Players could have a performance, just as an example," TerHaar says, adding, "We see the possibilities as pretty unlimited. We've also talked about landscape art, gardening art. Once again, depending on the facility, the Houghton School has a lovely inner courtyard that we could foresee landscape artists just having a wonderful time designing and working in." The first of two meetings is set for 7 p.m. on Thurs., Jan. 24 at Stone Arch Arts & Events, at 117 S. Ann Arbor St. in Saline. The second will be at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 25, at a location to be announced on the Saline Arts and Cultural Center's Facebook page. All are welcome. Source: Saline City Council Rep. Linda TerHaar Writer: Tanya Muzumdar
Throughout the month of January a group of 30 or so young professionals are meeting weekly for breakfast to plan for how to make their lives in Ann Arbor the right choice for their professional, personal, creative and future goals. It's the brainchild of Omari Rush, and it's found support from some important local businesses and institutions.
The recent morphing of a garage into an art classroom is another coup for the arts community in the village of Chelsea. And it's certainly what aspiring potters and sculptors have been waiting for. Next week, the Chelsea Center for the Arts will begin holding classes in the new room, converted from the garage portion of its circa-1923 brick building at 400 Congdon St.. New plumbing, heating, air conditioning, walls and ceiling, electrical, and lighting were installed. A windowed garage door lights the space. "What makes it so nice is that it can be open. We have a garage door... that can be fully opened up to our secured garden area in the rear of the building," says Lisa Baylis Gonzalez, the center's executive director. "It's going to be a great open space, a great open studio, in the summer months, in the nice months." The $30,000 project was funded with a grant from the Worthington Family Foundation. The center now has a pottery wheel and kiln in the classroom addition – amenities it lacked before. Open studio time will be available, and Baylis Gonzalez anticipates class sizes of about eight students each. "This is certainly a project that we needed to add classes and hopefully add programs like crazy, which will hopefully lead to more staff time as we build the program," Baylis Gonzalez says. Source: Lisa Baylis Gonzales, executive director, Chelsea Center for the Arts Writer: Tanya Muzumdar
Nonprofits are on a mission to become more enterprise-focused: entering business plan competitions, even seeking start-up cash. Repeat blogger Amanda Edmonds, executive director of Growing Hope, reflects on her nonprofit's social enterprise role and on the value of diversified funding sources.
The long-awaited next chapter for the Ypsilanti Freighthouse is coming, very possibly by May of 2013. The circa-1850 building, originally part of the Michigan Central Railroad Complex in Depot Town, has been closed for the past eight years. At this point over $1 million has been raised and spent on an extensive rehabilitation of the structure to make it eligible for occupancy and re-open it for public use. The funding came from a combination of federal, state, and city of Ypsilanti funds, as well as auctions, sales, and private donations. The Friends of The Ypsilanti Freighthouse (FOYF), the group managing the project, is raising the final $75,000 needed for the last few punch-list items, according to FOYF co-founder Linda French. The funds are needed to install new bathrooms, a heating system, and a fire suppression system. The property has a new metal roof, steel structural supports, and a large rain garden. It retains its original brick interior walls and wood floor. The Freighthouse, which measures about 5,000 square feet, will contain a train kiosk for planned commuter train service, a gathering room for community events, and a café. "Once we get it open, we're going to put out RFPs throughout the community to see what it is the people in the city would like to see in there, and then have RFPs from different groups that might want to run it," French says. "We envision it going back to being a public domain, where you have jazz shows, you have antique shows and farmers markets, just bits of things that the community can be involved in." She adds: "We did a very extensive business plan so that we would make this a sustainable building so the city doesn't have to pay money to keep it going." The intent is to charge rental fees for occasional private events, such as weddings, although by and large, the building will remain open to the public. "It is Greenfield Village quality. It's just a wonderful building and now that it's fixed, we'd like to return it to the city of Ypsilanti and have it be used by the citizens." Source: Linda French, co-founder, Friends of The Ypsilanti Freighthouse Writer: Tanya Muzumdar
Sometimes even a token support can make a big difference. Each month a dozen Ann Arbor locals vote (and pony up $100) to make their community a little bit more awesome by funding worthy projects. The newest awesome grant recipients include: 826Michigan, Spontaneous Art, and photographer Bill Streety. Excerpt: A2Awesome Chair Lisa Dengiz had the following to say: “It’s really amazing how many people in our community have brilliant ideas that can be realized with as little as $1,000. When we started this chapter of the Awesome Foundation almost a year ago, we had no idea just how much potential there was. Our grants, among other things, have helped launched Bona Sera Cafe on Michigan Avenue, bringing a renewed sense of vibrancy to downtown Ypsilanti, and put exercise equipment inside Ozone House, improving the lives of local at-risk youth. That’s incredibly gratifying.”" Read more HERE. And here. And here. Full disclosure: Concentrate's editor Jeff meyers is a board member of the A2Awesome Foundation
Toyota's North American research and development facilities found not one but four homes in Michigan. To celebrate their three and a half decades here they handed out grants to local non-profits like 826Michigan, Ele's Place, The hope Clinic, and Growing Hope. Excerpt: "Toyota Technical Center (TTC) has been the driving force behind Toyota's North American engineering and research & development (R&D) activities since 1977. Headquartered in Michigan, TTC has R&D facilities in Ann Arbor, Saline, Plymouth and Livonia. In California," Read the rest here.
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