Development News

Infusion Partners, an Auburn Hills company, that keeps patients at home and out of the hospital by providing medical treatments such as IV medication, is expanding its office in Auburn Hills.

The company is based in Cincinnati and has a 10-year-old office in Auburn Hills. The Michigan office is adding space and staff in order to keep up with an increasing demand for services, including a growing Just for Kids program meant to keep sick children at home during intravenous medical treatment that might normally call for hospitalization. Infusion Partners provides the equipment and training.

To keep up with demand it is expanding its Michigan operation and office in Auburn Hills, 3355 Bald Mountain Road.

The company will hire and nearly double in size once the expansion is complete though exact details are still pending.

Writer: Kim North Shine
Source: Steve Cohen, director of community development, Auburn Hills

State transportation officials see record Amtrak ridership in Michigan as a sign that the public is more aware of train service and seeing the future of commuter train travel in a more positive light.

In 2012, 792,769 passengers boarded Michigan's three Amtrak routes -- the Wolverine between Pontiac and Detroit/Chicago), the Blue Water between Port Huron and East Lansing/Chicago), and the Pere Marquette between Grand Rapids and Chicago. In 2011, that number was 780,655.

The record ridership also led to record revenue of $27.8 million in 2012, a year that had Amtrak adding extra trains to supplement the regular service.

It comes as plans to bring light rail in to Woodward Avenue downtown Detroit move toward implementation and a move to bring a regional commuter train system to metro Detroit and to Michigan and nearby states moves from a limp to a steady walk. Both are aided by federal funds from a program that endorses mass transit development as an economic stimulant. But with Michigan being a stronghold for auto travel, it's been a tough sell in some parts.

At the same time, Amtrak and the Michigan Department of Transportation have been updating trains and making changes to allow for faster travel speeds and fewer route interruptions that will in turn make train travel more appealing.


Writer: Kim North Shine
Source: Janet Foran, spokesperson, Michigan Department of Transportation

After seven successful years in Detroit's Midtown, Canine to Five has expanded to Ferndale, bringing its day care, cageless overnight boarding and play place to another part of metro Detroit.

Canine to Five Ferndale opens Jan. 28 at 2141 Hilton Road with 4,000 square feet of indoor play and sleep area for as many as 60 dogs coming for day care, or space for 40 dogs in overnight, cage-free boarding. Another 1,400 square feet of outdoor space is connected to the indoor area.

More than a business, Canine to Five is a community connection that brings together dog lovers who want to give their dogs a place to socialize.

“Canine to Five has grown to be more than just a daycare facility. We are a community center for dogs that holds play dates, educational seminars and other events. We want to make sure our new Ferndale location is a similar resource for our customers and community,” founder and owner Liz Blondy says.

Canine to Five is planning several special, grand opening events, including an open $5 per dog play date on Valentine's Day. The center will also offer special dog care courses such as animal first aid and other events.

Writer: Kim North Shine
Source: Liz Blondy, owner, Canine to Five Detroit and Ferndale

Concordia University Ann Arbor is taking a catered style of college learning to Dearborn, addressing a demand by non-traditional students looking to earn a degree in less time.

Concordia's new accelerated learning center in Dearborn opens this month; a Frankenmuth center opened in December. The Wisconsin-based, Lutheran-centered university is responding to existing and prospective students who want to earn a degree in less time but in more intense sessions (say longer classes and shorter semesters) in order to accommodate jobs or families that already occupy much of their time.

The center, which is currently located at the Great Lakes Members Credit Union building, 22720 Michigan Ave., will offer undergraduate courses in business, hospitality management, management of criminal justice and nursing, as well as a Master of Science program in organizational leadership and administration.

Writer: Kim North Shine
Source: Rochelle Regenauer, Concordia University Wisconsin Centers and Accelerated Programs executive director

A Parson's School of Design grad is trading in New York for a return to his hometown of Birmingham, opening a business that will use his experience in fashion to offer designers and brands not often seen in Michigan.

Zachary Kay and his mother Lori will run Found Objects, a boutique with clothing and accessories at 241 E. Merrill St. in downtown Birmingham.

Kay, a Cranbrook schools graduate, predicts the location, in a walkable part of the city that attracts serious shoppers who want a city experience and not the mall, will find its niche.

The store is scheduled to open March 1.

Writer: Kim North Shine
Source: John Heiney, director, Birmingham Principal Shopping District

Going to Wall Street each day is out of the question for finance students at Walsh College -- or any college for that matter -- so Walsh has built a miniature version of the stock exchange right on its Troy campus.

The 1,400-square-foot, glass-walled finance lab comes with a dozen Bloomberg terminals, several large, flat-screened TVs tuned to financial reports, and an LED ticker that runs along the top of the wall, giving real-time readings of financial reports and financial news.

Inside, students have a number of ways to learn the principle of market structure, including software that drives the marketplace. The lab goes hand in hand with courses in investment, portfolios, financial markets, international finance, financial management and economics. It will also be used for public events such as financial planning seminars and private investment programs.

"Walsh College’s interactive finance lab will change the way we teach financial courses,” Walsh College Professor Linda Wiechowski, chair of the finance and economics department, says in a statement about the last week's lab opening. “Our new lab will provide students with the knowledge and tools they need to fine-tune their skills and increase their marketability.”

Writer: Kim North Shine
Source: Lindsay Karpinskas, Airfoil public relations

Lincoln Park is one of six Michigan cities learning how to take their downtowns to the next level through the Michigan Main Street Associate program of the Michigan State Housing Development Authority, or MSHDA,

Lincoln Park officials will receive special training during the next year.

The training will focus on the basics of Main Street planning, including organization, promotion, economic restructuring and design. Staff from the Michigan Main Street Center and representatives from successful Main Street communities will provide the training.

Madhu Oberoi, executive director of the Lincoln Park Downtown Development Authority, applied for the training and designation as an associate member of Main Street associate member.

"I'd like the training outcome to be that we receive some economic development tools and strategies to revitalize the downtown area. We need direction and assistance on facade improvements, historic preservation and business recruiting," says Leslie Lynch wilson, board member of the Lincoln Park DDA.

"The Main Street program is beneficial for Lincoln Park because if we can successfully revitalize our downtown area…it will help improve other parts of the city through improved property values."

In a statement announcing the training recipients, Scott Woosley, executive director of MSHDA, says “Michigan’s economy cannot thrive without vibrant downtowns. The Michigan Main Street program creates opportunities for new development and economic growth in downtowns across our state.”

The Michigan Main Street Associate program is part of Governor Rick Snyder’s Placemaking initiative and downtown development efforts in Michigan, which are based on research that shows investment in downtowns leads to healthy communities and a more economically successful state.

The other recipients of the Main Street training are the cities of Flat Rock, Alpena, Grayling, Port Huron, and the village of Middleville.

Writer: Kim North Shine
Sources: Michigan State Housing Development Authority and Leslie Lynch Wilson, board member, Lincoln Park Downtown Development Authority

What started as a home-based pet walking and pet sitting business in 2010 has matured into its own office and boutique in downtown Ferndale.

Pet Care AuPair and its newest venture, the Pet & Paw boutique in Ferndale, really go hand and hand, something owner Kristen Schmitt and her team figured out as they got to know their clients -- the four-footed, two-footed and no-footed.

"More and more clients started asking about pet nutrition. Their pets were getting sick and the more we talked the common denominator was China, foods made and processed there.

She answered by researching and finding more pure, Made In USA foods and treats, many targeted to address very specific problems for all kinds of animals. Her pet care service counts dogs, cats, birds, lizards, snakes, rodents, fish, horses in Oxford and two pot-bellied pigs among the clients.

"There are seriously so many great products out there," she says. "I've aligned myself with these manufacturers because i really believe in their products."

It's those products that Schmitt stocks at Pet & Paw, the boutique in front of the store she opened at 23233 Woodward Avenue about four blocks from 9 Mile. Behind the shop, she runs the pet care service that's grown enough in just two years to require a team of five independent contractors, and one full-time and one part-time employee. Among them is a veterinary technician and an animal behaviorist.

"We always say we're your pet care advocate. If we don't know answers we'll get them. And we never stand in as a substitute for a veterinarian."

It's just that they get to know their animals well -- so much so that employees mourn if pets pass on -- and they have learned through experience how to help with simple problems, namely nutrition-related, and what specific breeds do and don't respond to.

"This has just sort of metamorphosed into a great thing, and we have a really good team in place..I felt confident that we were ready for an office and retail," she says. "And it's been really good so far."


Writer: Kim North Shine
Source: Kristen Schmitt, founder Pet Care AuPair and Pet & Paw

A new business in Ferndale is the latest game in town when it comes to new ways to throw parties and special events.

Activ8, which opened last week on Hilton one block north of 8 Mile, is rentable space stocked with dozens of gaming systems, and hundreds of games and TVs all around. Everything comes in a lounge setting where socializing and interacting are as much a part of the party as game-playing.

Activ8 Gaming Lounge is owned by Neal Nosakowski, CEO of Trinet Corp. in Novi, and is the latest version of a gaming rental business he started about a year and a half ago.

That business, a mobile gaming unit, takes video game systems, games and a stage to graduation parties, weddings and special events. Nosakowski's specially designed monitor set-up turns players toward the audience and away from the TV screen, ideal for a game such as Rock Band, he says. Instead of singing, drumming or strumming a guitar with your back to party guests, players perform for them. The mobile gaming unit went into operation a little over a year ago.

It was the success with the unit combined with interest in monthly gaming lounge parties at Nosakowski's Novi office called Social Saturdays that convinced him to open a permanent spot in Ferndale. Originally, the gamers' lounge was in his office, and after more than 1,000 people came through in one year, he knew from the feedback that there was a market.

"The overwhelming majority were like, 'This is really cool. I would like to rent the for my office party, or my kids party,'" he says. "That was the start."

Writer: Kim North Shine
Source: Neal Nosakowski, CEO Activ8 Gaming Lounge and Trinet Corp.

A big, vacant building on 8 Mile in Southfield is in the early stages of becoming a major distribution center for Gleaners Community Food Bank.

The former headquarters of New York Carpet World on 8 Mile has been donated by owners Irving Nusbaum and William Berlin, and now Gleaners is beginning fundraising to renovate the 96,000-square-foot facility that will extend its ability to reach hungry families and also bring back activity to the darkened spot at the northeast corner of 8 Mile and Telegraph.

"We had been looking for a building for a while…It was a tremendous gift," spokesperson Anne Schenk says.

Schenk says there's no timeline as of yet as far as when the facility would open, but when it does it "will be a logistics center."

That could lead to job creation and more volunteer opportunities. Gleaners currently runs distribution centers at its Detroit headquarters and in Warren, Taylor, Pontiac and Howell.

"In the long term certainly the hope is it helps us expand our operations even further," Schenk says.

Writer: Kim North Shine
Source: Anne Schenk, senior director of advancement, Gleaners Community Food Bank

Winezilla. The name is a humorous attempt to take away what can be the beastly reputation of wine connoisseurs, and for Winezilla owner Ed Bosse that means selling and teaching about wines that are affordable, well-made and free of extra chemicals, preservatives and processing.

Bosse opened Winezilla on Woodward Avenue and 9 Mile in downtown Ferndale about three weeks ago - a follow-up to Simply Wine, a business he founded and sold a few years back. Simply Wine was a "Best Of" winner in several metro Detroit publications .

Now reborn as Winezilla, Ed boasts that "some of our old customers are coming back. Ferndale is a cool town. People go out of their way to support a local business and to tell other people about it." 

Winezilla is a wine store first, and second a place to taste wine and learn about how it's made, how it's different from mass-produced wines and more. Nearly every wine is priced around $10 or under. Formal tastings are held on Saturday afternoons, but customers can try what they're thinking of buying at anytime.

"People get to see how good inexpensive wine is…I use words like fresh and clean, and they see what I mean after they taste it," he says. "A lot of small production and boutique wine is expensive…over-oaked or over-exerted. There are a lot of cool, small production wineries that make great, clean healthy wines and that's a lot of what we sell."

"In France or Italy I've had bottles of wine that are less than $10 and not full of chemicals and taste so much better than expensive wines," says Bosse, a former schoolteacher who has traveled many places drinking the wine made in fine wineries and by back yard operations.

"Wine has been handcuffed by this reputation of who supposedly drinks wine, and who buys it," he says.

Bosse wants to tap into all parts of the wine market: including women and young people.

"There's a whole group of people that drink wine on an every-day basis. Young people who might be termed beer-drinkers are starting to be more graceful and entertaining at home. You've got a whole new generation entertaining in a more European way and wine is is part of that," he says.

"The name Winezilla is kind of silly and maybe it goes to far," he says. "But it's a way of saying, 'Look guys this is for you. Wine can be fun.' "

Writer: Kim North Shine
Source: Ed Bosse, owner, Winezilla

Carly and Greg Goidosik's decision to open Michigan's first Dailey Method fitness studio in downtown Birmingham is a positive for the city, but their decision to return to Michigan from the Chicago-area to start said business is a broader sign of the economic tide-turner that's bringing Michigan's young ex-pats back to their home state.

"There's this whole new energy in Michigan, especially with people of my generation," says Carly Goidosik, 27, a Dailey Method master trainer turned franchise owner. "People I went to high school with, people I went to college with, they want to come back and be a part of the changes happening here."

Clearly there is a market for Dailey Method Birmingham, which opens Friday,  Jan. 11, in Birmingham Place, 34665 Woodward Avenue, a very visible and prominent spot on the ground floor of the Birmingham Place condos. Renovations of the last several weeks make sure that the spot isn't too fish-bowlish, just the right amount of exposure and privacy.

"The interest is beyond anything we could have imagined," she says. There are already nearly 10 classes that are booked and waiting lists have formed. Their sales goal for the opening weekend has been exceeded.

Inside the 2,000-square-foot studio, Dailey Method's "community classes" will be taught Monday - Saturday, initially. Dailey Method formed in San Francisco in 2000 and is a mix of strengthening, toning and body-lengthening approaches that mix yoga, pilates, a ballet barre and more. Down the street is a few-months-old lululemon athletic wear, a company that has named Carly a local ambassador.

The Birmingham Dailey Method franchise is the first in Michigan and one of 46 nationwide. In the Chicago area,where the Goidosik's moved after graduating college there were 10, she says. She started as a student, went through training to teach and eventually became a master trainer for other teachers before she decided - with the encouragement of the owner of the studio where she worked - to open her own.

"We wanted to come back to Michigan to be near family," she says. But once they started their search for locations they learned they were part of a boom in entrepreneurs, investors and developers looking for property in metro Detroit.

"Probably two years ago we never would have even considered the Detroit-area to start a business," she says. "Our broker told us if we'd started six months earlier it would have been different story."

While competition for a storefront wasn't ideal, it was uplifting to see the interest in metro Detroit, she says.

"It's a great thing being in the Detorit area. One of the great things about being here is a quality I see in the Midwest, a loyalty. If people love you, they will support you."

Writer: Kim North Shine
Source: Carly Goidosik, owner, Dailey Method Birmingham

After more than three years at its old Second Street location on the fringe of downtown Rochester, the Dessert Oasis has moved to middle of Main Street and changed its name to reflect its specialty of roasting coffee.

The opening this weekend of the newly-named Dessert Oasis Coffee Roasters at 336 S. Main St. will double seating capacity and sport a stepped-up interior of wood floors and exposed brick. Manager Andy Vickers is excited about the prospects.

Besides seating more of the customers who come for coffee that's roasted right in the back, for after-dinner desserts made on site or who attend open mic, live music nights and other special events, the new location is "smack dab in the middle of downtown. It's just such a great place to be. We have a lot of great events coming up and we always have people strolling around town after dinner or going out," Vickers says.

Dessert Oasis also serves fondues and fresh fruit crepes and sandwiches. "We provide all the coffee and the desserts and we can seat up to 20," Vickers says.

The new shop has a larger private room for rental, and already book clubs, writing groups and a Bible study class use it.

This weekend and others owner Jamal Hamood's daughter, Stephanie Hamood, will perform. She just returned from touring with singer Anita Baker. Son Nate Hamood, only 17, is an award-winning coffee roaster and will do his thing with the beans. Monday nights are open mic nights and attract many promising singers.

Writer: Kim North Shine
Source: Andy Vickers, manager, Dessert Oasis Coffee Roasters

The Hyatt Regency Dearborn's transformation into an eco-friendly hotel is closing in on completion as an Adoba Eco Hotel, a hotel brand working to make a name for itself as being "Green from the Ground Up."

The hotel is situated near national tourist attraction, The Henry Ford, and Ford Motor Co. with all of its business travelers. The postmodern, glass structure where the Hyatt operated for more than 30 years is at 600 Town Center Drive and is one of city's most prominent structures.

Adoba Dearborn began operations in November, and the final sale of the hotel is expected later this month.

The purchase saves about 300 jobs and also gives visitors to Dearborn another lodging option. It also brings to metro Detroit a business that is focused on sustainability in its operations, including the use of low flow toilets, water-saving shower heads and more.

The Colorado-based company started in 2010 and was based on building - or in Dearborn's case, renovating - hotels that are LEED-certified facilities. LEED buildings meet national standards set by the U.S. Green Building Council for conservation.

Adoba owner, Atmosphere Hospitality, operates one other eco-hotel near Mount Rushmore in 2010. It opened in 2010 and has been named a top hotel for the Black Hills of South Dakota.

Once the purchase is complete, more involved LEED-focused renovations to the Dearborn hotel can begin and could take up to three years.

Writer: Kim North Shine
Source: Adoba Eco Hotels & Suites and City of Dearborn

B. Nektar Meadery's cup continues to runneth over as it closes in on the opening of a second facility in Ferndale.

The mead-maker opened in 2008 and has more than quintupled the gallons it produces as its distribution grows state by state across the country.

The newest facility is located 1481 Wordsworth and will feature a tap room and more bar space to service the locals who want a Zombie Killer Evil Genius or any of its limited meads on site.

The original location on 1505 Jarvis in Ferndale will continue to operate, and on Jan. 4 the opening of the new facility at 1481 Wordworth will be celebrated with the first of ongoing tastings, even as the facility is still being completed.

The tastings come after the brewery received its state winemaker's license for the new facilty earlier this month.

Writer: Kim North Shine
Source: City of Ferndale