Royal Oak : In the News

In a provocative article, the Creative Class guru talks about the distinction between city and suburb today. He compares Motown to Urban-burbs like Ferndale, Royal Oak, Birmingham and Ann Arbor, metro Detrtoit communities that are evolving their urban design to adapt to changing community standards.

Excerpt:

"The old distinctions between "city" and "suburb" do seem to be blurring. Urban neighborhoods are improving safety, upgrading schools, adding parks and bike lanes to their existing urban fabric, while suburban ones are adding density, walkability and mixed-use districts to their existing safe streets and good schools."

Read the rest here.

Those U.S. News chaps sure do like their lists. Must be some money in them, huh? Seems they've changed their creteria and that has resulted in a shake-up of sorts (reputation is no longer weighted). Along with ranking Michigan hospitals for their quality of care they've picked U-M in Ann Arbor (ranked 17th overall) as among the best in the nation. Beaumont in Royal Oak came in number 2 in the Mitten with 10 nationally ranked soecialities.

You can see the rankings here.

Crain's has a write-up here.

There is an old skater addage: If your city doesn't have a skatepark your city becomes a skatepark. For the thousands of boarders who showed up and off at Detroit's Hart Plaza and then partied in Royal Oak, the creation of The Rideit Skate Park in Hamtramck was mission one.

Excerpt:

"Many of the skateboarders flooded the downtown streets in unison after the event at Hart Plaza, and then went to the after party in Royal Oak where many skaters stood in line, partied in the parking lots and gave previews of cool moves before entering the 80,000 sq. ft. building filled with ramps, which are geared for both the most experienced and the ones just starting out."

Read the rest here.

Here's a little fact you may not know... Philadelphia has over 3000 murals. And it's a point of pride for the city, an enthusiastic display of local and imported artistic expression. Could Detroit and the metro area be open to the same kind of initiative?

Excerpt:

Idiosyncratic murals painted by some of the world's most famous street and graffiti artists have been popping up on walls across Metro Detroit, from Eastern Market to Hamtramck to Royal Oak.

Behind the murals are Hamtramck-based arts group Contra Projects and the owners of Royal Oak-based 323East gallery, which together hatched the Detroit Beautification Project.

Asked why they formed the group, Contra Projects director Matthew Eaton gestured at illicit graffiti tags defacing a brick wall in Eastern Market. "Have you seen this place?" he asked, looking around. "What's the downside of letting artists make the city look more colorful and engaging?"

Read the rest here.

Two words: Mobile learning. Could be the future. And Royal Oak-based Innovative Learning Group took home a Gold Hermes Creative Award for their multi-part learning series.

Excerpt:

"Royal Oak-based Innovative Learning Group has won a Gold Hermes Creative Award in the categroy of E-Communication Series for its email and video series, Mobile or Not…Here It Comes!, which is about applying mobile technology to learning."

Read the rest here.

BUT WAIT, there's more. Brogan beat out 11,000 other competing entries to win Telly Awards.

Excerpt:

"he Telly Awards, the premier award honoring local, regional and cable TV commercials and programs, video and film production and online commercials, has named Brogan & Partners a multiple winner of its 33rd annual awards. Brogan & Partners is honored to have its projects selected among nearly 11,000 entries from all 50 states and numerous countries. The announcement was made by Brogan Managing Partner, Ellyn Davidson.

Two Brogan & Partners projects – “STEM Interview” on behalf of the National Defense Education Partnership and “Secondhand Rose, Secondhand Smoke” on behalf of the Michigan Department of Community Health – were honored, the latter in two separate categories. “STEM Interview” received a Silver Telly, the Awards highest honor, in the not-for-profit category. “Secondhand Rose, Secondhand Smoke” was awarded both a Silver Telly in the public service category and a Bronze Telly in the not-for-profit category. "

Read the rest here.

Dancing With The Stars has inspired locals to start cutting the rug. the result? Dance studios are growing and expanding.

Excerpt:

"The downtown Royal Oak Arthur Murray studio has seen a slow increase in business since "Dancing With the Stars" started in June 2005, said Jeremiah Childers, manager of the Royal Oak studio. The studio held on "by its fingernails" during the recession, owner and manager Candace McKenzie said, but the student growth and an improving economy led her to decide to expand into a space on Woodward Avenue in Royal Oak that is double the size of the original location. The move is scheduled to be made next month."

Read the rest of the story here.

'Tis the season! World Zombie Day is just around the corner -- have you stocked up on blood and rotting flesh? Royal Oak, Mt. Clemens, and even Lansing are shuffling onto the undead bandwagon with zombie-themed charity events. Be there or be eaten.

Excerpt:

"Is a zombie apocalypse coming?

Metro Detroiters might wonder as much over the coming weeks.

Not only is today designated as World Zombie Day, but on Sunday, zombies will be lurching through Royal Oak, much as they will on Oct. 22 in Mt. Clemens. Zombies will even be battling vampires in a roller derby match at Michigan State University's Demonstration Hall on Oct. 29."

Read the rest here.

Here's video of last year's walk.

Metro Detroit's most famous chin, Bruce Campbell, returned to his old stomping grounds for this past weekend's FanFare convention. He then dropped in with director Sam Raimi, who is filming Oz: The Great and Powerful in Pontiac at Raleigh Michigan Studios. He took a few minutes to answer five questions from the Freep.

Excerpt:

"We always hold out hope to film in Michigan, but there are other places, other countries, that make it very appealing. We've done so much work in New Zealand, that's where we may end up doing it, ironically.

Michigan and the film business and the incentives -- that's been interesting. Seems like that big welcome mat has been taken away. It's been fun to see that resurgence of the industry there -- with people like Clint Eastwood and Drew Barrymore and now Sam working there. We'll see what happens when the dust settles.

The thing is, I think Detroit -- and Michigan -- is a viable place to shoot for other reasons than the money. But it's also hard to justify why one industry is getting such a big break."

Read the rest here.

InformationWeek singled out Beaumont Health System as a tech innovator at its annual award ceremony, noting the hospital's advances in IT technology.

Excerpt:

"Beaumont Health System has been named to the 2011 InformationWeek 500, an annual listing of the nation’s most innovative users of business technology. The list was announced at an awards ceremony this week at the St. Regis Resort in Monarch Beach, Calif.

InformationWeek has identified and honored the nation’s most innovative users of information technology with its annual 500 listing for 23 years. It also tracks the technology, strategies, investments and administrative practices of America’s best-known companies, including Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc., General Motors Co., Colgate-Palmolive and Merck."

Read the rest here.

It's one thing when a business decides to go green because it's good for the environment. It's another when they do it to improve their bottom line. Not only does Emagine's new theater / bowling alley have solar panels on its roof -- installing them made the business' finance packaging possible.

Excerpt:

"After seven years, the solar array will have paid for itself. With a 25-year guarantee on the panels and rising electricity costs, Glantz said, the investment will cut the 71,000-square-foot theater's annual electricity bill by about 20 percent.

But Glantz said the key to completing the theater project was the solar panel investment. As part of the financing package, Emagine was preapproved for a $3.5 million subordinated second mortgage with a 20-year Small Business Administration 504 loan."

Read the rest of the story here.

Top hospital in Metro Detroit? Survey says... Beaumont. Yup, U.S. News & World Report is at it again, ranking institutions and picking winners and losers. This time it's hospitals. Sometimes we wonder how far the magazine is willing to go with this stuff. Top Doggy Daycare Center? Best Chapter for The Knights Of Columbus? And just how much influence does the Russian judge have on the rankings?

Excerpt:

U.S. News & World Report, in its first metro area Best Hospitals rankings, today named Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak as its top Metro Detroit hospital.

Coming in second was the Detroit Medical Center's Harper University Hospital; third, Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit; fourth, Oakwood Hospital and Medical Center in Dearborn; and fifth Beaumont Hospital in Troy.