This is somewhat late notice, but we meant to include this story in Monday's Development News and wanted to make sure our readers were aware of it (for the record, we are not affiliated with this group):
Efforts are underway in Jackson to help people who want to buy a home do just that. The Jackson Affordable Housing Corporation is working to help people with a low to moderate incomes purchase a home. The organization will host a two-part home buyer education workshop, with part one scheduled at 5:30-8:30pm at the MSU Extension Center located on 1715 Lansing Avenue in Jackson. If you would like to attend, call 517 788-4626. Part two of the workshop is on Thursday, April 17th.
According to their website, the Jackson Affordable Housing Corporation aims to, "improve the quality of life in Jackson area neighborhoods by assisting people to become home owners in Jackson County." The organization was established in 1990 for the purpose of combining and coordinating available resources to provide affordable acquisition and rehabilitation financing for low to moderate-income families.
To learn more about this particular workshop, or the group's down payment assistance and foreclosure prevention programs, be sure to visit their website at jacksonaffordablehousing.org.
Today the organization was featured on Model D Media, and we wanted to share the news with our readers:
Grandmont Rosedale Development Corp. is one of five community development corporations from around the nation that has been selected to participate in a national retail attraction training program.
The Retail Attraction and Dealmaking Applied Training, as it is called, is co-sponsored by Local Initiative Support Organization's Commercial Markets Advisory Service and the International Council of Shopping Centers, or ICSC.
The program is comprised of three learning opportunities:
• Web-based training sessions;
• The services of a retail marketing consultant to help develop a neighborhood business attraction marketing strategy; and
• The assignment of a local mentor that is a real estate professional and a member of ICSC.
According to their website, GRDC works to preserve and revitalize the Grandmont Rosedale communities of northwest Detroit. They are a non-profit organization formed and operated by neighborhood residents who care about our community and want to see it maintained as a great place to live and do business.
The organization seems to be on a role lately, as it was named CDC of the Year at the annual Community Development Awards luncheon hosted by LISC and Community Development Advocates of Detroit (CDAD) in Detroit last September.
To learn more about GRDC, be sure to visit their website at grdc.org.
You can read a column our own President/CEO Christi Coady wrote about her trip to Honduras for a Habitat build back in 2005 here. To learn more about the Habitat for Humanity global Village program, click here.
Michigan Development News is a weekly series that features affordable housing and economic development-related news stories from across the state. Feel free to submit a story suggestion by leaving a note in the comments section.
WILX (Lansing): Stadium District "Opening Day". The new Stadium District across from Oldsmobile Park in Lansing is almost ready for "Opening Day" -- here's hoping it fares better than the Tigers. You can also read more about this story on Channel 6's website:
As workers put the finishing touches on the stadium district building, like painting or loading appliances through windows, more and more businesses near Oldsmobile Park are popping up like hotcakes.
"People who haven't been downtown in a couple years are just awed by the changes," says Kevin Green, executive director of Lansing's Principal Shopping District organization. He says the Stadium District project was the shot in the arm Lansing needed to boost development.
"It was the tipping point or a trigger or catalyst for a lot of developemts that are in the pipelines that will come out in the next couple of years," Green says.
LSJ: City strikes deal that preserves BoarsHead. There has been some concern in Lansing in recent years that the city's only professional theatre might pull up stakes and move out of town. This new deal ensures that BoarsHead won't go anywhere:
"Keeping BoarsHead in our downtown is a key goal of this transaction," Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero said Tuesday in announcing the deal. "BoarsHead is an irreplaceable cultural gem and a cornerstone of downtown Lansing's art scene."
Lansing would pay for the 16,592-square-foot building at Grand Avenue and Lenawee Street with money from its parking system.
The Arts Council of Greater Lansing had been looking for some time to sell the building, which also houses its offices. Arts officials have said they want the money to create an endowment to support area arts.
Muskegon Chronicle: Arts center will buttress new downtown development. Speaking of local arts-related development, there's some good news out of Muskegon for a project that sounds very similar to Jackson's Armory Arts:
Picture a place where you can paint, sculpt, play music, dance and get a massage without leaving the building.
That is the vision of a local man who is working to transform the old Al Perri Furniture store at the corner of Pine Street and Clay Avenue into a one-stop shopping arts center.
Michael Schaafsma, 31, is leading a group of artists and investors in creating the Muskegon Center for the Arts, which he hopes will be open by fall.
The vision is to turn the three-level, 31,500-square-foot commercial building dating to 1923 into an activity center -- which also will include nutritionists, writers, poets and yoga specialists -- and gathering place for "artists."
Detroit News: Metro Detroit schools coping with surge of homeless children. This is troubling... we'll definitely be keeping an eye on this story:
The 8-year-old is one of a growing number of homeless children attending schools throughout Metro Detroit, where the number of children known to have no fixed address has shot up by more than 70 percent in the last three years. Cherish has lived in two shelters since her family was evicted from their Detroit home in November.
The state Department of Education estimates it's serving about 20,000 homeless students statewide, including 3,540 in Detroit alone.And those are just the children they know about.
Experts say many parents are too embarrassed to admit they are homeless, or are afraid to ask for help out of fear their children will be taken away and placed in foster care. According to Maureen Sorbet, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Human Services, homelessness that is solely attributable to poverty is not considered child neglect.
Freep: Michigan's look in 2035. A study released by SEMCOG this week predicts future demographic and job trends throughout Southeast Michigan. Of course, not everyone agrees on the numbers:
The projections released Friday by the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments emphasize trends local and state officials have been working to change.
Luring high-tech, high-paying businesses to Michigan and rebuilding neighborhoods are part of the agenda from Lansing to Detroit. Officials understand that that is critical to getting bright young people to move to Michigan, instead of away from the state.
Detroit officials discounted the report, saying that SEMCOG started out using faulty numbers. Detroit challenged the U.S. Census Bureau when it reported in 2005 that the city's population had fallen below 900,000. The Census Bureau relented and boosted Detroit's number to 918,000, but SEMCOG's report still used the lower number.
"For years, people have been doubting Detroit's ability to come back, but we have gone through the most revolutionary transformation our city has ever seen over the last six years," said city spokesman James Canning. "Detroit has proven that when people have said, 'When the last one in the city leaves, turn the lights out,' that not only have we not turned the lights out, they're brighter than ever."
The federal Environmental Protection Agency has issued $18.6 million in grants to 56 communities and organizations for brownfield improvements in six states across the upper Midwest.
The agency said Tuesday that the money would be used in the Great Lakes states of Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin to help properties where pollution or other hazardous substances make expansion or redevelopment difficult.
The EPA issued 314 brownfield grants this year nationally, totaling $74 million.
For a little background on brownfields, here's the EPA's definition:
Brownfields are real property, the expansion, redevelopment, or reuse of which may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant. Cleaning up and reinvesting in these properties takes development pressures off of undeveloped, open land, and both improves and protects the environment.
You can learn more about brownfield redevelopment authorities, grants and loans on the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality's website.
This year's Borrower's & Burners' Luncheon is
Time: Registration starts at 12:00 p.m., lunch will be served at 12:30
Where: Kellogg Center
55 South Harrison Road
East Lansing, MI 48824
Click here for map and driving directions
Who's Invited: Anyone reading this blog post!
RSVP: The deadline to RSVP was April 4, but if you'd still like to attend please call Melodie Balzer Sanford at 517-372-6001.
Cost: $55/person
This Year's Borrowers:
Architectural Salvage Warehouse of Detroit
Avalon Nonprofit Housing Corporation
Cass Corridor Neighborhood Development Corp.
Dawn, Inc.
Detroit Midtown Micro-Enterprise Fund
Grandmont Rosedale Development Corp.
H.OM.E. of Mackinac County
Shep's Beauty and Barber Shop
Liberty Hill Housing Corporation
Michigan Avenue Business Association
U-SNAP-BAC Nonprofit Housing Corp.
Williamston Theatre Project
This Year's Mortgage Burners:
Avalon Nonprofit Housing Corp.
Benzie Housing Council, Inc.
Dawn, Inc.
Harmony Face & Body Care
Homestretch Nonprofit Housing Corp.
Lighthouse Communities
Mcgraw/West Grand L.D.H.A.L.P.
Michigan Ability Partners
Northern homes Community Development Corp.
St. Francis Episcopal Church
More good news out today for Michigan's Cities of Promise. Here's the follow-up story to a post we wrote last month from the LSJ:
Gov. Jennifer Granholm announced plans to continue cleaning up blight in eight cities: Benton Harbor, Detroit, Flint, Hamtramck, Highland Park, Muskegon Heights, Pontiac and Saginaw, each chosen based on their poverty rate.
The blight elimination program is a piece of her $25 million, four-year Cities of Promise initiative that would create jobs to improve up to 1,511 blighted sites. If all the sites are cleaned up, it will cost the state $4.78 million this year.
Each property is allotted up to $4,000 in repair costs.
"By providing resources to eliminate blight, we will help make neighborhoods safer for citizens and more inviting for businesses and economic investments," Granholm said. "Establishing thriving and healthy communities is a critical part of our plan to transform Michigan's economy and create jobs for our workers."
Cosponsors include Reps. Mark Meadows, D-East Lansing, and Paul Opsommer, R-DeWitt.
Other supporters of the bill are the Detroit City Council, Detroit Department of Buildings and Safety Engineering and the Detroit Department of Administrative Hearings.
The bill has passed the House and Senate and is awaiting action by the governor.
It's always encouraging to see that legislation like this had bipartisan support. Economic development efforts like this are in everyone's best interest, so hopefully the new funds will help the Cities of Promise fight blight and stimulate economic growth.
Michigan Development News is a weekly series that features affordable housing and economic development-related news stories from across the state. Feel free to submit a story suggestion by leaving a note in the comments section.
New York Times Op-Ed: Michigan’s Song of Itself. U of M lecturer Thomas Lynch touches on a subject we wrote about last week in a special op-ed in today's paper:
THE University of Michigan had a chance to shine at the end of February when our symphony orchestra toured by bus from Ann Arbor to Carnegie Hall. The musicians made stops at Oberlin and Cornell before getting to West 57th Street. Kenneth Kiesler, our maestro, selected Mahler’s Fifth Symphony and a new composition by a faculty member, Evan Chambers, called “The Old Burying Ground” to show the talents of our student musicians.
It was a brilliant night! The great hall packed, the music transcendent, the voices resplendent, the ovations longstanding.
Alas, a triumph and gift that went unremarked-upon and unreviewed: no mention made, as far as I could tell, in the dailies in New York or Detroit or Ann Arbor. It is true: bad news gets halfway round the world before good news has its boots laced up. The easy litany of things gone wrong in Michigan gets more of a forum than what’s gone right.
Keith W. Cooley (Metro Mode): No Worker Left Behind. Mr. Cooley is the Director of the Department of Labor and Economic Growth. In this post for Metro Mode's blog, he discusses the importance of the "No Worker Left Behind" program in transforming our state's economy:
No Worker Left Behind is about educating those who have relied on an old economy which no longer seeks their current skills. Auto companies are seeking individuals with at least an Associate’s degrees to work in plants, skilled trades are seeing ever increasing challenges with technological improvements in the way they do business, and transportation experts are modernizing shipping and inventory methods almost daily.
We are, and will be training the workforce of the future, but that workforce will consist of individuals who until now have been the drivers of the old economy.
Everyone must participate in changing the mindset and understanding from childhood that thoughtful application of continuous learning is the ultimate economic driver.
Metro Mode: Northville's Emerging Arts Community. It sounds like there are some exciting things going on in Northville:
Though much of its small town flavor is still intact, Northville has begun to carve out a niche as an upscale, modern art town --boasting three performance theatres, six art galleries, one arts commission and a monthly art walk where galleries stay open late and serve up wine and eats, all within a one mile walk-able urban downtown.
But the cultural scene doesn't end there. Northville is also home to public art in the town square where the Friday Night Concert Series brings new bands every Friday night during the summer. Even local businesses like Bee's Knees, Stamp Peddler, Broughton Music Center and Awakening the Artist Inside are getting in on the act, offering art classes for every age.
Capital Gains: Old Town Gallery Plans Two-Year, 2,000 Sq. Ft. Expansion. Speaking of artsy areas, it sounds like there's more in the works for Lansing's Old Town:
In June, Hotwagner will temporarily move the gallery from its 119 E. Grand River location to a new spot next to the Creole Gallery on Turner Street. The gallery will remain in this building for a few years while Hotwagner renovates another Turner Street building, eventually doubling the size of the gallery.
“I decided I really liked the community atmosphere down here,” she says about Old Town Lansing.
Ann Arbor News: Convention center for downtown Ann Arbor? Sounds like some recent development in downtown Ann Arbor may be paving the way for a convention center project:
"There's been revived discussion of a convention center," Guenzel said. "There's nothing organized yet, we're just seeing if there's interest."
The talk has been spurred, in part, by recent activity in the downtown area, Guenzel said.
"Ten years ago, I thought a conference center that would be a joint public-private venture would be a good idea," he said.
"Clearly what they were saying is that we need one major facility," Bernstein said. "I think it needs to be looked at very seriously for the economic growth and development of the city."
Okay, so we're stretching on the topic with this post a bit, but bear with us for a minute. There was a story in today's Tri-Cities Business Review that really caught our eye:
The bulked up Tigers lost 5-4 in 11 innings to the Kansas City Royals in a chilly pre-April affair, and although the outcome was disappointing, the victorious and joyous atmosphere was a polar opposite of the gloomy mood throughout the state about, it seems at times, virtually everything else.
Can the optimism and positivity emanating from Woodward Avenue reverberate throughout the state? Or is it not relevant to the economic struggles the state is going through and the political troubles in Detroit?
We think it's relevant...
Michigan, and certainly Detroit, are by some accounts in the same place the Tigers were during their losing stretch. Unemployment levels are high, automotive jobs are evaporating, and the public perception of the economic circumstances is low.
Can Michigan and Detroit come back like the Tigers? Rothwell says yes.
"It really is a metaphor in many cases for the rebirth of Detroit," he said. "It's a great morale boost for the people in the community. I think they're very symbolic of the comeback in the community."
Some of the most negative and pessimistic attitudes about Detroit and the State of Michigan usually come from... Michiganders. But hopefully the Tigers can, in some small way, give us all a much-needed attitude adjustment.
Oh, and having a successful baseball team isn't so bad for the area's economy either...
The Tigers expect to sell out many games this season, en route to likely breaking the team's all-time attendance record and topping 3 million in total attendance, Matwick said.
Meanwhile, two unrelated reports pinpoint the economic impact of Opening Day and the Tigers' season:
• The East Lansing-based Anderson Economic Group estimates spending by fans attending Tigers games this year will generate a net economic impact on the metro Detroit area of $117.3 million. That figure - which doesn't account for some activity, such as Tigers jersey sales - is nearly 2-1/2 times bigger than the estimated economic impact of the 2006 Super Bowl in Detroit, estimated at $49.3 million.
• The Detroit Regional Chamber, which used different methodology than the Anderson Economic Group, estimated that the season would have an economic impact of more than $277 million.
So for all the hype we heard about the economic impact of the 2006 Super Bowl –– which wasn't completely unjustified –– our baseball team will bring in at least 2.5 times as much economic activity for the region this year?
It's enough to make you root, root-root for the Ti-gers!
It was less than a month ago that we first told you about the "Save the Dream" legislation, and after getting fast-tracked through the Legislature, Gov. Granholm officially signed the bills into law today:
LANSING, Mich. -- Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm has signed bills aimed at making state housing loan programs available to more Michigan residents.
The bills signed Wednesday are designed to help lessen the wave of mortgage foreclosures gripping Michigan.
Some homeowners struggling with rising adjustable rate mortgages will be able to get lower fixed rate loans through the Michigan Housing Development Authority.
Another program helps people who have been delinquent on payments and are at risk of losing their homes.
The programs will be paid for by taxable bonds. Homeowners will be responsible for the full value of their refinanced mortgages.
We're not in the business of making personal loans, and while it's pretty rare for us to comment on legislation on this blog, today's action seems like an important step forward for Michigan homeowners facing foreclosure. Hopefully these new tools will help stabilize our state's turbulent housing market, and ultimately make the American dream of homeownership attainable for more families.
For more information about the specifics of today's bill signing, click here. To learn more about MSHDA's new "Save the Dream" loan programs, click here, or call 866-946-7432 toll-free.
Today we received the following email update about this year's conference from Jess Sobel that we wanted to share with our readers:
Monday: Come and meet Keith Molin, appointed as the MSHDA Acting Executive Director effective March 31. He'll be giving a brief welcome at the Monday kickoff. As former director of the Michigan Departments of Labor and Commerce under Governor William G. Milliken, he is no stranger to state government. He also served at one time as a member of the MSHDA board during the Milliken administration. Keith has been involved in public policy issues, including economic development, housing, and urban redevelopment – all invaluable experience to bring to the housing and community development industry in Michigan.
The Monday keynote address will be given by Jim Wallis. For those of you interested, he has a new book out.
Wednesday: The Wednesday morning opening plenary will feature Daniel Kildee, Genesee County Treasurer since 1997. Before his election as Treasurer, Mr. Kildee served for 12 years as a Genesee County Commissioner, including 5 years as Chairman of the Board of Commissioners. Kildee initiated the use of Michigan’s new tax foreclosure law as a tool for community development and neighborhood stabilization. He founded the Genesee Land Bank - Michigan’s first land bank - and serves as its Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. He is President of the Genesee Institute, a research and training institute focusing on Smart Growth, urban land reform, and land banking.
Two additional sessions have added to the Creating and Preserving Multifamily track, both on Wednesday. They are as follows:
Opportunities for Preservation (9:15am – 10:45am)
Preserving and rehabilitating existing affordable housing is the most cost effective method available in meeting the affordable housing needs of Michigan’s lowest income families and elderly citizens. MSHDA, HUD and USDA Rural Housing have coordinated resources to preserve the greatest possible portion of Michigan’s affordable housing stock. Find out about “MI PIE” - the new Michigan Preservation Information Exchange, a comprehensive internet based inventory of affordable housing in Michigan. Also hear from agency representatives about current preservation incentives and meet interagency teams assigned to assist developers in completing due diligence and understanding agency programs and tenant based subsidy contract renewals.
Panelists: Paul Bursley, MSHDA, James Smith, MSHDA, Mark Dominick, HUD, Jackie Fultz, HUD, Julie Putnam, USDA Rural Housing
Federal Subsidy Contract Renewals and Rental Increases (1:30pm – 3:00pm)
Interested in preserving a Section 8 property? You need to understand the federal subsidy contract. Learn about Section 8 Project Based Rental Assistance directly from HUD staff and HUD’s contract administrators. Understand the remaining length of an existing Section 8 contract and options for renewal. Learn how rent increases are applied and when a rent comparability studies are required. Find out how Section 8 funds are appropriated on a national level and the current status of that funding.
Panelists: Susie Sapilewski, HUD, Kyle Barber, Michigan Multi-Family Asset Managers, Kathy French, MSHDA
As this is the 10th annual conference, we will be closing the conference with a special performance by Michigan’s own Jeff Daniels. Please come and help us close out this conference with a bang!
For more information about the conference or to register online, be sure to visit www.housingconference.org.