Daily Detroit News Byte

The city of Detroit has announced plans to sell Lee Plaza, the hulking and abandoned former apartment tower on West Grand Boulevard near Linden, to a pair of developers for a cool $350,000. The Roxbury Group and Ethos Development Partners plan to convert it to 180 apartments and retail as part of a $50 million redevelopment. It's good news for an ailing but iconic building in a part of town that could use some love. Also on today's show, we run down the first partisan fight of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's tenure. Republican lawmakers have overridden her executive order restructuring the state's main environmental department. They objected to her effort to do away with industry-friendly panels overseeing environmental rules and permitting. Here's what else you'll hear: An update on the Piet Oudolf garden coming to Belle Isle Details on Michigan's new Move Over Law Bob Seger adds a Detroit-area date to his farewell tour, which is currently under way A new Meijer is coming to the new shopping center development taki

On today's pod, we cover a bunch of transportation-related news. First up: Rivian, the electric vehicle startup we've covered in a Detroit Public Television segment and on this pod, may get a big investment from Amazon and General Motors. We discuss how that could be a huge boost for the company as it eyes the launch of its first vehicle in fall 2020. But what does it say about GM and Amazon? Next, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan was in Lansing today to talk auto insurance reform. As a reminder, Michigan has the nation's most expensive car insurance. Republicans have signaled the issue as a priority for the current legislative session, and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has signaled an openness to working on it. As a refresher, check out our interview with Steven Gursten of Michigan Auto Law a while back on the state's no-fault law and Duggan's lawsuit. Completing our transportation trifecta was Gov. Whitmer's discussion of the need to "fix the damn roads" in last night's State of the State address, her first. Republicans a

Today on the podcast, an eight-and-a-half-mile section of I-75 that has been falling into third-world disrepair lately is set to see reconstruction soon. The Michigan Department of Transportation has announced details of the reconstruction project, which will zero in on the stretch between 13 Mile and Coolidge, including 18 bridges. There's no word on when exactly work will start, but it will likely have to wait 'til the current icepocalypse is done. Also on today's show, both the Freep and News have stories about an apparent conflict of interest in the Wayne County Treasurer's office. Treasurer Eric Sabree's wife has been buying up properties from the Wayne County foreclosure auction, despite the office's own rules barring family members from doing that. In related news, a shout-out to Detour Detroit and Outlier Media, who are holding an event Feb. 21 to build an independent database to better track the Wayne County tax auction. More information is on their Facebook page, if you'd like to help. Elsewhere: Fo

On today's show, we cover the funeral arrangements for former U.S. Rep. John Dingell, who died Friday at age 92. Dingell, a Dearborn Democrat, was the longest-serving member of the U.S. House, having served for 59 years when he stepped down at the end of 2014. And he left a huge impression on generations of Detroiters. Elsewhere, we delve into sportsball. Forbes says the Detroit Pistons fall one ranking to No. 26 for most valuable NBA teams (out of 30), despite increasing 15 percent to $1.27 billion. And Detroit City FC has released its schedule for the 2019 NPSL regular-season campaign, though it will release its schedule for its inaugural NPSL Founders Cup professional campaign, and four exhibition friendlies, at a later date. Also: The city of Detroit has an improved credit rating from Standards & Poor's, meaning it will cost less for borrowing money City officials in Royal Oak may have to eat an additional $877,000 in costs for a new parking deck under construction Summit Place Mall in Waterford has

Paul Riser has played trombone, wrote songs and arranged music with some of the biggest names in popular music. As a member of the fabled "Funk Brothers," the mostly anonymous house band for Motown Records during its heyday, he worked with the likes of Marvin Gaye, The Four Tops, The Supremes and Smokey Robinson. Riser will appear at the Detroit Institute of Music Education on Friday, Feb. 8 from 1-3 p.m., 1265 Griswold, for a "Paul Riser Masterclass" on lessons learned from his incredible 50-year career in music. In today's episode, Riser talks about how he started with the Funk Brothers, what he learned from playing with them in the studio, and what it's like playing with Stevie Wonder. I also ask him what the drastic changes in the music industry mean for those trying to make a living on music, and who he likes from the current crop of pop musicians. We also hear from DIME President Kevin Nixon ("which makes me President Nixon," he quipped to me before we recorded the conversation), himself an industry vet

Paul Ajegba, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's nominee to head the Michigan Department of Transportation, faced a grilling in a state Senate committee on Tuesday. And he let slip a rather interesting tidbit, saying that MDOT likely needs another $1.5 billion in funding just to fix state roads. And that doesn't account for the needs of counties, cities and villages. On today's show, we break down the particulars, including why that $1.2 billion roads package lawmakers passed back in 2015 won't cut it. We also run down: GM's planned layoffs of 1,300 salaried employees at the Warren Tech Center, coming on the same day the automaker reported earning $8.1 billion for 2018 A Detroit police commander who retired after being charged with impaired driving and possessing a firearm while under the influence Former Clinton Township Trustee Dean Reynolds, who was sentenced to 17 years in a federal prison in a wide-ranging Macomb County corruption scandal, detailed by The Detroit News Former U.S. Rep. John Dingell, 92, has entered

Busy show for you podcast listeners today. Ford is laying off 1,000 employees at the Flat Rock Assembly Plant, but offering them positions in other Ford plants, with about half expected to take jobs at the Livonia Transmission plant. Meanwhile, GM is adding 1,000 jobs at Flint Assembly to make heavy-duty Chevy and GMC trucks. Those jobs will be offered first to workers affected by the looming closure of four plants in the U.S., including two here in the Detroit area. Elsewhere, Ferndale is doubling rates for all downtown metered parking starting April 1. That's to help pay for the dot, the new $28 million mixed-use parking deck that just broke ground. We talked about that project recently with Ferndale's assistant city manager, Joe Gacioch. The Ambassador Bridge will slash toll fares by $2, from $4.60 to $2.60, in both directions starting Feb. 18 Turning to buses, the suburban SMART bus system is proposing a new fare system that would eliminate transfers and bring fares in line with the Detroit Department of

It was an especially bad start to the week for many salaried employees at General Motors, as the automaker started handing out pink slip in a bid to eliminate 4,000 white-collar employees over the next two weeks. It's part of plans GM announced in November and discussed on our podcast to slash 14,000 jobs and save $6 billion by 2020. In other news, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer shakes up state government, restructuring and renaming the Department of Environmental Quality as the Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy. She also signed two other measures to address the public's fears about drinking water in the wake of the Flint water crisis and widespread PFAS contamination. We also rundown: The city of Detroit has pushed back the date for appealing new property tax assessments Detroit Restaurant Week kicks off later this month Shake Shack is unveiling sous vide "Chick'n Bites" Google crunches the numbers and finds Detroit is the nation's top pizza-eating market; MSN offers some unconventional entries for M

Well, it's cold out. Anyone noticed? If you're like us, you no doubt noticed the emergency push alert sent to your mobile device Wednesday night, asking you to dial back your thermostats as the temperatures outside were heading to record subzero lows. On today's show, we talk about what happened to precipitate that push alert — a fire at a Consumers Energy natural gas storage and compression plant in Macomb County, its largest — and how it illustrates how vulnerable our infrastructure is to climate change. We suspect things will only get worse, if the forecasts for a big thaw by this weekend prove true. Staying with infrastructure, because we're nerds like that, we run down a new proposal from a bipartisan group of former politicians to raise Michigan's gas tax to help fund road repairs. Our interview today is with Alexandra Schmidt, public engagement director with the Center for Michigan and a reporter at Bridge Magazine. She tells us about the "think-and-do" tank's new report, "Michigan's Moment of Truth."

You may have seen that Daily Detroit recently made its Detroit Public Television debut with a profile of Rivian, the electric vehicle maker that caught the automotive world by surprise last fall when it unveiled its high-powered, battery-electric pickup truck and SUV. For today's episode, we're following up on our promise to give you more from our visit to Rivian's Plymouth Township headquarters. We have more from my interview with the company's founder and CEO, R.J. Scaringe, including how the company is founded and why he's confident they can clear the hurdles and start manufacturing their vehicles. Rivian is now taking orders on both the R1T pickup, which is slated for delivery to customers in late 2020, and the R1S SUV, which delivers in 2021. The former starts at $69,000, or $61,500 after federal electric-vehicle tax credits, while the latter starts at $72,500 ($65,000). In the meantime, enjoy the photos from our visit. Like what we're doing? Then leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. And consider support

A new polar vortex is bearing down on Michigan and the upper Midwest, forcing widespread school closures, forcing Wayne State University and Michigan State University to cancel classes and the Detroit Zoo to close. On today's episode, we run down some of the knock-on effects of the dangerously cold weather, which is expected to produce subzero temperatures and dangerously cold wind chills. Jer speaks with Gary Brown, director of the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, about the risks to the city's aging infrastructure. DTE Energy also has a list of warming centers that will be open around the Detroit region. In other news, we discuss a report that the Trump administration will not set drinking water limits for PFAS, a dangerous group of chemicals that have turned up in public water systems across the country and Michigan. This as the U.S. Air Force thumbs its nose at the state of Michigan's request to expand cleanup of PFAS contamination at a former air base near Oscoda. Other news: GM's vice president of

Greetings, fellow snow-bound Detroiters. We didn't let the weather interfere with our podcast plans today and delivered this show from the Royal Oak studio of Podcast Detroit. On today's show, newly Detroit-based Chemical Bank is merging with Minnesota-based TCF Bank in an all-stock merger of equals. The deal will see TCF vacate its suburban Minneapolis headquarters and join Chemical in being based in downtown Detroit, where employee head count will eventually reach 500. The Chemical name will go away in favor of TCF, which stands for Twin City Federal Savings and Loan Association. In other news, attendance at this year's Detroit auto show saw a small dip in the show's final wintertime appearance before it moves to June in 2020. And former Detroit Tigers legend Kirk Gibson has a new title with the team. He'll be a special assistant to General Manager Al Avila in addition to his duties in the TV broadcast booth alternating with Jack Morris. Then we run down a bunch of food news: Royal Oak craft beer bar Ale M

A bonus pod this Friday, January 25, 2018. Despite its new owner's promises to build a brewery, office space, a hotel and more, Detroit's infamous Packard Plant is once again subject to foreclosure by Wayne County in 2019, according to notices published in the Detroit Legal News last month. That's due, at least in part, to unpaid bills to the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department. But the amount shows up as tax liability. Although we haven't been able to confirm the total owed for the water and sewage bills, adding up records found on Loveland's property website shows that Arte Express owes $302,434 as of August 2018. That's across a variety of properties that make up the north and south sides of the sprawling Packard facility. The Detroit Water And Sewerage Department said they wouldn't be able to confirm the total amount owed across the numerous properties that make up the plant by the end of today. We've identified 42 parcels owned by Arte Express at the Packard Plant, with 41 subject to foreclosure on Mar

On Wednesday, the Packard Plant's bridge collapsed onto East Grand Boulevard. On today's show, we talk about that and what we know about why it happened. And we use it as a jumping-off point to discuss the plant's colorful past and ambitious — some might say quixotic — future plans. In its heyday, the Packard Plant was the largest automotive factory in the world, built for an automobile company known for its engineering and innovations like the 12-cylinder engine and the modern steering wheel. We also speak with John Lauter, a former tenant and current Packard historian, who fills us in on the plant's post-Packard years starting in the late '50s, including its use for film storage, then later on for illegal rave parties. Not to mention, there's a dose of city hall intrigue at the turn of the millenium.  

Greetings from Detroit, which today looks like a snowglobe-turned-dismal outdoor slushie amid a brief thaw. On today's show, we discuss a new report from the Michigan State University College of Education that finds tht funding for Michigan's public schools has dropped more severely than in any other state over the past quarter-century. We're now dead last among states for total education revenue growth. The report deliberately looks at the effects of Proposal A, the 1994 state law that drastically changed public education funding in Michigan. It shifted funding from local property taxes to state property taxes, limiting the ability of local residents to determine funding levels for their own local schools. We had an in-depth interview last year about Michigan's K-12 woes with Ron French of Bridge magazine. You can listen to it here. Elsewhere, we discuss a new initiative to redesign the streets around the Detroit Institute of Arts. The public is invited to come to the DIA and provide their feedback on plans

On today's episode, we speak with Diane Cross, a spokeswoman for the Michigan Department of Transportation, about the still-unfolding transportation apocalypse on northbound I-75 in Oakland County. There, potholes have proliferated since Monday, damaging cars, forcing the closure of the freeway and creating massive traffic snarls. Cross says it's a textbook example of Michigan's chronic under-investment in its road infrastructure, and emergency road repairs are likely to continue until a planned, multimillion-dollar road reconstruction project kicks off in the spring. UGH! Elsewhere, we dive into new property values released by the city of Detroit that show rising property values in a little over half of the city's neighborhoods. That cool building current with the giant rainbow mural? That's going to become Chroma Detroit. An old school built in 1922 will get a new chapter as a INDUSTRY DETROIT. And yesterday the Element Hotel in the historic Metropolitan Building opened. In food news, San Morello, the new r

We thought when we went into the office today, it'd be a short day. We were wrong. Here's what to know around town: I-75 is crumbling. Both the Northbound and Southbound lanes have major emergency repairs underway. A highly dispiriting for Martin Luther King Jr. Day - The Detroit News reports that a former political aide to Warren Mayor Jim Fouts says the mayor called former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick the N-word on election night in 2007. More: https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/macomb-county/2019/01/21/warren-mayor-jim-fouts-called-kwame-kilpatrick-n-word-ex-aide-says/2636161002/ According to PropertyShark, the difference between the median home sale prices in Detroit's neighborhoods and downtown is one of the largest in the nation. But we dig deeper into just how odd Detroit's real estate market is, with 15x less mortgages than the national average per 100,000 people. https://www.propertyshark.com/Real-Estate-Reports/2019/01/14/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-american-downtown-a-look-into-the-home-pr

Questions? Comments? Email us at dailydetroit@gmail.com  Former Governor John Engler is indeed out as interim president of Michigan State University. Replacing him will be Satish Udpa. The United Auto Workers says it plans to stage a candlelight vigil outside the North American International Auto Show tomorrow night during the Charity Preview event. A giant golden ring has been installed in Sterling Heights on Hall Road near Schoenherr as part of a beautification project. Detroit's oldest drinking establishment got some national love today. The Two Way Inn on Mt. Elliott in Detroit was just named the Best Dive Bar in the country for the 2019 Nightclub & Bar Awards. One of Detroit's Tiki Bars, Lost River, has taken a top spot nationally in Yelp's ranking of the kitschy (but fun) genre. This weekend kicks off the first Michigan Central Station Winter Festival. It will run Friday, January 18 until Sunday, January 27. If you're looking for something fun to do that will have a positive impact on projects in D

First, huge news from East Lansing, where former Gov. John Engler is expected to resign as interim president of Michigan State University in the wake of comments he made about victims of the Larry Nassar sexual-assault scandal. Engler, you'll recall, was brought in to clean up the mess after former President Lou Ann Simon resigned over her handling of the Nassar affair. But Engler last week told The Detroit News that some victims were "enjoying the spotlight." It was the latest in a long line of controversial moves and comments he made about the scandal, and we talk about why we believe he was the wrong man for the job from the outset. Elsewhere, more than 60 unlicensed medical marijuana dispensaries will be allowed to temporarily reopen amid a marijuana shortage. There's also big news in Ferndale, where Baker College wants to open a flagship urban campus in 2020, a move that could give the city an economic jolt. Also hoped to deliver an economic jolt is a new partnership between Microsoft and Wayne State Uni

For today's Daily Detroit, we talk everything North American International Auto Show with our Sven Gustafson who spent a couple days on the floor at Cobo Center. Topics covered include the general feel of the show, plans for next year's show that will be held in June, the Toyota Supra reveal, the new Ford Explorer, the power of the Mustang brand, the Kia Telluride, a new Ram Heavy Duty pickup with insane torque numbers, Cadillac vs. Lincoln and Ford's new partnership with Volkswagen. We also share the details on what you need to know to go to the public show later this month.