Rochester : In the News

This is the best it's been in years for job seekers in Oakland County, economists say. And the jobs pay well above the minimum wage.

Excerpt:

"On the heels of its strongest two-year job growth in almost 20 years, Oakland County's economy will add nearly 42,000 jobs through 2015, say University of Michigan economists...

In their annual forecast of the Oakland County economy, Fulton and colleague Don Grimes of the U-M Institute for Research on Labor, Employment, and the Economy say that high-wage industries—with average pay of more than $62,000—accounted for more than half of the new private-sector jobs created during the recovery, a trend that will continue throughout the forecast horizon...

Overall, Fulton and Grimes say that Oakland remains among the better local economies in the nation, ranking 10th among 36 comparable U.S. counties on a series of measures that indicate future economic prosperity."

More here.

In Oakland County's downtowns these days, businesses that want to put a blank face to the street have to keep walking.

Excerpt:

"Last fall, a developer approached West Bloomfield trustees asking for a zoning change in order to place a storage unit business at Orchard Lake and 14 Mile. Then, a business owner approached asking for approval to open a fitness club in a former dealership on Orchard Lake Road.

"The new businesses didn’t conform to our (zoning)," said Supervisor Michele Economou Ureste.

The requests were for properties in the township’s "town center" — defined back in 2007 as Orchard Lake Road between 14 Mile and Maple roads. In the area, zoning rules require active first floors, not blank walls, which was intended to make that area more appealing to people walking...That desire is enthusiastically echoed in communities across Oakland County."

More here.

In a good comeback story, Metro Detroit is no. 14 in the country in terms of percentage job growth from 2011 to 2012, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

More here.

Detroit's economy is facing forward. Now it just needs some new verbiage.

Excerpt:

"Former heavy manufacturing hubs around the Great Lakes like Pittsburgh, Detroit, Cleveland, and Milwaukee often get roped together under the heading of "post-industrial" (when, that is, we're not otherwise identifying them by their prevalence of rust). The term poses at least two problems, though: Industry still exists in many of these places, and the very notion of defining them by their relationship to the past can hamstring us from planning more thoughtfully for their future.

"You've got the 'post-war,' you've got 'post-modern,' you've got 'post-9/11,'" says Paul Kapp, an associate professor in the school of architecture at the University of Illinois and an editor of the book SynergiCity: Reinventing the Postindustrial City. He was speaking Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Planning Association (hosted in what's often considered the post-industrial city of Chicago). "You get to a point," Kapp says, "where you've got to say, 'When does post-something end and you do something new?' I think with 'post-industrial,' we're at that opportunity now. I think it's now time to come up with a new term."

More here.

A great, comprehensive article on how the 7.2-square-mile greater downtown Detroit is growing posher by the minute, it seems, and how and why its deindustrialized metros (and certain Detroit neighborhoods) are landing the creative class.

Excerpt:

"Two of the top 10 creative class tracts are in Birmingham; two are in Bloomfield Township, and another is in Bloomfield Hills, home to some of the priciest real estate in the U.S. and the Cranbrook educational community. Designed by Finnish architect  Eliel Saarinen, the architecture critic  Paul Goldberger  called Cranbrook "one of the greatest campuses ever created anywhere in the world." University of Michigan's  Little  points out in an email to me: "Cranbrook graduates have added to the cutting edge design and creative communities of Detroit and the nation for decades."

Another top creative class tract is in nearby Troy, a sprawling middle-class suburb with excellent public schools, and the site of a high-end mall, the Somerset Collection. Two are in Huntington Woods, a leafy neighborhood that boasts such notable amenities as the public golf course  Rackham and the Detroit Zoo. Two more are in the "Grosse Pointes" — Grosse Pointe Farms and Grosse Pointe Park — the communities of choice for many of Detroit's old industrial magnates, whose lakeshores are lined with sprawling Gilded Age mansions."

More here.

Coldwell Banker Real Estate has started to enter the "Best Of" game, ranking communities by what they think their customers are seeking. For their first (of five) lists they evaluated the social scene in cities around the country and picked the places they thought were hippest. Nothing in Michigan made the Top 10, but within the Mitten Ann Arbor, Birmingham, Huntington Woods, and Rochester came out as tops.

Check out their list here.

A recent NY Times article about how small businesses found success through expansion during the recession uses Rochester-based Bandals as an example for how it's done.

Excerpt:

"Lots of people advise staying aggressive during a difficult economy, but spending money when times are tough can be scary. This small-business guide looks at how Bandals and two other companies managed to do it.

CONSIDER NEW MARKETS When Mr. Sesti decided to focus on increasing revenue, his first thought was to find ways to balance the seasonality of Bandals, which sell best in warm months."

Read the rest of the story here.

Not wanting to miss the innovation boat, GM emerges from bankruptcy to become an aggressive investor in venture capital.

Excerpt:

With a solar charging station as a backdrop, GM's venture capital unit touts a $7.5 million investment in Sunlogics, at the solar energy system maker's new headquarters in a former auto parts plant in Rochester Hills, Michigan.

The investment, announced last month, gives GM Ventures a stake in a company building solar charging equipment. It comes out of a $200 million venture capital budget GM earmarked to spend over three years in response to fears that the world's largest automaker could lose out on the next big thing to start-ups such as electric car maker Tesla Motors

Read the rest of the story here.

Hmmm, think it has something to do with Romney's Michigan roots? This November 9th, Rochester becomes ground zero for top dog politicians to dodge, weave, and spin their way through important questions.

Excerpt:

"State GOP Chairman Robert Schostak told CNBC on Monday that invitations were going out to his party's presidential primary candidates.

On the debate's expected focus, Schostak said it would be "obviously about the economy. Michigan is ground zero, metro Detroit ground zero for the state of the national economy.""

Read more here.

Looks like Oakland County has the market cornered on hospitality here in Michigan. Eight different spots in the OC received high marks on their AAA report cards, including the Radisson, the Royal Park, and the Westin in Southfield hotels, all of which received the Four-Diamond rating.

Excerpt:

Eight different hospitality-oriented establishments in Oakland County have earned Four-Diamond ratings from AAA for excellence.

The eight local hotels and restaurants honored by AAA, including the Townsend Hotel and Rugby Grille in downtown Birmingham, are among 25 across the state that won the coveted award.

Read the entire article here.

The market for solar energy is hot (pun intended). Energy Conversion Devices in Rochester Hills offers commercial – and soon, residential – clients a ray of hope: less costly, thin-film solar panels that convert sunlight into electricity.

Excerpt:

Harin Ullal, a solar expert and senior project manager at the National Renewable Energy Laboratories in Golden, Colo., says he expects thin film's share of the solar-power market to increase to 25% by 2015, compared with the 10% to 15% market share thin-film manufacturers say they have now...

In addition to being cheaper to manufacture, thin-film panels perform better in low, diffuse light and in blistering hot  weather, when crystalline silicon panels can lose as much as 25% of their efficiency. Thin-film panel makers such as United Solar, a unit of Energy Conversion Devices of Rochester Hills, Mich., say that because their products work in partial shade, customers don't have to remove trees to generate electricity.

Read the full story here.

It hasn't all been soda pop and cotton candy for the film industry here. Michigan wasn't exactly set up for the film production tsunami of '08. Still, the incentive is less than a year old and some growing pains are expected. Luckily, local governments have been greasing the wheels for projects, making it easier to get things done. The hope is that the area will then become more enticing to a yet more moviemakers.

Excerpt:

Cities like Rochester Hills, Royal Oak and Ferndale have simplified or created new processes for getting permits to close streets, erect temporary structures and move forward with filmmaking.

In some cases, officials estimate these changes could shave up to a month off the time it takes to get certain permits by allowing administrators to issue them instead of making movie companies first go before a city council or commission.

Ferndale, Rochester and Rochester Hills are building Web sites to help market their communities to movie moguls while Redford Township is creating a promotional packet.

Read the entire article here.