Westland Mall For Sale, Penobscot Questions, and Turning Off Political TV Ads

Devon O’Reilly joins me over a kind listener’s gift of Eastern Kille bourbon to talk about all things Metro Detroit.

A big topic we hit, especially in the shadow of all the RenCen news: Why Detroit’s soon to be nearly vacant Penobscot Building deserves more attention, and why that could be a huge opportunity.

I also checked out National Coney Island’s refreshed Royal Oak location, and we talk about Westland Mall for sale at a reduced price, plus Devon’s childhood belief that its Santa was the real deal.

Plus, Devon explains why this election season’s political ads finally pushed him to turn off local TV news.

Feedback as always - dailydetroit@gmail.com or 313-789-3211.

00:36 Weekend Intro & Reborn Magazine Nostalgia
03:00 Bourbon Tasting: Eastern Kille Distillery (Rockford, MI)
07:08 National Coney Island Royal Oak Renovation & The Hani
10:52 Westland Mall For Sale & Memories of the Best Mall Santa
14:50 Saving Detroit's Skyline: The Penobscot Building vs. RenCen
20:10 Local Political TV Ad Overload

WEBVTT


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Jer Staes: Hello friends and welcome to Daily Detroit. Welcome to the weekend. It is Saturday, October 17th, 2026. I am Jer Staes, and joining me at the table, as he does—the man that I like to talk about weekends the most to: Devon O'Reilly. How are you?

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Devon O'Reilly: You know, times change, but my love for Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays does not. And so yes, I am still, and forever, your weekend man.

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Jer Staes: Yes, Mr. Friday Any Day.

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Devon O'Reilly: Could be Friday any day, but you know... You know what, depending on what job a listener has, whatever job you have, which is your Friday? Right? Because some people's Fridays might be different. Back in the day, when I was living in Dearborn early on in my early 20s just out of college, the biggest day of the week was Tuesday nights in Dearborn. That was the night when all the bars had their thing, it was like a club, there was lines to get in to the Post Bar, to Double Olive, to Crave Lounge. Tuesdays were the Fridays, and I wrote about it in my now-defunct Reborn Magazine that I did back then.

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Jer Staes: Devon O'Reilly, among all of the plaudits you've done in your life, also former magazine publisher.

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Devon O'Reilly: That's right. Former magazine owner, publisher, writer. That was what got me the taste of this journalism medium that I now participate in with you.

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Jer Staes: What is the thing you learned the most doing that? Because you know, the zine/magazine thing, it's getting a little bit of a cultural resurgence now.

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Devon O'Reilly: Yeah, I mean, it's the obvious, and I think you know we all commiserate with it in this industry, is you also got to make money. You can't just publish something because it costs money to do. And so, you got to fundraise, and you got to find advertisers, and that took a lot of legwork.

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Jer Staes: Yeah, I know nothing of what you speak of!

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Jer Staes: You have a large bottle in front of you that was delivered to us by a listener.

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Devon O'Reilly: Yeah, so this has been here, I've got to tell you Jer, I've been admiring this bottle here a few different times when I've come in. But maybe it was a Thursday around lunchtime, maybe it was a Friday morning early... but now that we're recording, and it is officially the weekend as far as I'm concerned, this bottle here kept calling to me. And I said, "Jer, when I came in, you know what? I'm going to have a little nip while we record." So it's this Eastern Kille Distillery—K-I-L-L-E, Eastern Kille.

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Devon O'Reilly: It looks really good, it's got a beautiful color on it. You said have at it Devon, listener brought it in. Eastern Kille is located just outside of Grand Rapids in Rockford, based on my research here. We are sipping a 4-year Bourbon, which really tastes older than that. It tastes like it's been aged even longer with the smoothness.

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Jer Staes: As it is outside of Grand Rapids, is it a suburban bourbon that's been made urban since we're drinking it in Detroit?

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Devon O'Reilly: That's right, a suburban bourbon that's made urban because we're drinking it in the city now. It's really smooth, not in a burning way, not in a super astringent alcoholic way. It's a very smooth bourbon, you can taste that it's been aged at least four years. It looks like they do have a tasting room with some food, some pizzas, out in Rockford, Michigan, which is north-east of Grand Rapids. So if you find yourself out that way, it looks like a beautiful place to stop.

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Jer Staes: Oh my gosh, these pictures! Man!

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Devon O'Reilly: It looks really good. So we'll have to do a follow-up, Jer. We'll have to do a follow-up on Eastern Kille, because I want to know more.

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Jer Staes: Listen, something I've always wanted to do, and maybe this is a 2027 goal: I would love to do a Daily Detroit Michigan excursion where we go away for a long weekend or something.

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Devon O'Reilly: We'd have things for anyone to do, whether you want to sip some whiskey or sip some cider or juice or whatever you want to taste.

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Jer Staes: Well, thank you so much to our listener who brought it in. I have so much appreciation for them; they have been a member for many years. It is delicious.

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Jer Staes: Well, you know what I'm also thinking about with this delicious bourbon? Delicious Honeys.

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Devon O'Reilly: Yeah, it's funny. As a westsider, I didn't taste my first Hani until I was like 26 years old! And it was at Honest? John's, which wasn't even really a Hani. So I probably didn't actually have my first real Hani from a National Coney Island seriously until like 30.

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Jer Staes: Well, I had a chance—I got word that the Royal Oak location of National Coney Island has been redone. You can still recognize the '90s in there, right? Because it's a building that very much looks like a '90s mall with the pillars and everything. But they did a refresh, which is a really nice job. I did a newsletter about it on Daily Detroit. You can go to DailyDetroit.com, see all the pictures. They did something that a lot of refreshes don't pull off: making it feel familiar while still being fresh.

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Devon O'Reilly: That is hard to do. That's why you go to Coney Islands, is you feel the comfort, the familiarity with the place you're at. As fans of maximalism, Jer, I don't want less when I want a redo of my restaurant or my place—I want more!

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Jer Staes: A detail that I appreciated that's very Metro Detroit-y is they have this wallpaper that at first you think is a basket weave pattern, but the basket weave is made up of tire treads. Better lighting, the art by marketing person Todd Pearl is very whimsical on the ceiling. I was quite happy, because I always get worried when old favorites get redone.

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Devon O'Reilly: What do they do? They always neuter the creativity of the space, right? They always kind of make it more austere, less personality.

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Jer Staes: I wanted to point people out that way that the Hanis are still good, they still have the big red cups. I also wanted to mention a story that I want to talk about that has to do with malls.

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Jer Staes: Westland Mall is back on the market. It was up for sale for $30M, now it's up for sale for a cool $18 million. You can own Westland Mall! Devon O'Reilly, as a westsider—we talked about an eastside thing, because the only National Coney Island that's really to the west is at Metro Airport. Westland Mall is like—I used to play Civ, and when you play that game, the areas that are unexplored are covered in clouds. Westland is an area that is covered in clouds for me.

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Devon O'Reilly: Well, it's also, I think, the last surviving of the "Land" malls. At one point there was Northland, Eastland, Southland, and Westland. Of the four Land malls, I was more familiar with Southland and Westland. Westland Mall, yeah, it was definitely a place we would go to growing up. We lived very close to Fairlane, but sometimes it was nice—Westland had some different stores. They had a lot of big neon lights, a big glassy atrium type of situation. One thing that really sticks out to me growing up was during Christmas time, they had—and I'll die on this hill—they had the best Santa. They had THE best mall Santa.

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Jer Staes: Isn't that subjective anyway? If it's the best mall Santa to you, isn't that all that matters?

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Devon O'Reilly: It's the best mall Santa because that's where my parents took me, and they told me that this, in Westland, Michigan, was the real Santa. He was a very natural Santa—he had a natural, beautiful white beard, he was a naturally plump man, no pillows in his shirt. He had glasses. So it was believable at that point.

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Jer Staes: I wonder if that guy is still with us, or relatives of that guy.

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Devon O'Reilly: Yeah, relatives... this was 30, 35 years ago and he looked like Santa!

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Devon O'Reilly: I want to bring something up, Jer, and I'm almost hoping to just get this on people's radar. I was having lunch at Seasons Market the other day over on Second Street there. They've got this second floor where you can kind of see the skyline. I was looking out over how beautiful our skyline has become, and it made me think of the Penobscot Building and a recent story about how Wayne County potentially—they have a Friend of the Court program in there, several other offices—they're like the last big tenant. Talking about how Wayne County is potentially leaving the Penobscot, and how that would really spell doom for the building.

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Devon O'Reilly: I think there's already doom spelled out for the building, but it just made me think: every time we got to a point where we were rehabbing a skyscraper, we threw a party, had a big pat ourselves on the back... I think the last one was perhaps the Metropolitan Building. "The last vacant skyscraper is done in Detroit, and we're back." And I think there's been just a tremendous amount of neglect to the Penobscot Building, which has been an icon of our skyline for decades. It's 600-something feet tall, right? At one point it was the fourth or fifth tallest building in the country. This is something that is dying. It is in such bad shape. We need to start calling out what it is: this is an essentially vacant building in the middle of downtown Detroit.

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Jer Staes: I think it's a great opportunity for the city. Wayne County takes up 155,000 square feet of the million square feet of that building—so 15%. Apparently it's 40% occupied, so subtract 15%, that puts it at a quarter. I know there's a ton of effort towards the RenCen, but I think this is going to be the next thing on the horizon. When I used to work at the Penobscot Building and deal with busted elevators, I worried about it. But if somebody with enough money and support could do it, the windows and setup would actually make a residential conversion make so much more sense than the RenCen. The RenCen is trash for residential because of the giant octagonal floor plans, but the Penobscot Building with its wings and cutaways—man, those could be such amazing apartments.

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Devon O'Reilly: Yeah! My headline for all this is: STOP TALKING ABOUT THE RENCEN, FOR GOD'S SAKE! And start talking about the Penobscot! For something built in 1976-77, people act like the RenCen was part of Detroit's history forever. The Penobscot is the building that you're totally ignoring. The Penobscot exists in the HEART of downtown Detroit, built in this beautiful architectural style. It's objectively a beautiful building, right there, and it had the Caucus Club—incredible history in terms of what went on in that building.

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Jer Staes: The Caucus Club is a functioning restaurant.

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Devon O'Reilly: Where are other people stepping up in this scenario? I know you and I are pragmatic people—when we talk about these things, we talk about whether there is dollars and cents behind it. It seems like there is! A residential conversion is cheaper there. It looks like a 4-star or 5-star hotel in New York or Chicago with the flags out front. Why couldn't it be that? Let's talk, man.

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Jer Staes: I want to hear what people think! Let us know at DailyDetroit@gmail.com or 313-789-3211.

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Jer Staes: While you were pouring this bourbon here to share, you were telling me about something that's gotten a little under your skin at your household.

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Devon O'Reilly: With this political season, and with the incessant political ads—I had enough. This week I just decided, no, we're going to watch something else. We put on the Food Network, or HGTV, and I am done with local news for now. For the sake of my kids, for the sake of me and my wife, I am taking an absolute moratorium on local network TV for a while here.

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Jer Staes: I don't watch broadcast TV anymore unless it's football or something I have to. It feels like this cycle we've truly lost cabin pressure on these ads, and outside groups are spending so much money this time around that it now feels saturated to the point of disgust.

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Devon O'Reilly: It is! Almost 90% of the ads are negative in the most negative way. I think the powers that be are going to learn this cycle that they may have gone too far, and you have just turned off a whole segment of people.

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Jer Staes: Is it time that we just take back our feeds? Like, our Instagram needs to be what we want it to be, our TV consumption... because it's so toxic.

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Devon O'Reilly: The news itself is really no better, unfortunately. People will go to platforms that show them what they want to hear, and it's not working for traditional media.

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Jer Staes: Before we go, I want to make sure to thank our members on Patreon for supporting our show. Local media needs local support to survive and thrive. Check out that newsletter edition with the full tour of the renovated National Coney Island in Royal Oak, Michigan. Devon O'Reilly, so good to see you, and thank you for pouring me a nip!

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Devon O'Reilly: Shoutout to Eastern Kille! Your 4-year bourbon is quite nice.

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Jer Staes: With that, I am Jer Staes.

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Devon O'Reilly: I'm Devon O'Reilly.

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Jer Staes: Thank you so much for listening. Remember that you are somebody. We'll see you around Detroit!