Hey friends, Jer here.
I want to start out with some gratitude, as it was amazing to see so many great faces at 313 Day Detroit trivia at Tocororo on Friday night! You all were the best, packing the bar and sharing that nerdy love for this place we call home.
The winners had possibly the best Detroit-themed trivia team name I have ever heard, "Ken Cockrel Jr. Jr."
It's a riff on former mayor Ken Cockrel Jr. and the band JR JR (formerly Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr.) from Royal Oak.
Thanks to Randy, Amy, Jen, Norris, Luciano, Adam, Ben, and everyone at Tocororo for helping make the event a smashing success. We closed down the bar for a few hours with so many Daily Detroit fans.
Let's get together again soon! Community is strongest when we can build these bonds together.
Also on 313 Day, I was on hand for the reopening of the Belle Isle Casino, as $7.3 million in renovations have been done on it since 2020.
To be clear, this isn't a place with slots and tables — it's for recreation and events.
There are a ton of childhood memories for me there.
When I entered through the doors, my mind flashed back to the mid-1980s when there was a little restaurant in there and I'd get a hotdog, then go join my dad to sail model boats in the pond outside.
My podcast co-host Norris Howard took advantage of the architectural setup upstairs for a great pic. Opened in 1908, they literally don't make them like this anymore.
💸 The 111-unit The Corner apartment building on Detroit’s former Tiger Stadium site is up for sale, with Marcus & Millichap marketing the Corktown property for an undisclosed price. Opened in 2019, it includes roughly 27,000 square feet of ground-floor retail and apartments renting from about $1,161 for studios to $2,342 for two-bedrooms. [Crain's Detroit]
📉 A crypto firm that tokenized fractional ownership of hundreds of Detroit rentals is reportedly running out of cash, falling behind on taxes, water bills, and blight tickets while largely halting investor payouts. There's the real prospect that hundreds of properties could head toward tax foreclosure by the end of March. [Outlier Media]
💾 Google and DTE Energy say they’re planning a 1-gigawatt data center in Van Buren Township, powered by 2.7 GW of new solar, storage, and demand-flexibility resources. Reportedly, that's enough electricity to power two million homes. [Planet Detroit]
Unlike the fast-tracked Saline Township deal, DTE is taking Google’s power contracts to the Michigan Public Service Commission.
🧥 Empowerment Plan — the Detroit nonprofit that produces sleeping bag coats for people experiencing homelessness — marked a major milestone today, delivering its 100,000th coat to COTS Detroit, its longest running partner.
Empowerment Plan’s CEO Veronika Scott began visiting COTS as a college student when she was designing the very first coat — and was known back then as the “Crazy Coat Lady.”
ICYMI, here's our conversation with Veronika on the podcast. [Apple Podcasts]
Jer Staes
🎼 The Dearborn Inn has unveiled an all-new Third Man Records Suite, built for analog obsessives and rock-and-roll romantics.
Think turntable-in-the-room, a stack of vinyl to spin, vintage posters, and music mags, plus the option to shop the setup and take your favorites home.
Rates start at $350 a night in case you’re feeling like a proper Michigan headline act.
Local media needs local support to survive and thrive! Get our limited-edition custom sticker pack when you become a member.
As long as I've been talking about development and real estate in the city, I've been hearing how difficult it is to deal with the city itself. Too many steps, too many delays, and that it's too much of headache for developers large and small.
Monday, I was out on Pacific street where Mayor Mary Sheffield rolled out a four-point playbook that aims to speed up basic repairs, make it easier to build new homes and tighten up how the city deals with unsafe housing.
The plan hinges on same day permits for common home projects like roofs, windows and siding. It also includes a new library of pre-approved home designs that is supposed to launch by the end of the year, so builders are not starting from scratch every time they want to put a house on one of Detroit’s many vacant lots.
On top of that, the city says it will put more focus on the safety of existing homes and upgrade BSEED’s technology and customer service so people spend less time fighting the system and more time getting work done.
There's a lot here that sounds good on paper. The real test, as always, will be what happens when residents and contractors actually show up to file.
We got into more of the details and possibilities in our most recent Daily Detroit podcast, “Detroit's New Housing Playbook: Faster Permits to Build (and Fix) More Homes.”
Listen on [Apple] [Spotify] or [Daily Detroit].
📰 Before I go, I want to say a note of thanks to someone who's dedicated a decade of their professional life to journalism and covering the city.
Malachi has been on the show before, and I've run into him around town a number of times. I've always found him bright, thoughtful, and hardworking — someone who wrote a regular city council newsletter and had the ability to quickly understand the stories of this town.
Some people are in the media business for the attention. Some, to hear themselves talk. Others, truly have a heart of service. Malachi is one of those — and he's continuing that service, just in a different way. Cheers.
Thanks for reading. Until next time, remember that you are somebody... and I'll see you around Detroit. -Jer
