Daily Detroit

Are tax incentives as a tool to lure large-scale corporate investment and jobs here to stay? That's the question at the heart of this interview today with Kevin Johnson, the president and CEO of the Detroit Economic Development Corp.

It's particularly timely in the midst of Chrysler's planned $2.5 billion investment to create nearly 5,000 new jobs on Detroit's east side, where workers will build the next-generation Jeep Grand Cherokee and an all-new three-row full-size Jeep SUV. The deal has won some $291 million in assorted incentives.

The Detroit Economic Growth Corporation – or DEGC for short – has been instrumental in development projects in the city since the late 1970s.

Johnson took over as head of the organization about a year ago.

He spent a few years doing economic development in Atlanta, as well as stints at organizations in Arizona, Florida and North Carolina.

He spoke with Jer at the Mackinac Policy Conference last week on Mackinac Island. Here's that conversation.

Thanks for listening to Daily Detroit. If you like what you're hearing, tell a friend about us, leave us a review and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or support us by becoming a Patreon member.

Welcome to an al fresco edition of your Daily Detroit, recorded au natural in a park near downtown Royal Oak. We were there to cover a press event to discuss some of the things in store for Arts, Beats & Eats, which returns for its 22nd edition with a new sponsor Aug. 30-Sept. 2.

We also cover the details of the newest historic building rehab in Detroit. It's called the Assembly, a mixed-use office and retail building in Corktown with 32 apartments from Dan Gilbert's Bedrock real estate empire.

Last but not least, we check in with our friend and soccer journalist Fletcher Sharpe to see how Detroit City FC is doing now five games into their NPSL regular season. Le Rouge appear to be shaking off a slow start to the season following three consecutive clean sheets and two straight lopsided wins.

Thanks for listening to Daily Detroit. If you like what you're hearing, tell a friend about us, leave us a review and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or support us by becoming a Patreon member.

Happy Monday, and welcome to a new week of your Daily Detroit. Today, Jer talks about an eventful past week spent at the Mackinac Policy Conference on Mackinac Island, filling us in on some of the things he came away with beyond just the headlines about no-fault auto insurance reform.

Specifically, it's becoming clear that Detroit's comeback needs a lot more juice (read: money — and residents) just to come up to par with the competition. He also does the math on the so-called 7.2, the informal name for Detroit's downtown and adjacent district that have seen most investment lately, and the costs to fix Michigan's decrepit roads.

Also, an interesting post pushes the idea that the cost $10 a month per Michigan driver on average to raise $1 billion for the roads.

Elswhere, we cover:

• Could the Regional Transit Authority be revived in a scaled-back version? Its board chairman dropped a hint recently. [Michigan Matters]
• Mortgages hit a decade high in Detroit in April, but they're still well below what they should be.
• The Detroit City Council is considering giving city residents a 50% break on parking violations if paid within five days. [Detroit News]
• The company behind the megahit online multiplayer video game Fortnite is opening an office in Detroit. No, not to develop new Fortnite dance moves. [Crain's]
• The Detroit-Windsor Tunnel is resuming nighttime closures starting June 23.

Thanks for listening to Daily Detroit. If you like what you're hearing, tell a friend about us, leave us a review and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or support us by becoming a Patreon member.

Eastern Market is going through a lot of change. Shops are closing or moving. New land owners are moving in. Companies who have been in the market a long time need to expand. And at the center of it all is the Eastern Market Corporation (now the Eastern Market Partnership.

Their CEO, Dan Carmody, saw these changes coming and has a plan. We talk about the changing neighborhood, the future vision, and how he defines the soul and authenticity of Eastern Market they're looking to protect.

It's an interview that anyone who cares about the market that's beloved by Detroiters near and far should give a listen.

Also today from the Mackinac Policy Conference:

Gretchen Whitmer signed into law auto insurance changes. But is it reform, or incremental progress? Detroit will still have the highest car insurance rates in the nation, and Michigan, the second-highest.

And, there's a $200 million bond proposal coming to pay for eliminating all blight in the city of Detroit by 2024.

Thanks for listening!

Just in time for the Mackinac Policy Conference, the Center for Michigan and its Bridge Magazine have a new report out all about Michigan's abysmal roads. It's titled Fixing Michigan's Road Mess: The Unclear Path Ahead.

The report is the result of convening more than 3,200 residents across the state to talk about the state of our roads. It found broad agreement, unsurprisingly, that our roads are in terrible shape. But it found no consensus whatsoever on the issue of how to pay for repairing them — or how much we should spend repairing them.

On this episode, we spoke with Bridge Magazine's public engagement reporter, Allie Schmidt, about the report and some of its findings.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer made "fixing the damn roads" a centerpiece of her successful election campaign last year, and with auto insurance reform edging closer to completion, the issue figures to loom over the Mackinac Policy Conference this week on Mackinac Island.

Thanks for listening to Daily Detroit. If you like what you're hearing, tell a friend about us, leave us a review and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or support us by becoming a Patreon member.

Spring is here! It's the time of year where more people start to get out and about.

Because of that, bar and restaurant concepts are starting to get into swing and get some attention.

For today's episode, our man about town Devon O'Reilly stops by the studio to talk about what's hot around Detroit.

Whether it's a new bar on Bagley, a Mexican place named Peso, or winery that uses Detroit-grown grapes called Detroit Vineyards (or a variety of other stops), we get into what's worth going out to now that there's some sun and warmth.

Thanks for listening! Don't forget to tell a friend about the Daily Detroit podcast. It's the best way to grow the show.

The Detroit Grand Prix is an annual event that brings nearly a hundred thousand people to the island, national television coverage and some charity dollars through their Grand Prixmere fundraiser.

But there's a group of concerned citizens and park goers who say that the price paid in damage to the park and restricted access is too high.

Today on the show, we talk about this with three members of Belle Isle Concern - Angela Lugo-Thomas, Sandra Novacek and Michael Betzold.

What do you think? Get in touch at dailydetroit -at- gmail.com.

Also in the news:

-Chris Ilitch admitted in interviews that their timelines for the controversial District Detroit were "aggressive." Crains. Detroit News Investigation. Freep.

-Juwan Howard is the new University of Michigan Basketball coach

-And Detroit Tigers legend Willie Horton got a street named after him in his childhood neighborhood

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Welcome to the Hump Day edition of your Daily Detroit, in which we run down the news that businessman Roger Penske is pouring $5 million into the Jefferson Chalmers neighborhood on Detroit's east side. It's part of the city's Strategic Neighborhood Fund.

Jer also has a conversation today with Rob Sadow, the co-founder and head of Scoop Technologies. It's a carpooling app that connects drivers, riders and designs routes. They've teamed up with the Bedrock family of companies to help employees ease their commuting and parking woes. Could carpooling be a thing in Detroit? Pretty interesting question in a region without comprehensive mass transit and long commutes, often to a central downtown.

We also discuss two other bits of news:

• A Detroit charter school connected to an investment fund run by tennis star Andre Agassi is closing, another example of Michigan's dysfunctional charter school system [Chalkbeat Detroit]
• And Detroit could get a whopping 60 new liquor licenses [Crain's]

Thanks as always for listening to Daily Detroit. You can help us push Detroit's conversation forward by donating to our Patreon campaign. We'll send you cool stickers for your laptop, bumper, fridge, whatever.

Baker's Keyboard Lounge and, more recently, the Dirty Dog Jazz Cafe in Grosse Pointe Farms are famed venues for jazz in Detroit. But another venue played a huge role in that scene for decades: the Blue Bird Inn.

Located at 5021 Tireman on the city's west side, the Blue Bird Inn was a major nexus of Detroit's swinging post-war, pre-Motown jazz scene, a black-owned business that hosted the likes of Charlie Parker, Donald Byrd, John Coltrane and Miles Davis and playing a role in developing local talent like Yusef Lateef as well.

It's been closed and abandoned for years. But after being purchased recently by the Detroit Sound Conservancy, it's poised to make a comeback.

On today's episode, we speak with DSC founder and director Carleton Gholz all about the past, present and future of the Blue Bird Inn. The nonprofit plans to seek more grant funding to renovate the buiding, with the goal of eventually reopening it as a jazz club and housing its own headquarters there as well.

Thanks for listening to Daily Detroit. If you like what you're hearing, there are several ways to help us continue to push Detroit's conversation forward:

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Welcome to a Car-a-Palooza edition of your Daily Detroit.

Today, we dive into the news that Dan "Dantroit" Gilbert is lining up a petition drive effort to force the issue of reforming Michigan's no-fault auto insurance system.

If successful, it could allow Republican lawmakers, who already have passed essentially the same proposal, to approve it with simple majority votes. Will this ratchet up pressure on Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and lawmakers to cut a deal?

Staying with cars, Ford employees came to work Monday to an email in their inboxes from CEO Jim Hackett outlining plans to whack 7,000 white-collar job cuts by September. And we discuss Michigan Auto Law's list of the most dangerous intersections for 2018.

We run down some non-cars stories as well:

• The University of Michigan might open a manufacturing R&D center in Detroit … on the #FailJail site? [Crain's]
• Livonia could get Aloft and Element hotels as part of a proposed six-story development. [Hometown Life]
• Madonna University broke ground on two new buildings over the weekend.
• Royal Oak is offering free weekend parking in June in its under-utilized parking decks, which are going up as part of the larger Rethink Royal Oak project — hear our previous episode about that here.

Thanks for listening to Daily Detroit. If you like what you're hearing, tell a friend about us, or support us via Patreon to help ensure we keep pushing Detroit's conversation forward.