Daily Detroit

Happy Tuesday, automatons! Today your Daily Detroit gets wonky and talks all about bike lanes and trail projects with Todd Scott of the Detroit Greenways Coalition. He put together an interesting (and lengthy!) list of bike and trail projects due to see action in 2019.

They include groundbreaking at the long-delayed Uniroyal site near the bridge to Belle Isle, movement on the long-planned Joe Louis Greenway (formerly known as the Inner Circle Greenway) and new protected bike lanes on Grand River Avenue in northwest Detroit.

As Scott says, it's remarkable how far the city has come with its bicycling and greenways infrastructure in just the last few years. And it's remarkable that it's all happening here in the Motor City, a place that's been indelibly built and shaped by the automobile — and not always for the better.

If you're a fan of Jane Jacobs and urbanism, you don't want to miss this show. And if you like what we're doing, considering supporting us through our Patreon campaign.

Have feedback for the show? Email us at dailydetroit at gmail.com.

On today's episode, we check in with soccer correspondent Fletcher Sharpe about Detroit City FC's new coach, Trevor James, and what it means for the club as it prepares for its first (semi) season of professional soccer.

Elsewhere, I-696 has now been almost fully reopened after the long delay following a labor dispute and problems encountered by cold and wet winter weather. In Warren, construction has apparently loosed a plague of rats on Jim Fouts' fair city.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer traveled to the Affirmations community center in Ferndale today to sign her executive order prohibiting discrimination against gay and transgender state employees. Her directive goes farther than a similar order signed by Republican Gov. Rick Snyder during his waning days in office last month.

Greta Van Fleet, the pride of Frankenmuth, will headline Saturday Night Live on Jan. 19.

And we catch up on some key restaurant/bar openings and closings. Among them:

• Shimmy Shack is gearing up to open its brick-and-mortar eatery in Plymouth Township later this month. (Facebook)
• The Royal Oak nightclub Luna has closed its doors after 19 years of getting people really drunk. (Facebook)
• There's a new Biggby Coffee on Livernois in Detroit (Daily Detroit)
• In Birmingham, Hunter House might be demolished for a five-story mixed-use development. (Hometown Life)
• And Woodbridge's latest eatery is Japanese izakaya Katsu Detroit, with tatami-style tables up in front. (Eater Detroit)

And in our "reads" section, check out this piece by Robin Runyan in Curbed Detroit about a Detroiter that's rehabbing their childhood home they found on the Land Bank auction site.

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A ritual of regional togetherness is no more. The annual "Big Four" gathering of the Detroit Mayor and the three county executives from Wayne, Oakland and Macomb will not happen this year around the North American International Auto Show. (Oakland Press)

The Seller-Lehrer Family Foundation, founded by Detroit native and Broadway producer Jeffrey Seller and his partner Josh Lehrer, has given the Mosaic Youth Theatre of Detroit a $1 million grant. It'll fund their Summer Camp and Mosaic Experience Empowerment Program.

Yesterday we brought you the bizarre tale of a 48-year-old Novi resident arrested in Russia on accusations of spying. Today there's word that Paul Whelan has been indicted on espionage charges.

A couple bits of news from General Motors. On Thursday, the automaker named Mark Reuss its new president to oversee autonomous and electric vehicle development. Also, GM has hit a milestone of 200,000 cumulative electric vehicles sold. That's the threshold where a 75-hundred-dollar federal tax credit for purchasing EVs starts to phase out. The credit will drop to $3,750 starting in April, to $1,875 in October and then disappear completely by April 2020.

Embattled Detroit City Councilman Gabe Leland may face a recall effort.

And... Legendary counterculture figure and marijuana advocate John Sinclair has opened a new coffee shop in Detroit.

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Happy New Year! We've made it to season 2!

On to the stories:

Detroit Police James Craig told the Detroit News on Tuesday there were 261 criminal homicides in 2018. That's down six from last year and the lowest number since 1966. But for now, we're going to put an asterisk on this statistic. We talk about why.

We don't often wade into U.S.-Russia relations on Daily Detroit, but we are today. That's because Russia's Federal Security Service says it has arrested a man from Novi who's being accused of espionage. Russian authorities arrested Paul Whelan December 28th in Moscow, where he had reportedly planned to attend a wedding. Whelan is an ex-Marine who works as director of global security for the auto supplier BorgWarner in Auburn Hills.

The city of Detroit is cracking down on six types of businesses in the city.

• Used tire sales and storage
• Used auto sales
• Scrap iron and metal processors
• Junk dealers
• Auto dismantling and wrecking
• New major and minor auto repair places

And our guest today is Emily Lawler. She's MLive's Lansing reporter and she talks about what actually came out of the frenetic lame duck session in Lansing, her recent piece examining outgoing Governor Rick Snyder and looks ahead to what's next for new Governor Gretchen Whitmer. You can follow her on Twitter here.

The end of the year is fast approaching, and Daily Detroit is starting to look back at this crazy year, which was an eventful one for the city. On today's episode, our Man About Town, Devon O'Reilly, joins us in the studio to discuss his favorite bars and restaurants that swung open their doors in 2018.

We talk about new bars like the Keisling and Lost River, plus restaurants including Empire, Urban Ramen and Bakersfield. We run down a few places that closed down in 2018, and we also look forward to what's coming in 2019.

The Empowerment Plan is a great nonprofit organization that provides jobs to homeless women making coats that double as sleeping bags and are distributed to other homeless people.

The women, in turn, get a chance to find permanent housing and a new start on life. Now, the program is expanding.

Daily Detroit's Shianne Nocerini went down to Empowerment Plan's Islandview headquarters to speak with founder Veronika Scott.

Elsewhere, we discuss the news of layoffs at General Motors' Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly plant.

Two old, long-abandoned apartment buildings in the Jefferson Chalmers neighborhood are getting renovated (pictures here).

And if you were hoping to catch the D Drop in Detroit on NYE, you better make different plans. The event is canceled for this year.

We also discuss an interesting story about what could become the state's next big cash crop: industrial hemp. MLive has the full story.

Developers on Monday took the wraps off the redeveloped Metropolitan Building, which will re-open soon as the 110-room Element Hotel by Westin after four decades of abandonment.

As Dan Austin of HistoricDetroit.org tells us, she's a "real looker" of a building, with a triangle-shaped footprint and terra cotta tiles adorning its impressive facade. But the Metropolitan survived several scrapes with demolition over the years — plus an effort to decontaminate it of radioactive elements back in the '90s.

Also joining us to discuss the project and some of the redevelopment challenges is David Di Rita, founder and principal of Detroit-based Roxbury Group. Along with Detroit's Means Group, they steered the $33 million renovation projection, which is quickly nearing completion.

Di Rita takes us on a virtual auditory tour of the refurbished interior. He also goes into detail about the forthcoming rooftop bar (!!!).

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It's Monday, Dec. 17 in the mystical land known as Detroit. Here's what you get when you listen to your beloved Daily Detroit podcast today:

Lincoln has made good on its pledge to reintroduce suicide doors on the Continental luxury sedan. The 80th Anniversary Coach Door Edition is an homage to the first Continental introduced in 1939 and to the center-opening doors that graced the car during the 1960s. Just 80 examples will be made for 2019.

Elsewhere, unpredictable winter weather continues to defy MDOT's ability to predict when I-696 construction will wrap in Macomb County. The QLine is offering free rides for the holiday shopping season, and Detroit's historic Grande Ballroom, home to many a legendary show from the MC5, The Stooges, The Who and others, lands on the National Register of Historic Places.

We cover two bits of business news: High-end clothier The Broadway will close down for good after 43 years in business in downtown Detroit so its owner can retire. Over in Corktown, Cork and Gabel will open this week, bringing a mix of locally sourced Irish, German and Italian fare to the neighborhood. More info is at Eater Detroit.

Lastly, Daily Detroit correspondent Shianne Nocerini joins us to talk about Drag Queen Storytime, which has managed to attract controversy from the usual quarters.

And a little P.S. - there's a show at Otus Supply on Wednesday night you might want to check out if you're into rock and roll. More here: https://www.facebook.com/events/215150699406826/

It's Monday, Dec. 17 in the mystical land known as Detroit. Here's what you get when you listen to your beloved Daily Detroit podcast today:

Lincoln has made good on its pledge to reintroduce suicide doors on the Continental luxury sedan. The 80th Anniversary Coach Door Edition is an homage to the first Continental introduced in 1939 and to the center-opening doors that graced the car during the 1960s. Just 80 examples will be made for 2019.

Elsewhere, unpredictable winter weather continues to defy MDOT's ability to predict when I-696 construction will wrap in Macomb County. The QLine is offering free rides for the holiday shopping season, and Detroit's historic Grande Ballroom, home to many a legendary show from the MC5, The Stooges, The Who and others, lands on the National Register of Historic Places.

We cover two bits of business news: High-end clothier The Broadway will close down for good after 43 years in business in downtown Detroit so its owner can retire. Over in Corktown, Cork and Gabel will open this week, bringing a mix of locally sourced Irish, German and Italian fare to the neighborhood. More info is at Eater Detroit.

Lastly, Daily Detroit correspondent Shianne Nocerini joins us to talk about Drag Queen Storytime, which has managed to attract controversy from the usual quarters.

And a little P.S. - there's a show at Otus Supply on Wednesday night you might want to check out if you're into rock and roll. More here: https://www.facebook.com/events/215150699406826/

The big news around Detroit today is the groundbreaking on the Monroe Block. That's the two-block site adjacent to Campus Martius where Dan Gilbert and Bedrock plan an $830 million development to add 1.4 million square feet of housing, office, retail and public space.

On today's podcast, we discuss the Monroe Block's colorful history as a theater district, its mostly moribund present and its potentially very exciting future. Gilbert, through Bedrock Detroit, plans to build two new towers — a 35-story office tower, and a 17-story residential building — with a more than 1-acre central courtyard featuring landscaping, seating areas, a catwalk and retail and food amenities. It will incorporate Farmer Street, which bisects the Monroe Block, but close it off to vehicle traffic.

The architects were asked to adhere closely to good urban-design principles. The result is an attempt to connect different downtown districts, bring in a mix of uses and create vibrant open spaces. It's something that a lot of downtown Detroit still lacks, frankly. Think of the relatively lifeless west side of downtown. Or the sea of surface parking lots that still comprise much of the CBD.