This update edition of the Daily Detroit podcast for April 9, 2019 includes… The city of Detroit’s Office of the Inspector General is opening an investigation of the Mayor and city officials after a Freep report that says a charity got preference. The city and Wayne State University strongly push back on the newspaper’s report . The city calls it “completely false.” Two people have pled guilty (when we recorded this, they were charged) as part of a Federal investigation into the Detroit Demoliti...
Apr 09, 2019•12 min•Ep. 245
Welcome to Monday, April 8, 2019. The weekend is over, that girl is totally not gonna call you, and your dreams are crushed. On today’s show, Consumers Energy has issued a report into why its Macomb County natural gas storage and compression facility caught fire on Jan. 30, prompting the utility to issue an emergency request asking people to dial back their thermostats as the mercury plunged below zero. In other news, a man whom paramedics believed was suffering from a drug overdose ended up bec...
Apr 09, 2019•7 min•Ep. 244
People’s preferences are changing. There very well may be a day in the not too distant future where a majority of people do not own their own cars. Younger generations seem to be more into the shared economy as opposed to having a love for the personally owned motor vehicle. And sometimes, even if they do love cars, they don’t have the financial resources that the previous generation did. To that end, you probably knew that Detroit is major center of the development of the automobile. But we’re ...
Apr 05, 2019•11 min•Ep. 243
On today’s episode, hear firsthand what it’s like to bite into a coney pasty. That’s a pasty, the traditional U.P. pastry, filled with a Detroit-style coney that’s meant to dip into yellow mustard. They’re from Ackroyd’s Scottish Bakery in Redford Township and are available for the month of April. In other news, Amtrak wants to restore passenger rail service between Detroit and Toronto in 2020. That hasn’t been available since the pre-Amtrak late ’60s. [ Curbed ] Elsewhere, late-night Detroit TV...
Apr 03, 2019•15 min•Ep. 242
The Freep Film Festival starts next week with a gala screening April 10 for “Boy Howdy! The Story of Creem Magazine” at the Fillmore Detroit. On today’s episode, we feature three great interviews to preview some of what’s on offer during the festivities, which run through April 14: JJ Kramer, co-producer of “Boy Howdy!” JJ is the son of Barry Kramer, the founder and publisher of Creem Magazine, which launched in Detroit’s Cass Corridor in 1969 and billed itself as “America’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll M...
Apr 02, 2019•40 min•Ep. 241
It’s April, and that means baseball season has arrived to help chase the final remnants of winter out of Detroit. The Tigers play their first home game of the season on Thursday when they host the Kansas City Royals, with first pitch scheduled for 1:10 p.m. First on the podcast we checked in with Chris Brown, host of the podcast Locked on Tigers and a writer for Tigs Town, for his rundown of the Tigers’ 2019 roster and their prospects for the season. Opening Day is practically a holiday in Detro...
Apr 01, 2019•21 min•Ep. 240
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has asked the state’s insurance regulator to audit the Michigan Catastrophic Claims Association after it said on Wednesday it would raise its annual fee by 14.6 percent, or $28, to $220 for every insured vehicle in Michigan. The fees go toward covering catastrophic medical claims from auto accidents, but the MCCA has never been particularly transparent about how it operates, its finances or how it sets its fees. So says our guest on today’s episode, Bobby Raitt, a principal...
Mar 28, 2019•15 min•Ep. 239
If you’ve ever event spent any time outdoors within a mile’s radius of it — say, in Midtown or Eastern Market — then you’ve no doubt smelled the sickly sweet odor of the Detroit trash incinerator. Well, no more. Detroit Renewable Energy, the umbrella organization that owns and operates it, says it is shutting the incinerator down 33 years after it first fired up because of finances and complaints from the community. Operations will cease this week, but it’ll take up to 90 days to fully power the...
Mar 27, 2019•15 min•Ep. 238
Welcome to your Tuesday edition of Daily Detroit, where we deliver two pieces of big news: 1. Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson says he has stage four pancreatic cancer and won’t seek an eighth term in 2020. 2. DTE Energy says it expects to sign a deal with the city to swap a decommissioned power plant on the east riverfront so it can be used to store Jeeps built at a new factory being pursued by parent Fiat Chrysler. [ Freep ] Why is this sad, you ask? This is the important line. FCA...
Mar 26, 2019•15 min•Ep. 237
At least three boutique hotels are coming to Detroit, bringing a dose of luxury to still-gritty parts of the city. The Mid will take shape next to the old hammer-and-nail building on Woodward, while the West Elm Hotel will incorporate the old Bonstelle Theater several blocks south. And downtown, there are plans for a new 154-room hotel at 600 West Lafayette, plus the old Park Hotel downtown just sold to a hospitality company, suggesting yet more hotel rooms could be possible. Most of the hotels ...
Mar 25, 2019•15 min•Ep. 236
This is a bonus interview edition of your Daily Detroit and this episode is all about cannabis - a potcast, if you will. Marijuana is poised to become a big business opportunity here in Michigan, after voters overwhelmingly voted to grant full legal status to weed last November. Meanwhile, medical marijuana has been legal in Michigan for a decade now, with a new licensing system under way that is reshaping the industry. Weed is estimated to become a $1.7 billion market here in Michigan. On today...
Mar 23, 2019•14 min•Ep. 235
The last piece of the new Shinola Hotel will open its doors Monday when The Brakeman starts pouring beers inside its new digs on the corner of John R and Farmer in downtown Detroit. It’s part of a new wedge-shaped building that took over a former surface parking lot, and it’s an airy, light-filled space, thanks to several garage-door windows that will be able to roll up when the weather warms up. On this episode of the Daily Detroit podcast , spirits advisor Nuri Gocay and I speak with partners ...
Mar 21, 2019•13 min•Ep. 234
A den of coyotes has taken up residence near downtown Detroit — specifically, in that weird no-man’s-land site of the old Brewster housing projects where I-75, I-375 and the spur to Gratiot Avenue converge. The Michigan DNR says not to worry. But if you live nearby in, say, Brush Park, you might want to keep a much closer eye on your pets. Also: Yes, we inaccurately datelined yesterday’s episode as a Monday. It brought to mind this classic scene from “Groundhog Day.” In other news, Dan Gilbert h...
Mar 20, 2019•9 min•Ep. 233
Welcome to Tuesday, March 19 and the final day of winter, YAY! On the show today, we run down the news that not only does Detroit have a homegrown winery, but Detroit Vineyards aims to open a tasting room in the Stroh’s Ice Cream building on Gratiot near Eastern Market this spring. Will wonders never cease? Elsewhere, Beaumont Health is proposing to open a $140 million, 117-bed hospital in Oxford, filing a certificate of need application with the state. That makes Beaumont the latest in a list o...
Mar 19, 2019•14 min•Ep. 232
It’s Monday, and your weekend warrior dreams have been dashed. Back to work, automatons! Oh, and the city of Sterling Heights would like the public to help rename (or name) the sculpture it calls the Golden Corridor Icon in the median of Hall Road. There are a ton of prizes on offer for first-, second- and third-place entries, so find more information here . In other news of the absurd, Little Caesars is unveiling a bacon-wrapped deep-dish pizza, ringed with three and a half feet of bacon. Yes, ...
Mar 18, 2019•17 min•Ep. 231
On a recent episode of this podcast , I went on a brief side rant praising my local Meijer store for accepting plastic bags for recycling and had a minor freak-out over the looming global environmental crisis over our increasingly all-plastic everything . That caught the attention of Joe Munem, a Daily Detroit podcast listener who works as director of government affairs and public relations with GFL Environmental USA, a trash hauler and recycling service. He wrote us to say that municipal recycl...
Mar 15, 2019•15 min•Ep. 230
There’s a new house in a modest neighborhood of northeast Ferndale, made of shipping containers, that is listing for $450,000 . Is Ferndale about to become like Midtown Detroit? Oh, SNAP! Also on today’s show, we discuss the new measles case identified in Oakland County, and we speak with Dr. Nicholas Gilpin, an infectious disease specialist and chief medical officer at Beaumont Hospital in Grosse Pointe, for more about the virus. Elsewhere: Michael Bloomberg joins Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in annou...
Mar 15, 2019•18 min•Ep. 229
It’s March 13, or written another way, 3/13, or #313Day. It’s become quite a thing locally on social media. And it’s become, in Jer’s words, “a meme holiday.” Although it's good to spread positivity, it could be a lot better. He’s got a different proposal to try and infuse some more action into it. We talk about it on the podcast. There’s lots of real news we cover on today’s show, as well: Ford is issuing pink slip to salaried workers in Dearborn Fiat Chrysler is recalling some 860,000 vehicles...
Mar 13, 2019•13 min•Ep. 228
“Weather and sex are huge factors.” That’s the, uh, money quote from a Sports Illustrated piece about the best and worst NFL cities as perceived by free agents. Detroit fares poorly, ranking in the bottom five for NFL cities, dinged for its dysfunctional locker room but also because we’re seen as having boring nightlife. We discuss. A second white Detroit police officer has lost his job in the wake of the release of a Snapchat video mocking a black motorist. The video showed a 23-year-old woman ...
Mar 12, 2019•15 min•Ep. 227
It’s been a looooooooooonnnnnng winter, comrades. So your intrepid Daily Detroit team was intrigued to see a new sign outside the former Palmer Park Golf Course HQ announcing that something called the Detroit Exploration and Nature Center was coming to our favorite local park. On this episode, we stop by the still-nascent nature center and walk deep into the heart of the Detroit wilderness with naturalist Jac Kyle, a recreation instructor with the city of Detroit’s Parks and Recreation departmen...
Mar 11, 2019•12 min•Ep. 226
Though it’s still technically winter, it’s never too early to look ahead to springtime. And in Detroit, the pace of restaurant openings is continuing apace. On this episode, Daily Detroit’s Man About Town, Devon O’Reilly, joins us to rap about all the latest restaurant news in town. For starters, there’s a lot of Detroit-style pizza coming, with Shield’s Pizza coming to the Maccabees Building in the Cultural Center, Buddy’s headed downtown and newcomer Michigan & Trumbull headed closer to it...
Mar 11, 2019•31 min•Ep. 225
Today we're talking about the skills gap in Metro Detroit when it comes to coding and development. Our conversation today is with TechElevator's CEO Anthony Hughes . His company has job training centers in Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus and are opening up right here. We go over what skillsets are actually in demand (like Java and .NET), what it takes to get a job in these fields, and my skepticism of some training programs. The interview was recorded at Automation Alley in Troy. For...
Mar 07, 2019•11 min•Ep. 224
Happy Hump Day, errrrybody. Today’s episode features a series of conversations. There’s big news for downtown Detroit’s emerging retail shopping scene, as fashionable Swedish retailer H&M is planning to open a store on Woodward Avenue this fall. Daily Detroit’s retail maven, Shianne Nocerini, joins Jer to talk about it. Jer then talks with me all about Mayor Mike Duggan’s State of the City address last night. I update you on medical marijuana. Dispensaries operating under temporary licenses ...
Mar 06, 2019•19 min•Ep. 223
Governor Gretchen Whitmer today released her first proposed budget before a joint meeting of House and Senate appropriations committee members, and she’s targeting investments to three problem areas for Michigan: roads, K-12 schools and contamination threats to drinking water resources. In a nutshell, the governor proposes to raise gasoline taxes in three installments of 15 cents to an extra 45 cents by October 2020. To pay for it, she’d undo some of the tax reforms championed by Gov. Rick Snyde...
Mar 05, 2019•19 min•Ep. 222
On today’s show, we have some fun discussing the return of the WLLZ call letters to Detroit’s FM airwaves, and by listener request we talk about the elephant in the room, the so-called District Detroit, in the wake of the big story that ran over the weekend in Crain’s. First up is a new Patronicity campaign to help restore Hamtramck Stadium, which hosted Detroit’s various Negro Leagues baseball teams during the 1930s. Hometown rock star Jack White ponied up $10,000 to jump-start the campaign, wh...
Mar 04, 2019•23 min•Ep. 221
Yes, there's a "beach" you'll be able to visit in Detroit through the middle of April. The Beach Detroit is located in 1001 Woodward, and it's a fanciful experience. Sven and Jer chat with Alex Mustonen of Snarkitecture, the creative group brought in to create the beach. Snarkitecture is a New York-based collaborative design practice established to investigate the boundaries between disciplines. The name is drawn from Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of The Snark, a poem describing the “impossible vo...
Mar 02, 2019•10 min•Ep. 220
We spent the day at the Detroit Regional Chamber’s Detroit Policy Conference. Though we’ll be sharing more of the interviews in their entirety in future episodes of the podcast, we asked six different leaders of different kinds what their vision for Detroit is for 2030. Our guests include: Lieutenant Governor Garlin Gilchrist II IT in the D’s Bob Waltenspiel Rush Hasan, Business Development for The Reef, one of Michigan’s largest dispensaries Glenn Stevens, Executive Director of MICHAuto Courtne...
Mar 01, 2019•12 min•Ep. 219
We recorded today’s episode at The Rattlesnake , which is joining as a sponsor of your Daily Detroit. We have some more tasty more details on the new Buddy’s location in downtown Detroit. Elsewhere, we discuss Campbell Soup Company’s planned sale of Ferndale’s Garden Fresh to a company based in Quebec, Canada. Co-founder Jack Aronson had bid to buy back his old company, but couldn’t seal the deal. We also cover the Big News out of Sterling Heights, that a Target is closing down. How big, you ask...
Feb 28, 2019•26 min•Ep. 218
Another day, another truckbed-full of news in Detroit. Fiat Chrysler made arguably the biggest splash with its announcement that it plans to invest $4.5 billion in five Detroit-area plants and create nearly 6,500 jobs. Central to that is plans to convert the Mack Avenue Engine Complex on Detroit’s east side to an assembly plant to build the next-generation Jeep Grand Cherokee and a yet-to-be-named three-row Jeep SUV. If all goes according to plan, construction could begin by mid-year. Forbes wil...
Feb 26, 2019•10 min•Ep. 217
A Hollywood film director makes a giant splash at the Oscar Awards when he says Shinola is “saving Detroit” and the interweb asplodes. We talk about what that ridiculous, off-the-cuff comment means about the city and its nascent comeback. There’s a lot more news to be had on today’s episode. We also discuss that Medium blog post announcing a new bodega — that’s essentially New York City parlance for “party store” — for the hard-hit Russell Woods neighborhood on Detroit’s west side. It’ll reporte...
Feb 25, 2019•16 min•Ep. 216
