[Editor's Note: HD, a.k.a. Dave Askins, editor of The Ann Arbor Chronicle, is also publisher of an online series of interviews on a teeter totter. Introductions to new Teeter Talks appear on The Chronicle.]
Longtime Ann Arbor resident Metta Lansdale was recently hired as director of the Traverse Area District Library in Traverse City. Her first day on the job is today, Nov. 2. I talked to her on the teeter totter just before her move north. [Full Story]
Sign at Fresh Seasons Market on West Liberty. (Photo by the writer.)
It’s hard to keep something under wraps when your landlord’s real estate agent puts a “For Lease” ad on the front page of the local newspaper. That ad ran last Thursday to solicit a new tenant for the building at 2281 W. Liberty, where Fresh Seasons Market has been located for about 20 years. And it prompted the grocery’s customers to ask: What’s up?
“We’re not signed, sealed and delivered yet,” said Fresh Seasons general manager Jan DeMunnik, referring to their new, undisclosed location, which she characterized as “very close” to the current store. They hadn’t planned to announce the move just yet, she said, but the real estate advertisement forced their hand.
Since then they’ve put a notice about the move on the sign outside their business, and are passing out flyers to customers that explain the situation – and to make sure people know that they are not closing. [Full Story]
The lobby entrance to the McKinley Towne Centre building at 505 E. Liberty St. WCC officials had been considering vacant space in the building's lower level for a possible satellite campus. (Photo by the writer.)
Skyrocketing enrollment and an abundance of inexpensive Ann Arbor office space are among the factors prompting Washtenaw Community College officials to consider opening a downtown Ann Arbor campus.
For possible classrooms the administration had been contemplating up to 30,000 square feet in the lower level of a building on East Liberty owned by McKinley. Deans from the college visited the space recently, but on Tuesday WCC administrators decided to pull back from making a decision about that location, according to Stephen Gill, chair of the college’s board of trustees.
Instead, they’ll take the next six months to strategize, figuring out what their programatic needs might be, how much space they need and what kind of presence makes sense in Ann Arbor. WCC already offers satellite classes in Ypsilanti and Chelsea, but this would be the first time the 43-year-old institution would have a significant presence in downtown Ann Arbor. [Full Story]
From right: At the counter of the county clerk's office on Main Street, senior clerk Susan Bracken Case reviews documents from UM's purchase of the Pfizer property, while chief deputy clerk Jim Dries, Liberty Title co-president Tom Richardson and Liberty Title vice president Matt Keir look on.
The momentous mixed with the mundane on Tuesday, as a phalanx of attorneys and real estate professionals converged on the Washtenaw County Clerk/Register of Deeds office to file paperwork for Pfizer’s sale of its Ann Arbor property to the University of Michigan.
Because documents for the sale of Chrysler’s Chelsea Proving Grounds were also filed that day in a separate transaction – a coincidence of timing – it marked the largest amount of transfer tax ever recorded in a single day for the county. Neither the purchase prices nor the taxes paid for those deals were disclosed. (See the end of this article for more information about how the real estate transfer tax works.) But for the Pfizer sale, the check received by the county was enough to make senior clerk Susan Bracken Case gasp, then grin. [Full Story]
A Bluestone Realty sign is still on the former Ann Arbor Art Center building at 220 Felch St., but the building was sold last week to ICON Technologies.
When Rob Cleveland of ICON Technologies sent us a press release about his firm’s purchase of the Ann Arbor Art Center’s Felch Street property, we took the opportunity to get an update on the center’s plans for its main Liberty Street site.
We reported last year that the art center, like virtually all nonprofits, was struggling financially and faced a budget shortfall. Last August, with two weeks left in their fiscal year, they’d launched a “Close the Books in the Black Campaign” to raise $20,000. So how was the center faring financially now? [Full Story]
Students in a drawing class are focused on the sunny side of the Fleming Administration Building.
The Detroit Free Press reports on a local woman whose letter to Barack Obama elicited a handwritten note from the president, who writes several such notes each week. The article quotes Michael Traugott, a UM communication studies professor, who said one of the motivations for Obama’s letter-writing is political: “Without casting any aspersions on his campaign, it would be interesting to track where the letters are going by state and congressional district. Are they going to districts with wavering or persuadable members of Congress on health care?” [Source]
Ann Arbor’s Huron Hills Golf Course has opened for the season, and Leslie Park Golf Course could open as early as March 22, according to the city’s website. [Source]
In a recent report on an AAPS board meeting, we paraphrased remarks of participants, and we employed the informal nomenclature of the speakers for “Ann Arbor Open School @ Mack.” Those variants were departures from the accepted standard shortening to “Ann Arbor Open.” We acknowledge the name of the school here, and have cleaned up references to it in the original piece.
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