I think Afternoon Delight used that bread for sandwiches and continued making it on their own after the Sun Bakery closed.

link

Note that it was in a building that was built out all the way to the corner of the lot.

As much as I dislike shopping malls, what they have long understood is that retail storefronts need to be right there on the sidewalk, with big clear windows and accessible entrances that draw people in. There are at least a dozen examples like this in Ann Arbor, where the retail space was split up or down from the street. Take a look and you will see that most of these have now converted to non-retail, inactive uses like offices or banks. Peter Allen’s real estate development class at the UM B-School takes an annual bus tour of these failures (many), as well as others that got it right (few), every year. Very enlightening.

This particular configuration is just one the many “curses” that have plagued Ann Arbor’s commercial developments over the past 30 years and a case study on why we need design guidelines. Who needs a metaphysical explanation when the physical explanation is right there in front of us all? We need continuous, active, street-level uses to make the downtown a more desirable place to visit, linger and stroll, and shop.