Business Section

With about 2,000 people coming to town for a week-long electricians training institute starting Aug. 1, the logistical prep for this event is fairly intense.

To watch just a small piece of that advance work, The Chronicle swung by the University of Michigan Indoor Track Building on Friday, where dozens of people were setting up for a massive two-day trade show that kicks off the training program.

This is the 20th year for the National Training Institute, put on by the National Joint Apprenticeship & Training Committee – you’ll see signs around town referring to both NTI and NJATC. But it’s the first time that the group has held its event in Ann Arbor, bringing an estimated economic impact of $5 million during one of the slowest times of the year for local businesses.

We encountered a bit of economic impact on the trade show floor as well. [Full Story]

[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.]

Last Thursday, 23 July, 2009, The Ann Arbor News published its final edition after nearly 175 years in business. I spent part of that morning talking on the teeter totter with Brian Tolle about what people “hire” newspapers to do – besides provide them with news and information.

The notion of “hiring” newspapers – by subscribing to them – to do a “job” is a way of thinking about products that comes naturally to Tolle. He works in the field of organization development, providing consulting services to technology companies on the people side of the equation.

Tolle has a tolerance, even enthusiasm, for change and innovation. So when pitched the idea of reading a newspaper on a high-tech paper scroll, he did not fall off the teeter totter laughing. [Full Story]

Late on Thursday afternoon, the last day of publication for The Ann Arbor News, Cary Push was waiting in his pickup truck at the corner of Eberwhite and Woodridge. The bundle drop hadn’t been made yet to his carrier route, which covers this west side neighborhood south of Liberty and west of Seventh Street.

When the bundled papers  finally arrived, and after Push had rolled them into their plastic bags, The Chronicle tagged along for a bit as he delivered the last day’s edition of The News.

We shadowed him as he walked through the neighborhood with a canvas bag loaded with newspapers. He stopped at some of the houses – but by no means all – and placed each paper in the spot where he’d learned over the last three years that subscribers on his route preferred to have their paper delivered.

Some of them  got placed right on the door mat. Others found a temporary home in the hooks under the mailbox. Some were tossed inside a screened-in porch.

None of them were simply flung from the sidewalk in the general direction of the house. That was something that one loyal subscriber and reader of The News was a little concerned about – because it won’t be Push who’ll be delivering the printed edition of AnnArbor.com to this neighborhood – that’s the publication intended to replace The Ann Arbor News, at least on Thursdays and Sundays. [Full Story]

In the spring of 1979, the entire staff of reporters and editors at The Ann Arbor News was temporarily shoehorned into the lunchroom, a space about a quarter the size of the newsroom, while the latter was retrofitted for the dawn of the computer age.

As the waggish John Barton, who I think was then covering the police beat, has recalled, noting how different the times were, “We weren’t so much elbow to elbow as ash tray to ash tray.” I felt like an immigrant crossing the ocean in steerage. When Jeff Frank, the news editor who was in charge of our training on these newfangled gizmos, asked if there were any questions, I inquired, “Is it true we’ll all have jobs when we get to America?” [Full Story]

Arbor Brewing Company has announced that on Aug. 3 their establishment will become smoke-free.

In an email message sent to customers, Rene Greff – co-owner of the pub with her husband Matt – characterized the move as a “scary decision,” because it’s not clear what the impact will be on business.

Greff made clear that ABC had hoped the state of Michigan would take action to ban smoking for all restaurants – that would lessen the potential competitive disadvantage faced by ABC. Washtenaw County banned smoking in public buildings and workplaces, but restaurants and bars are exempt. In the state legislature, the Democratic-controlled House and the Republican-led Senate haven’t been able to agree on a smoking ban, so it’s up to individual business owners to set their own rules. [Full Story]

Think of Ann Arbor’s Rick Snyder as that bar in “The Blues Brothers.” You know, the one that plays “both kinds” of music: Country and Western. If he’s elected to the governor’s office, you can bet that his administration would be friendly to “both kinds” of his supporters: big business and small business.

In the week of July 20, Snyder’s camp says, expect an announcement on how that business-friendly theme might be used in a gubernatorial campaign for the Republican.

And by business, he means the “C-Level” manager, the entrepreneur, the startup team. Make them happy by creating an atmosphere in Michigan that allows them to be successful. That means stop taxing them so much, stop regulating them so much, train them in how to be successful entrepreneurs – then the rest of the state’s economic puzzle will fall into place.

It’s what Snyder calls “helping the demand side” of Michigan’s unemployment problem. Help businesses find executives from Michigan’s rich talent supply, help create a business climate that favors them, then watch them succeed and dip into Michigan’s waves of unemployed.

“I would argue you’re helping the demand side even more by placing someone in a successful startup team, and letting them have an opportunity to be successful,” Snyder said in a recent interview with The Ann Arbor Chronicle. “Those are the people that are going to go hire the five and 10 other people.”

This is the formula that has worked so far for Snyder the businessman, so why not for Snyder the politician? [Full Story]

Steven Lesse has some stories to tell – making a necklace out of a gall stone is just one of them.

The co-owner of Abracadabra Jewelry and Gem Gallery has seen a lot since opening his downtown Ann Arbor shop in 1974. Originally located in the building that now houses Herb David Guitar Studio, Abracadabra moved to its current location at 205 E. Liberty in 1976 and has remained there ever since. Lesse, who co-owns the business with his wife Katherine, fell in love with Ann Arbor when he set up a booth at the art fair during the summer of 1973.

“I was tired of the gypsy lifestyle – it was like being in a rock band,” Lesse said. “You were always traveling around city to city, art fair to art fair. It was a fun lifestyle when you’re not attached and you don’t have own a house.” Soon after he visited, Lesse rented his first building in Ann Arbor and opened his first gallery, which also became his apartment. [Full Story]

The cavernous commercial space next to the Liberty Lofts condo complex isn’t always empty –  as recently as May, The Chronicle documented a temporary architectural exhibit there. Mostly, though, passers-by can look through the floor-to-ceiling windows and see roughly 18,000 square feet of emptiness at the corner of Liberty and First.

But on Wednesday, July 8, the former factory space will have another temporary occupant: Karen Myers and Archie Welch are holding an open house from 3:30-7 p.m., hoping to garner support for a European-style indoor farmers market. [Full Story]

The current economic crisis is no time for Ann Arbor area nonprofits to hunker down. Whether social services, health care, arts, education or advocacy, nonprofits should use this time to re-examine themselves, ask themselves the tough questions, and develop a culture of learning that will result in long-term effectiveness and sustainability.

Local nonprofits have been hit hard by the economy. Less corporate money is going to United Way of Washtenaw County (the checking account for local nonprofits) and fewer dollars are being generated by endowments at the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation (the savings account for local nonprofits). The money earned by our community’s philanthropies that then goes to nonprofits is off by 30% to 40%. [Full Story]

It’s a summer weekend. The household to-do list is out of the way, or else you’ve set it to “vibrate only” for another week.

So what now? That’s easy – it’s time for a winery road trip.

Luckily for us, four wineries have taken up residence within an hour’s drive south and west of Ann Arbor; a fifth opens its tasting room later this summer. You can plot a circle route to visit all of them in a single day, with time left over for lunch in Jackson or Tecumseh, or a picnic under Cherry Creek Winery’s new pergola. Alternatively, target one or two wineries for an easy afternoon jaunt. [Full Story]

Discussion of the role of the Downtown Development Authority morphed into venting about panhandlers at Thursday morning’s meeting of the Main Street Area Association. Saying that customers are complaining, several merchants are concerned about panhandlers becoming more aggressive since the city pulled its beat cops from the street earlier this week.

The topic came up after a presentation by DDA executive director Susan Pollay, who was filling in for Rene Greff, a DDA board member and co-owner of Arbor Brewing Company and Corner Brewery. Greff had been scheduled to give the same talk she gave at a DDA retreat in May, outlining the organization’s history, how it works and what it has accomplished. 

So how did panhandling usurp parking as the most-discussed topic related to the DDA? Why aren’t beat cops patrolling downtown? What do merchants think about “Arthur,” one of the regulars who asks passers-by for change along Main Street? It all comes down to money. [Full Story]

I’ve been thinking about pies.

Literally, in one case. A couple of weeks ago I stopped by the local food tent at Top of the Park and talked to Kim Bayer, one of the organizers of Pie Lovers Unite! – “an old-fashioned hootenanny glorifying Great Michigan Pie,” according to their promotional materials.

The price of admission for this July 25 event is a pie. They’ll be having a “pie-ku” contest, too, which inspired me to write this:

Flakey double crust/hides media fruit or meat/splats soft in your face [Full Story]

In the hallway outside the city council meeting room last month, a group of teenagers leaned into each other and grinned as multiple cameras flashed. People passing by paused to say “Congratulations!” The teens – former participants in the Ann Arbor Art Center’s Artmakers Teens summer outreach program – had just received a 2009 Golden Paintbrush Award from the Ann Arbor Public Art Commission for a mural they created last summer.

Standing and smiling with them was Sarah Winter, an Ann Arbor Public Schools art teacher and project coordinator for the teens who created the mural. Winter said she was happy about the award, and called working with the Artmakers a “truly amazing experience.”

However, it was also bittersweet, she said.

“There’s no funding for the program this summer,” Winter explained. “It was great for the teenagers in a lot of ways this past summer, and now it’s over. I’m very sad it’s not happening this year.” [Full Story]

About a dozen business owners, managers and others from the Main Street area gathered last Thursday morning at Conor O’Neill’s to talk about an idea being floated for that district – a self-taxing entity called a business improvement zone, or BIZ. It’s a way to pay for services – things like snow or litter removal, or flowerbeds – to make the district more attractive and bring more shoppers downtown.

This isn’t the first time we’ve encountered the Main Street BIZ. In April, the Downtown Development Authority awarded $83,270 to the group – spearheaded by Ellie Serras and Ed Shaffran – to help get it going. Since then, Main Street BIZ has hired a consultant – Betsy Jackson of The Urban Agenda – and is holding meetings with stakeholders to pitch the idea and get feedback.

That’s what was happening on Thursday. The meeting was one of three planned so far: Earlier in the week, organizers met with property owners of buildings along a three-block stretch of Main Street, where the district is proposed. And on Tuesday, June 30, they’ve scheduled a similar presentation for residents and others who patronize Main Street area businesses. That meeting starts at 6 p.m., also at Conor O’Neill’s. [Full Story]

When the Washtenaw County chapter of the American Red Cross issued a press release on Thursday stating that its volunteers had responded to a 2 a.m. house fire that morning in Saline, we took special note – just hours before, the chapter had feted volunteers at an annual meeting that The Chronicle attended, where they talked about just this kind of work.

About 150 people came to the event, which for the first time combined the nonprofit’s  awards ceremony with its annual membership meeting – usually the two events are held separately. Though the evening focused on recognizing local Red Cross volunteers, leaders of the organization also spoke of the challenges they face to provide services in the current economy. [Full Story]

On November 24, 1998, Annette Baron fired up the furnace at her glassblowing studio, Baron Glassworks, on Railroad Street in Ypsilanti – that fire has been burning ever since, and Baron has practiced the art of glassblowing there for over a decade.

That’s what Baron told a crowd of about 25 fellow artists gathered at her studio on June 22. They came for a Creative Connections networking event held by the Arts Alliance, an Ann Arbor area cultural organization. The evening included food and live jazz music – and, of course, glassblowing. [Full Story]

Giddy doesn’t begin to describe the first time I saw my byline in a newspaper – slobberingly gaga comes closer – and I’m anticipating a similar can’t-help-grinning-stupidly jolt when The Chronicle’s name goes up on the Michigan Theater marquee on Sunday.

As our publication grows, we’re looking for ways to let people know what we do. And we’re looking to do that in ways that make sense for us. For example, you probably won’t see us putting flyers on car windshields in the Walmart parking lot – unless, perhaps, we’re doing it as performance art. What’s more our speed? An ad in the program for Burns Park Players’ “Annie Get Your Gun” in February. I was pretty gaga over that, too.

But when I met with the Michigan Theater’s Lee Berry a few weeks ago over breakfast at the Broken Egg and he told me about the possibility of sponsoring the 1939 classic “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” – well, the fit seemed just about perfect. [Full Story]

By the time The Chronicle arrived at the Ann Arbor Art Center’s studios at 220 Felch St. on Wednesday afternoon, it was less than 24 hours after the center had made its “free stuff” posting on Freecycle and Craiglist – but much of the initial batch of furniture set outside the building had already been picked over.

Inside, quite a bit remains, including ceramic molds, low-fire glazes, unclaimed finished pottery and other items. And over the next few days, they’ll be setting out more furniture for the taking, too.

The center sold its 11,000-square-foot building to ICON Creative Technologies earlier this year, and is consolidating at its 117 W. Liberty location. Taking a break from packing, ceramics studio manager Suzanne Poulton told us the new studio space at the Liberty Street building is about half the size of the Felch Street property, so they need to unload quite a bit. For anyone interested in picking up some deals, the Felch studios will be open from 1-8 p.m. every day this week. [Full Story]

On a downtown street corner recently, The Chronicle had occasion to witness an informal idea pitch from Hal Davis to Jesse Bernstein,  president of the Ann Arbor Area Chamber of Commerce: Busker Week for downtown Ann Arbor – where independent musicians would explicitly be invited to come perform in Ann Arbor’s downtown. Bernstein’s reaction can fairly be described as positive.

But if Bernstein helps Busker Week to join Sonic Lunch on downtown Ann Arbor’s summer musical calendar, it won’t be as president of the chamber. Bernstein told staff at 4 p.m. Tuesday that his last day leading the organization will be June 30, 2009. It ends three year’s of Bernstein’s leadership of the area business organization. [Full Story]

Behind a graffiti-covered door, at the end of the alley next to the Michigan Theater and one floor below street level, a handful of entrepreneurs are working at all hours in some pretty unusual office space.

Under the umbrella of TechArb, a coworking space for University of Michigan students, 10 start-up technology companies have set up shop in 30,000 square feet of commercial basement space that has been vacant for years. With 18-foot ceilings, imposing columns and no natural light, there is feeling of total isolation from the hubbub of Liberty Street, just one story up. The seclusion allows the 30 entrepreneurs to focus intensely on building their businesses.

They’re hard at work because the clock is ticking. They’ve got the rent-free space for this summer, and this summer only. [Full Story]

Less than two weeks after Shaman Drum Bookshop announced plans to close, the owners of another independent Ann Arbor bookstore are saying they could be next.

On Friday, Keith Orr – co-owner of Common Language Bookstore – sent an email to customers laying out the situation that his business faces: “There is no easy way to say this,” he wrote. “Common Language is not making enough sales to support itself. Its very existence is in peril.”

After a Chronicle reader forwarded the email to us on Monday, we went over to the store in Kerrytown’s Braun Court to talk with Orr. Sitting in the shaded courtyard in front of the shop he owns with partner Martin Contreras, Orr spoke about why they decided to reach out for help, and how he hopes the community will respond.

Contreras and Orr have been subsidizing the store with their personal savings and with money from another business they own, the \aut\ BAR, which is located in an adjacent building. They can’t continue that indefinitely – sales have to increase to support the store. Though there is a sense of crisis, Orr says, they aren’t planning to shut their doors next week or even next month. Yet they wanted to alert the community that they are struggling, and if they can’t find a way to make the bookstore financially sustainable, they’ll have to close. [Full Story]

When The Chronicle sees a Tweet wondering if a local business has closed, that sometimes sends us off on a quest – and Sunday evening, the business in question was Krazy Jim’s Blimpy Burger. Since we’d covered the mystery closing of another landmark eatery in January, we braced for bad news.

And seeing large CLOSED signs in the windows as we approached, plus a yellow cord strung across the front steps, it wasn’t looking good. But as we got closer, we saw – written much more faintly and in much smaller lettering – ”til Monday.” Then, ignoring the cord, we climbed the stairs and encountered a much more detailed sign on the front door: Blimpy’s was only temporarily closed for renovations. Whew. [Full Story]

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]

Boxes upon boxes filled with vacuum parts and accessories pack Dick Sampier’s small shop behind Stadium Hardware, a shop so off the beaten path that it might go unnoticed unless you were looking for it. But customers find it because they are looking for it – Dick Sampier Vacuum Sales and Repair is one of the last remaining vacuum repair stores in the Ann Arbor area.

Sampier, who opened the business in 1985 and is the sole employee, can often be found in the back of the store, either answering customers’ questions or working on one of the 10 or so vacuums he fixes each day. Sampier says he considers himself more of an artist than a mechanic, and he’s earned a reputation as someone who can fix even the most tricky mechanical problems.

So how does someone end up starting a vacuum repair business, and then stick with it for nearly 25 years? [Full Story]

A little more than four hours after the Ann Arbor city planning commission meeting had started, planning commissioners voted – to extend their deliberations past 11 p.m.  And a bit before midnight, the body voted on the Near North planned unit development project proposed for North Main Street. Although the vote was 5-2 to recommend approval to the city council, that outcome counted as a “technical denial.” At least six votes are required in order for planning commission to make a recommendation to council.

After the meeting, developer Bill Godfrey told The Chronicle that he intended to bring the project forward to the city council despite the technical denial, pointing out that two of the commission’s members had been absent for that evening’s vote – Craig Borum and Tony Derezinski. Derezinski (Ward 2) is the city council’s representative on the planning commission.

The meeting marked the final planning commission meeting for Ethel Potts, who has served two 3-year terms on the body.  [Full Story]

What kind of “helpful” customer rearranges whole shelves of technology books at Borders – because the downtown Ann Arbor bookstore has them organized in a less-than-optimal way? Trek Glowacki.

For that sort of book rearranging, Glowacki is supported by the credential of a master’s in library science from the University of Michigan’s School of Information. Plus, the “self-described information problem solver” spends a lot of time at Border’s. It wasn’t some kind of drive-by book reorganization.

Given that Glowacki is inclined to reconfigure the space he inhabits – even if it’s a public space – it’s not surprising that he and his colleague, Jesse Sielaff, wound up using the Workantile Exchange as the venue for a course they taught recently.

That venue is a new coworking space at 118 S. Main Street in downtown Ann Arbor – a space furnished mostly with chairs and tables on wheels. It’s intended to be easily configured by the members of the Workantile Exchange to suit the specific needs of a particular project on a particular day.

The 3,000 square foot Workantile is partitioned into a very public area towards the front (just behind the new Mighty Good Coffee storefront), private areas for phone calls, plus a conference room towards the back.

But it was Workantile’s 800 square foot Training Loft that Glowacki and Sielaff used to teach their 5-week Ruby on Rails course. That course concluded on Thursday – the same day that Ann Arbor public schools wound up their year.

What’s Ruby on Rails? [Hint: It's not a Wizard of Oz mass transit system.] And how does teaching classes fit into Workantile’s culture of coworking? [Full Story]

Karl Pohrt, who opened Shaman Drum Bookshop nearly 30 years ago, has decided to close the business on June 30. He plans to continue efforts to obtain nonprofit status for a separate venture, the Great Lakes Literary Arts Center.

The decision comes after many months of financial struggles at the bookstore, which Pohrt outlined in a column published by The Chronicle in February. In that column, he reported that textbook sales in 2008 had declined $510,000 from the previous year. He cut payroll and other operating expenses, but couldn’t cover the shop’s losses. Though trade sales (books of general interest) were up, that didn’t compensate for the loss of textbook sales. “The evaporation of our position has been astonishingly swift,” he wrote. “We had been holding relatively even financially until September. Suddenly we’ve moved into the red.” [Full Story]

“When a group is choosing paint colors, there’s lots of thought about hue, intensity, neutrals, accents, etc. But, it usually comes down to emotion. Just like buying new clothes, you have to try it on before you know if it’s a fit or not.” – Dick Mitchell, in an email to The Chronicle

About a week ago, The Chronicle spotted four fairly uniform rectangles of paint – in four distinctly different colors, but not wildly so – on the front of a downtown brick building that houses Mitchell and Mouat Architects. It seemed clear that a paint job was in the offing, so we decided to ask a simple question: What color?

The short answer is Bunker Hill. The long answer, as is often the case, turns out to be much more interesting. [Full Story]

Heritage Newspapers, which publishes the Ypsilanti Courier and several other print weeklies throughout Washtenaw County, is launching a weekly newspaper in Ann Arbor called A2Journal. The firm announced its plans today on Twitter. The paper’s first date of publication is July 9 – less than two weeks before the July 20 start of AnnArbor.com, a new online venture started by the owners of The Ann Arbor News, which is closing July 23. AnnArbor.com also plans to publish a printed edition two times a week, on Thursdays and Sundays. The Ann Arbor Business Review, a sister publication of The News, posted a brief article about A2Journal earlier today. [Source]

On any given night when the weather allows, you’ll usually find James Macdonald chatting with customers or passers-by at his West Liberty restaurant, Bella Ciao, as servers shuttle in and out of the building to serve outdoor diners. But not for much longer. After running the restaurant for over 22 years, he and his wife Kathy Macdonald are selling the business to local chef Brandon Johns, who plans to transform it over the summer into an eatery that highlights food from local farms and markets.

Bella Ciao will remain open through the upcoming Ann Arbor Restaurant Week, an event spearheaded by James Macdonald that highlights downtown restaurants and features set-price lunches and dinners. Bella Ciao’s last dinner service will be on Saturday, June 20. Johns, with his wife Sara Johns and two business partners, plan to renovate the restaurant and open it in early August as Grange Kitchen & Bar.

The deal closed earlier this week. Kathy Macdonald made the announcement at Thursday morning’s membership meeting of the Main Street Area Association, which The Chronicle attended. In a phone interview later in the day, she said they plan to focus on their other local business, Pastabilities, a pasta wholesaler that sells to area groceries and chefs. She said they’ll be selling off most of Bella Ciao’s extensive wine list as well. “There’s only so much we can bring home,” she said. [Full Story]