10 Things to Know: Detroit Development, Better Bus Stops, and a $2B Manufacturing Push

0:00Daily Detroit is brought to you by the community. Support our work at patreon.com slash daily Detroit. Hello friends and welcome to your daily Detroit. Share what to know and where to go in Southeast Michigan. This is your show for Tuesday September 29th, 2026. I am Jare stays coming to you from our studio, Tech Town and across the table from me. One other than the Prince of Brightmore Norris Howard himself. How are you? We are here on a beautiful day. This might be one of the last nice weeks we get. It's all downhill from here for the rest of the year. You know, there's a saying I heard once though that the most fun part of a roller coaster is the downhill. I disagree. It's the inversions. So if the roller coaster, do I look like an inversions kind of fellow? Listen, man, if we go to see the point you getting on the roller coasters that go upside down and I'm a make you just make sure there's no change in my pockets. I'm totally worried about that.

1:01Lose in my glasses. No, you're going so fast. That's not how centrifugal force works. I just I was at one of those rides at a fair once that tip me upside down. I lost my glasses. I lost some of wallet. That's the fair. Jare were talking about some of the most marvels of human engineering and aerodynamics in these roller coasters. We going to see the point for how the weekend is. That's what we on do. Never been a cedar point. What? Nope. Hold on, pull the show over. You've never been the cedar point. Nope. Bro, we're out tripping to see. Listen, everybody, pull together on Patreon. We don't create a special, a special little index there, a special, uh, choice. And you say sinjair to cedar point. Put it. All right. Put it in the notes. Sinjair to cedar point because we need to take this man to cedar point and we need to put them on millennium force. No, there's some news to talk about. Maybe that was the biggest breaking news I have heard. Can't believe this man is from Detroit his whole life and never been a cedar point.

2:04That's crazy. I got something fun for you though. Hit me with it. Waka by Baobob Fair in the eastern market is now open engineer Randy. Engineer of alcohol and audio has already been. He said that it is amazing. The flavors are bold. It is excellent. I just want to congratulate that this thing is finally open. First of all, word to chef mamba and family and everybody over there out of that that Baobob Fair team. Uh, actually just saw chef mamba me and him had to give each other a dapp as arsenal fans because natchester city are in the mud. But I'm very excited about Waka. I am actually going to go there after I leave here to check it out. Get something to eat. Support because uh, Baobob is one of my favorite places in the entire city to eat and to take people when they first touch down in Detroit. Maybe it's the first time where they haven't been in the city for a long time. It's one of my favorite places to take folks because it's centrally located and get to it from the queue line. But also, uh, it's just a really nice place and warm and welcoming.

3:07And I'm very excited to see that. Waka is here because as we know, uh, eastern market is one of our biggest tourist destinations and one of our best brands is should absolutely be represented there. And I'm very excited to go and try Fomaso and I love seeing African food front and center right there point blank period, point blank period, uh, a little bit of housekeeping. I wanted to mention that this year, Ferndale pride is changing its dates and we're covering because we usually go to pride. We go to pride every year. Uh, we love having our pride arch out there and meeting folks, but it's moving to my birthday weekend August 7th, 20, 27. Oh, so that may be we turned it up, right? Well, yeah, because, uh, they're doing a bunch of road resurfacing. I did not know this and this makes perfect sense. Uh, the downtown nine mile downtown Ferndale on nine mile has not been redone since the 1990s. It feels like the road there. Yeah, it feels like that's what it's called from the flora. Yeah, it's bad. So August, that's when we're going to be at pride. I'm very much looking still going to be a great time. It's always a great time.

4:07I also hear that the Lee Plaza on West grand is back is on track to have its first phase completed by the end of the year. So that is awesome. Phase one construction includes converting the lower 10 floors into 117 units of affordable housing. I love seeing that this landmarks coming back. I went to the press event kicking off with former mayor Mike Duggan and all that stuff. I just love these kind of historic rehabs. This is one that I just didn't think was ever going to happen. No, me neither. And it's one of the most iconic sort of parts of Detroit skyline that is outside of downtown, right? Like you've got the Fisher building, you got the big GM building, but Lee Plaza is visible from just about any freeway on the west part of the city of Detroit. And what I love about this is it is going to be majority affordable apartments right next door to Northwestern High School. If you are just trying to place it in the city. And you know, we've always heard the cry for affordable living affordable apartments in

5:11that sort of central area within West Grand Boulevard or excuse me, within Grand Boulevard. And I just think this is another one of those things that is a, a, it is emblematic of the commitment to get more people to live within the city. One question. Can you see it from your mama's house? And how far away from your mom's house, can you see? I can't see. I can't see it from that far west, but if you are on the south field and 96 over the past, if you are on the very top of it, you can see it. Well, let's head all the way downtown as a prominent downtown Detroit apartment building has sold in receiver ship for $75 million and the buyer is an entity tied to the lender. According to reporting by crane to trade business, the 288 unit building at 313 park avenue on the former statler site is now called Arctera.

6:12It opened in 2021. It went into receivership last year after its former owner city club apartments, defaulted on a loan that had grown to about $86 million, not including attorney fees. The building is reportedly 96% occupied. So that is good news. You know, this is a one of those things where it's like, does the math work, the challenges of these things. But to me, I have a personal attachment to this building because our show started right around when this building was announced. That's right. And the big thing behind it and something that got a lot of listeners, we first started. We did an episode on what makes for a sexy bathroom because they were pitching that was city clubs, they're in a sexy bathrooms, man. Jonathan Holtzman, the developer, he told cranes that he believed the property was worth closer to $110 million and he said that the project was heard by unexpected construction costs litigation and the economic effects of the pandemic. Yeah, I mean, listen, I am going to try to hold back on the previous ownership because

7:16I have my own personal bad experiences. But I will say that this is one of those things that I think people need to really pay more attention to when it comes to how quickly we build out the city. We talked about Lee Plaza and how awesome that is, but also understanding that that is a very expensive thing to do. And especially rehabs of very old buildings, incredibly expensive to do, but new builds are expensive as well. As a matter of fact, I believe Jerry is aware heard on this show that actually when it comes to affordable housing, building new is cheaper than rehabbing. So this was a new building and it was a building that I have been in before many times. I've been into the units and so on and so forth. I just think to have new ownership now creates a new opportunity to be able to walk more people into it. It's still very occupied by the way. It's one of the more occupied buildings. That's what the data is. Yeah, it's one of the more occupied buildings downtown. So it's a nice building.

8:17But I think it also just represents because one of the things the old ownership said is that the jobs had not returned. That was one of the quotes that they told cranes, which was, you know, we built it. We built this thing under the auspices that people would be living and working downtown in the amount of jobs needed for people to stay in it and pay the rents that we wanted had not come. Now you got to build in this 90 some percent occupied. I would say that, yeah, you doing pretty alright. So to me and studios are going according to engineer Randy in the Patreon only discord chat studios were going for $1,400 a month. And that's what I'm saying. What that's telling me is that there was mismanagement of funds elsewhere and it had none to do with the residents that you brought into there because those folks was paying them. I have one question though. Doesn't Arctera the new name? Doesn't that sound like a Pokemon? Acer Terriks. It reminds me of Acer Terriks, the the the coat brand. Oh, that too. Or Arc Terriks. I don't know how to pronounce it.

9:17There's people put apostrophes where they don't belong. Well, if you've got experiences with the building or have thoughts on downtown rats, let rents. Let us know daily to trotatumail.com or 313-789-3211. Detroit is adding more than 200 bus shelters and 200 benches at D dot bus stops through 2027. The city says 107 shelters and 76 benches are already installed. The remaining 100 shelters are planned out for next year while 124 benches will be installed later this fall and into next year. The upgrades are aimed at busy stops with D dot saying benches are going to locations that score highly in its evaluation process, but do not have enough sidewalk space for a full shelter. Some of that shelter work is happening along East Jefferson where D dot has also been adding elevated boarding platforms, decided to make getting on the bus faster and reduce

10:20the time that buses spend pulling in and out of traffic. The shelters are being paid for with city, state and federal funding. The long term goal is for 75% of passenger boardings in the city to happen at sheltered stops as funding becomes available. Norris, I noticed my East Side stop on Warren. Finally, has a bench. Now listen, this is a wonderful thing. And I remember way back in the day, Jerry, you might remember this, we're sitting on it, sit on it, Detroit. They're listeners. Yeah, yeah. First of all, it was sitting on a Detroit word to call and rest there, everybody over there. But I remember when this was a thing that the community, you know, a nonprofit had to step in and create benches for bus stops because the city simply could not afford to do it themselves. And you know, I think this is an amazing thing. This is emblematic. I think of kind of where the city is. And on top of that, it's commitment to getting people to using the public transit once

11:25more. Listen, we've talked to many times on this show about the stigma that is around public transit when it comes to specifically Detroiters. I think that stigma is a little bit less strong in the suburbs and elsewhere. But specifically in the city of Detroit, there is a stigma about the bus. However, beyond the stigma, it was just physically hard to stand there in the cold or in the heat and try to survive catching the dexter bus. Do you know how many times in my head while standing there cold on the corner, I've gone, it's so cold in the day. Like literally like we forget, you know, just how devastating and how bitter cold some of our winters can be. And I think this is a good sign. Now again, you know, I think let's take it up a notch, let's step it up. You know, let's maybe put some heat in them. Let's get the heat for the queue line. The heat on the queue line stops the work too, right? But you know, let's maybe create them to be a little bit heated.

12:27Let's maybe you know, work together with smart and all the rest of them to make sure that the stops are well maintained because that's going to be another issue as well. Let's make sure that even when they're put up, that they're maintained well, but overall this is a good sign. And some of that maintenance for the shelters is through a partnership with Brooklyn Outdoor because they're going to be doing ads. And so the ad companies can help maintain the shelter. Yeah, fantastic. Forward, JP Morgan Chase, the state of Michigan, Michigan Central and new lab are launching a new effort called Michigan Lift aimed at helping innovative suppliers grow from promising ideas into actual manufacturers, as they say. The pitch is to connect companies with real industrial customers, financing, state support and workforce resources. Forward would serve as the anchor buyer, identifying manufacturing and supply chain needs, then opening the door for companies with solutions.

13:27That is what gives this some credibility. I think this is good. A lot of economic development and startup programs begin with grants, pitch contests. You got to have somebody buy the thing. It's great to get the grant. It's great to get whatever money to get started. But what keeps businesses going is customers. Ford says it aspires to award up to a billion dollars in business through the platform over the next decade. JP Morgan Chase says it will provide up to one billion dollars in financing. Now this isn't like a two million dollar check today. This is important. But it is good to kind of help boost some of these things. The focus is on robotics, manufacturing automation, batteries, semiconductors, mobility, aerospace, critical minerals and life sciences, manufacturing. All stuff that kind of touches Ford and one way or another, even if you don't think about it, Ford philanthropy and JP Morgan Chase are also providing a little over half a million dollars for manufacturing training at Focus Hope as well. That was the thing I was going to ask, which is, okay, cool. You're putting in a billy for all these new production jobs about how you're going to

14:31train the people to do the work, right? Because that has always been an issue. We can build the stuff or we can make the program, but we need the workforce to have the know how to be able to do it. So the fact that it comes with a manufacturing training, earmark is very important to me. I also think it's important to encourage people to try because one of the things I was hearing another report earlier today, and I'm sorry that I can't remember the source for it, but and echoed my experience when I used to work around staffing is that a lot of people look at changing careers or changing times and they tap out. They don't want to learn something new. And I think you got to kind of embrace that this is always going to change. Like literally the job you and I do now did not exist when we came out of school. It barely existed 15 years ago, right? And so it's always going to change. And so the idea is that you got to be always learning. I know that's kind of stressful and a little bit of like a mind shift, but I think it's important. Yeah, super important. And it's also cool.

15:32And it kind of fits in the wheelhouse of what Metro detriders are used to. You know, there's a lot of stuff that I think Metro detriders have yet to really come all the way around on. But manufacturing is not one of them. It's a thing that we do very well here and have the infrastructure to expand on. The city of Detroit is rolling out two new housing development programs, one focused on North cork town near Michigan Central and another aimed at smaller apartment building city wide. First, the city is putting 16 vacant parcels along 16th street in North cork town out for proposals. The goal is at least 20 new homes, either for sale or rent near Michigan Central. The city says projects can be market rate or mixed income. So a proposal includes homes affordable to households, making up to 80% of the area median income. It could qualify for up to $1.4 million in funding. The second piece is two and a half million dollars through Detroit small buildings program.

16:35That's aimed at helping developers close finance and gaps on two to seven unit buildings, either rehabbing vacant properties or building new small scale housing. That's something I see a lot on the east side. There's a lot of vacant ones that could be redone. That would be very cool. The city is using 0% loans that can be forgiven if developers meet the program requirements, including affordability rules. To me, the North cork town piece is a big headline of because of where it is. The neighborhood stuff is important, but I wanted to highlight it because I think there's so much energy towards the big buildings and I understand why they photograph really well on Instagram. But the smaller kind of developments, especially, you know, I'm thinking about it. There is an eight unit like three blocks from my house. If I had the money, I would literally build the daily Detroit house. Well, and I think we just need to do more than anyway because while we're being honest, most of the city, particularly within the boulevard, both east and west had loads of those sort of two family flat and duplex and basically like medium density housing.

17:38And that's part of why the population was so large for a number of years is because you could fit, you know, 50 families on one block because of just the way the homes were built. And I've been over here to 14th, 15th and 16th Street. It's just south of MLK. Yeah, I used to slide over there. Yeah. I go over there fairly often. And, you know, I've seen some of the new developments, whether it be the affordable, the affordable apartment buildings or some of the smaller units. And, you know, Quart Town is really going through a big revitalization right now or North Quart Town, excuse me. And I think it's really interesting because that is an area that for a long time has basically just been land for the most part, right? There's a lot of demolition. There was a lot of abandoning homes. Still, it's this day or a lot of this. When I stayed over there, I was regularly dodging chickens on the way home. Yes. So, you know, there is a lot of what's going on over there.

18:38There's a few other, you know, smaller apartment, apartment development, self-reducing, but all in all, I think there's going to be a huge boom, especially as Michigan Central continues to expand. And we begin to see the new stadium go up over there. It's just going to be a lot more energy right there in that area. I also hear there's going to be a food hall. Listen, I don't never say no to that. I know, right? All right, real quick, before we change gears, there are a couple things happening here at Tech Town. I wanted to tell you about that they asked us to share. On October 14th, you can join Latin X Tech from five to nine PM for a free community center to evening celebrating Latin X and Hispanic entrepreneurs in tech and business. There'll be panels, vendors, free food, and plenty of opportunities connect. Also, if you've been curious about co-working, Tech Town is hosting a free work from here today on October 21st. Bring your laptop, bring a project, and try the space anytime from nine AM to five PM.

19:48All right, man, we got to talk about Jalen Durin. Oh my gosh, I listen, there's a lot of good things about the pistons. One, I want to mention that games are going to be free to air more than 70 games. I am super pumped about that. I'm very excited all this, but this Durin situation, skipping media day, not reporting to the start of camp. I don't even know what's going on with this contract stuff. Soar me out, Noris. Yes, so the initial offer that the pistons gave when was a five-year contract with $200 million guarantee and Durin has said no to it. That's the stick in the crawl right now because listen, the pistons do not have much more cap space to offer a much more than that. You already got K, Kanihaem. You already just locked down a star to another contract. So you pretty much just need Durin to lock down that sort of core of your team that you're going to be able to build around for the better part of a decade. And Durin kind of feels like he's the number three guy, but guess what?

20:51He is. So do you, oh, so you, do you think he doesn't want to be here? I don't think he doesn't want to be here. I think his agent wants that extra 87 million that he got because he made the all NBA team. But the thing about it is is that when you're looking at the situation, particularly in the Eastern Conference, the pistons can mess around and be a five or six or seven seed if they don't hit the ground running on this season, right? So for me, you get an offer of $200 million. Man, you take that. You're not going to get $200 million elsewhere, especially not when you put in up five, six points of gaming and playoffs. Now, what about the alternate where they just give them the minimum for that one year and then he's an unrestricted? Yeah. Yeah. He could get the one one year qualifying offer of a $9.6 million and play for this year. And then he'll be a free agent next year where he could just go wherever he wants to go and the piss is getting all money. So that puts the pistons in a precarious position. But what more can you do when you offer somebody $200 million and they still say, no,

21:53I'm sorry for me. The way I look at it is if we offer you that because by the way, you became the guy here. We made you the guy, right? We supported you, right? When K was hurt and you were playing well, we supported you. So if you want to say no to the $200 million, we giving you then, yeah, maybe you can go somewhere else and hopefully get that. But you're not going to be the same player. You're not going to be getting them lops from K that are going to be patting your stats. So I think for Durham, if I'm him, if I'm his agent, you close this saga out right now because the quicker you put it behind you, the easier it's going to be for all parties involved. If you take that $10 million and become a free agent, everybody's going to say, okay, during and his people are difficult to deal with, we never go off from that much money. Well, the deadline is Thursday. All right. And out to show I want to talk a little bit about Detroit City FC.

22:53It's the final run of the season. They are third in the USL championship Eastern Conference with five matches left. You and I saw a match at Keyworth with Colorado Springs. I could go into a lot of things. There are good things, right? The defense is great. Carlos Herrera, what a goal. I didn't think we could find somebody better than Nate Steinwacher. No offense Nate Steinwacher. Yeah. I think we did. I think so too. Carlos Herrera is great. Yeah. But brother, where are the goals? We can't score, man. We cannot score. And it's weird because there was a point in time for most of the season where Darren Smith was the goals leader for the entire league. And now it's just seemed like offensively we've fallen off a cliff. And I don't really know what the answer is, but I could tell you from my own eyeballs, is that we're just not pulling the trigger in the attacking third. We get into the box, we get onto the wing, and we're just not shooting the ball, right? I literally see other teams come to Keyworth or play us at home, and they have maybe have a shot or

23:57two from outside the box. Or maybe when they get a half yardish space, they take a shot. I'm not seeing that same level of confidence or audacity from our strikers. And I think that's a big problem. Well, there's two matches this week. One in Brooklyn, which we will not be at. No, that's our game in hand. We did have an extra game above Charleston battery, and that is our extra game. And I'm glad it's against Brooklyn. They're not a great team. They're not good expansion team. We all know how expansion teams usually are. Is what is, but they're logos. Nice. The, uh, I will say though that it's starting to look like Charleston and Tampa Bay are starting to like lock in that one and two spot. So I just want us in the top four for a home playoff game. I don't think one is like one's not realistic. So if you can't get one, get that home playoff spot. I want number two. I want us to go for it. Like I want number two because I could tell you I would much rather play, you know, potentially Indie 11 or Road Island and play Louisville again in the playoffs. That should just me. So, um, you know, I want him to push for that second spot period.

24:58Birmingham Legion will be in town on Saturday night, and it will be Hispanic Heritage night with a luchador mask giveaway. Get there early because I'm getting mine. I'm getting my luchador mask. You were talking about that like on, you were talking about that at the game on Saturday that you want that mask. I want my luchador mask. You know, we have someone helps with our show. Yeah. Luchy big luchy. Big luchy. It's not a luchy door mask. No, it is luchador as in the wrestling. Lucha Libre. Gotcha. You know what I'm saying in the same van, you're hoving two garages, you're Ray Mysterio, psychosis, La Parca, Ultimo Dragon. Those guys. Yes. Some of the best luchadores ever. Well, we are done for today. Thank you so much for listening to your daily Detroit. If you don't already follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or the YouTube's. We're on the YouTube's. We are on the YouTube's. Go ahead and do so. We do this each and every weekday, sharing what to know and where to go in Metro Detroit.

26:00Also, thanks so much to our members on Patreon. Patreon.com slash daily Detroit. Local media is only possible thanks to you. You know, the platforms don't really pay much money. And I'm going to stop you right there. And I'm going to say once again, Jerry, we need that so we can send Jerry to Cedar Point. I will volunteer to drive this man to Cedar Point. If we get that love on Patreon. So patreon.com slash daily Detroit. Let's get this man to Cedar Point and put him on a roller coaster. You'll drive to you'll drive that far. I thought you didn't drive that far. Cedar Point's only like hour and a half. All right, all right. Well, thank you so much for listening to your daily Detroit. We really appreciate you being part of this community. Feedback is always daily Detroit at gmail.com. Until next time, I'm Jerry Stays. And I'm Norse Howard. Remember that you are somebody and we'll see you around Detroit.