The Prosper Spotlight is on Lola Are, the head of the Oakland County Business Center and the Senior Business Consultant on the OC economic development team. Her primary focus is on helping small businesses and emerging entrepreneurs promote growth, expansion, innovation, increased productivity and improved management.
Flexibility. It's the inexpensive way that Oakland County officials are pushing to make their local communities friendlier to new economy companies.Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson released a new report today aimed at making local governments friendlier to knowledge-based firms. The idea is that streamlining the old bureaucracy will make it more attractive for new economy start-ups and the jobs they create."It's to help review and revamp the community plans for the knowledge economy," says Brett Rasegan, planning supervisor for Oakland County.For instance, lots of small, older manufacturing facilities stand vacant today and are specifically zoned for the office in the front and industrial space in the rear. One of the report's recommendations calls for communities to give these spaces more flexibility by allowing either office or commercial use.Rasegan gives an example of an Internet retailer which may need lots of space for warehousing products and only a small out-of-the-way space for a storefront. An older manufacturing space could prove to be a perfect fit.Such flexible rezonings and redevelopments have already been successfully undertaken in Oakland County. An old factory is being turned into loft-style office space on the edges of downtown Royal Oak. A similar thing has been done with the Zicor building, an old manufacturing facility in Ferndale that's now home to several growing new economy firms.Source: Brett Rasegan, planning supervisor for Oakland CountyWriter: Jon Zemke
In a time when business is quickly and erratically shrinking, Royal Oak-based Innovative Learning Group is slowly but surely growing. The training firm just hired its 10th employee, upping its count by one person since the last time we checked in with them last fall. The company hopes to add more people as the demand for their product grows in the near future."We anticipate the economy will refresh a little," says Roger Blair, spokesman for Innovative Learning Group. "More and more companies will look at bringing more employees back and making them more productive."The company creates curriculum for firms to teach employees to be more productive and efficient. It counts about 30 Fortune 500 firms among its clients today.Source: Roger Blair, spokesman for Innovative Learning GroupWriter: Jon Zemke
More and more people have trended toward renting lofts and apartments in dense city centers. The younger and more educated the person, the more likely this is to happen. This has allowed numerous former for-sale condo projects to switch to full rentals charging pricey rents, and apartment companies like Urbane Apartments to surface as a fast-growing alternative. It's been a nice shelter for developers in this real-estate storm.But the economy is starting to take even that away. Urbane Apartments is getting ready to open and fill two new developments in the city centers of Ferndale and Birmingham. They are the latest in the line of redevelopments that have flooded southeast Oakland County in recent years. But that streak is coming to an end this year, as far as the people at Urbane Apartments can see."The fundamentals are strong," says Eric Brown, co-owner of Urbane Apartments. "We'd like to do another deal and there are deals to be done, but we can't find a lender."They have more apartment buildings they would love to acquire and renovate at current low prices. Investors are ready to put the cash up to make it happen, but credit lines from banks are dead. And that's with occupancy in the high 90th percentile for Urbane Apartments' offerings in places like Royal Oak, Clawson, and Berkley. Of late, Urbane has undergone a high turnover as its residents are increasingly jumping into their first houses."We have lost more residents to buying new houses in the last 6-7 weeks than we have in the last 6-7 years," Brown says, adding that there is a steady stream of people ready to fill the new spots.Those spots are about to become few and far between as Urbane fills up its new projects in Ferndale and Birmingham.Source: Eric Brown, co-owner of Urbane ApartmentsWriter: Jon Zemke
Sustainability is a year-round lesson at Royal Oak's Jane Adams Elementary. Yeah, the school does go all out for Earth Day, turning it into an Earth Week's worth of activities; however, school officials integrate those sorts of things in to the everyday lesson plans.Students recycle everything from paper to batteries to cell phones. Teachers use solar cookers to teach some lessons about both science and sustainability. Students are encouraged to conserve electricity by turning off lights or carpooling. "It's kind of all encompassing," says Kristin Smith, a 3rd grade teacher at Jane Adams Elementary School, who helps organize these sustainable efforts. "It goes beyond this week."And it's why Jane Adams Elementary was named one of Oakland County's 98 green schools this year. Of those 98, 32 were designated emerald (including Jane Adams Elementary), which is the honor roll for the designation. Both numbers are way up from previous years. Last year, 41 schools were green certified and only four were emerald.Source: Kristin Smith, 3rd Grade teacher at Jane Adams Elementary School in Royal Oak and Oakland CountyWriter: Jon Zemke
Chalk up another renovation of a historic building in downtown Royal Oak. The latest addition is the old home for Consumers Gas at the corner of Third and Williams Streets, one block east of Main Street.Wold Architects and Engineers has buttoned up the façade restoration and is looking for a tenant for the ground floor of the 1920s-era building. Wold, which specializes in designing schools, renovated the second floor in 2007. One of the first things it did was to remove a 1960s-era fake façade that had been attached to the building. It now bears a closer resemblance to its early 20th Century heritage, but a little bit of touch up work can still be done. The ground floor of the 12,000-square-foot structure is available for a number of tenants, such as traditional retail or a restaurant. Downtown Royal Oak-based Schneider+Smith Architects designed the renovation.Source: Jim Schneider, president of Schneider+Smith ArchitectsWriter: Jon Zemke
Thomas Video, a haven for cult and obscure movie buffs, has moved and will no longer be under that big yellow sign in Clawson. However, they have moved for the better; when most places like theirs are being closed because of chain stores and technology, Thomas has managed to beat the odds.Excerpt:To call Thomas Video a niche business is an understatement of vast proportions -- "supremely prescient" might be a better description. Opened as Thomas Film Classics in 1974, the shop's then-owner, Dennis Thomas, recognized the potential of the home video market before the technology even existed. "Dennis was a visionary," says Jim Olenski, who bought into the business in 1976. "He started off with a film store, but he saw that there would be a market for people to own movies -- it was a natural flow into video." Olenski and band mate Gary Reichel (from early Detroit punk ensemble, Cinecyde), started working for Thomas in the '70s. He eventually sold the business outright to Olenski and Reichel, who later partnered with Carol Schwartz. Now, 35 years later, the business has beaten the odds, staying strong through trends, technology and economic tumult. Read the entire article here.
The Oakland County Office of Arts & Culture has recently awarded local cultural institutions $30,100. Funding was made possible by the State of Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs (MCACA) Regional Regranting program.
If you ever ridden a bike along Woodward in Ferndale or Royal Oak you've probably hear, "Get outta the road!" more than once. Yet riding on the sidewalk isn't feasible in these cities. So, what to do? Well a group in Royal Oak is pushing for a more biker friendly downtown that includes bike lanes.Excerpt:The Royal Oak nonmotorized transportation task force wants to improve the situation and prevent more accidents... "Studies show that when a city is safer for bicyclists, those people tend to stay in their city for entertainment," Regan said. "They bike to local restaurants and venues ... I'm tired of the self-righteous attitudes by motorists in Royal Oak that assume only motor vehicles have the right to the road." Honking, angry drivers tell Regan to "get off the road" and "Go ride on the sidewalk."The reality, he said, is that more people are injured riding their bikes on sidewalks than in the streets. Motorized vehicle drivers usually aren't paying enough attention when turning, and if a bicyclist is crossing the street, that's often when they're struck.Read the entire article here.
Jim Pantelas was employee No. 3 when he hired into RIIS (Research Into Internet Systems) in August 2006, but he was one of the first additions in what turned into a hiring spree for the Royal Oak-based consulting and services firm. The 11-year-old company's staff stands at 24 people, one intern and 3-4 independent contractors today. "In the last two years we have grown 400 percent," says Pantelas, the vice president and general manager for RIIS. "We were pretty small two years ago."Not anymore and not any time in the future, apparently. RIIS plans to triple its staff to 75-80 people by the end of 2011, in a growth pattern Pantelas calls "reasonably aggressive."RIIS has achieved this by investing in new tools that have allowed it to become more efficient and more effective. In essence the firm can design software and use its new program to run a simulation on it before getting into any nuts and bolts coding. This allows RIIS to produce a cleaner end product that doesn't require many back-end fixes. Pantellas credits this new way of doing business and timing for the company's success."It's a combination of having the right technology and having the right skills of people available," Pantelas says. "We happened to be in the right place at the right time. Half of it was luck and half of it was being good."Source: Jim Pantelas, vice president and general manager for RIISWriter: Jon Zemke
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