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PURE CONFUSION? Revamp of state travel website aims to put tourists on right road By Lindsay VanHulle Crain’s Detroit Business/Bridge Magazine
LANSING — In the midst of launching new TV ads encouraging Michigan tourists to try Michigan craft beer or restaurants that specialize in farm-totable meals, the state is falling short with some basic functionality of the trip-planning feature of its official travel website. Namely, vacationers who want to use Michi gan.org as a detailed planning tool can’t accurately gauge distances between attractions or relate to area accommodations. “I am trying to determine distances from (The) Henry Ford and Greenfield Village to a campground,” wrote one prospective tourist. “I could not tell where these attractions were in relation to any of the campgrounds that displayed.” “Sometimes the interactive maps are harder to navigate,” wrote another. “I needed something that showed area-to-area or city-to-city and how close they were (with the goal of planning to do things in two locations if they were close enough to each other,
given limited time).” This is a problem for state tourism promoters. After years of false starts and trying to resolve problems on Michigan.org with patches and tweaks, Travel Michigan, the state’s tourism division, plans a full redesign of what is believed to be a decade-old website before the end of the year. Improving navigation and content will be priorities. The Michigan Strategic Fund board last month awarded a $390,000 contract to Sarasota, Fla.-based Miles Media LLP for the website project. The company plans to incorporate more photos and videos, personalized content, social media and trip-planning tools as part of a site that is responsive to both desktop and mobile users. Today, “it’s just not a very usable, intuitive site,” said Dave Lorenz, Travel Michigan’s vice president, adding that many people instead seek out regional convention and visitors bureau websites to find the information SEE TRAVEL, PAGE 22
A Pure Michigan moment: the sun rising over Traverse City’s West Grand Traverse Bay. ALISON GOSS/TRAVEL MICHIGAN
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PACE paves path to energy efficiency Creative financing method less known, underused By Jay Greene jgreene@crain.com
Powers Distributing Inc. in Orion Township
has saved an average of $2,000 per month on electricity by installing a rooftop solar panel array and investing in LED lighting and other energy-efficient technologies, said Gary Thompson, COO of Powers. Powers also tapped into an underused financing mechanism to fund renewable energy and efficiency projects — the Property Assessed Clean Energy program, or PACE. “PACE is designed so that the energy savings generate the funds to make the bank payments, which the township collects through our property taxes,” Thompson said. “It is cash flow positive and encourages people to make sustainable improvements.” Thompson said PACE has allowed Powers Distributing to extend its bank payments over 20 years, reducing monthly payments and giving the beer distributor greater cash flow to fund other projects. For example, Powers Distributing is considering whether to add up to 25,000 additional square feet of solar panels to a second building sometime in the future, he said. As the price of electricity goes up and companies look to reduce their carbon footprint for public health reasons, a growing number are looking into projects like solar and wind energy or energy-efficiency technologies. From 2013 to 2015, Powers added more than 16,000 square feet of solar panels to its SEE PACE, PAGE 23
MUST READS OF THE WEEK
New fast-casual restaurants to offer ‘chicken with attitude’ Atomic Chicken landing in New Center, Clawson By Sherri Welch swelch@crain.com
Hospital turnaround? Family investors seek to buy Doctors Hospital out of bankruptcy; old name of Pontiac General goes back on building, Page 9
Newspaper talks With no talks set until the end of the month, News and Free Press journalists are expected to be without a contract for the first time since 1995 strike, Page 8
A trio with deep local restaurant pedigrees plans to launch a fast-casual fried chicken startup this spring with not one but two locations — the first in Clawson in April and the second in Detroit’s New Center area later this spring. Atomic Chicken will offer customers “chef-driven” varieties of fried chicken and waffles, fried chicken sandwiches and smothered chicken over biscuits. Teaming up on the new restaurant are Scott Moloney, owner of Treat Dreams in Ferndale and Woodpile BBQ Shack in Clawson; Matt Baldridge, former chef at the Rattlesnake Club and Cliff Bell’s and executive chef at the former Seldom Blues; and Café Muse chef and owner Greg Reyner, who also plans to open Geiger Eat
Shop in Detroit’s West Village during the fourth quarter of this year. The trio is investing and financing about $500,000 to get the two Atomic Chicken restaurants off the ground. The restaurants are expected to create about 50 jobs, combined. The fried chicken will come in a number of varieties, ranging from buttermilk and “smokin’ hot” to panko-crusted Japanese. Some options will include sriracha or ginger soy glazes. They’ll be dished up with sides including smashed sweet potatoes with Michigan maple and cardamom, black-eyed peas with bacon, gorgonzola mac and cheese, sweet vinegar slaw and cinnamon apples. For dessert, patrons will be able to choose from homemade puddings in butterscotch, banana vanilla and Faygo Rock ’n Rye. Independent of one another, Baldridge and Reyner had each been considering a chicken and waffles concept. And both were
looking to put their new restaurants in former chicken joints. Baldridge had been eyeing the former Faym-Us Chicken and Seafood restaurant on South Main Street north of 14 Mile Road in Clawson. Reyner was looking to lease a for-
mer Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen location in Detroit’s New Center at Woodward and Milwaukee avenues, one block off the last M-1 Rail stop, for his chicken and waffles restaurant. The two separately mentioned SEE CHICKEN, PAGE 25
JANNA COUMOUNDOUROS, LILACPOP STUDIO
The fiberglass chicken will remain atop the old Faym-Us Chicken and Seafood in Clawson as it becomes one of two Atomic Chicken locations.