Dearborn’s East Business District Moves Along
Sunday, March 29th, 2009We talk a lot on these pages about the news in Dearborn’s west business district but there is a great deal quietly taking place on the east side that sometimes gets overshadowed.
Raad Alawan, editor of Dearborn’s Your Community Voice recently caught up with Michael Boettcher, executive director of the East Dearborn Downtown Development Authority,for a look at what’s happening in east Dearborn. 
Beyond the medical center groundbreaking in May at Michigan and Schaefer on the former Wards site (scheduled for completion in 2010), Boettcher sees the growth opportunity along Schaefer, north of Michigan Avenue, which years ago was the heart of the east Dearborn downtown.
Below are quotes from Boettcher in his interview with Your Community Voice:
• Long term, what I see happening is the head of the district moving to the block of Schaefer north of Michigan Avenue. It’s a little less noisy, busy and congested than Michigan Avenue. Schaefer allows for better window shopping. It could be similar to downtown Ferndale at Nine Mile and Woodward, where they narrowed it to two moving lanes, parking on both sides, and managed to bump out the sidewalks to make enough room for outdoor seating.
• We have a functional downtown with a wide variety of business types. But I think we need the kind of businesses where people like to stroll and do window shopping. That’s what I’d like to see happen on Schaefer, where it can happen most naturally. That may mean some of the service businesses moving back to the upper floors or outer storefronts.
• I think this neighborhood has that much potential. This was downtown for decades. We had three department stores, a movie theater, City Hall of course. We had as much commercial use as a shopping mall. People knew this neighborhood, and still do.
• This past year, we did a promotion campaign with the tagline “See the World in One Mile.” Within walking distance, there’s Italian, Chinese, Polish, Arab, Tai, Greek, and all types of different foods. And the Arab American Museum has all different kinds of concerts on Thursdays. There are a lot of opportunities for a lot of cross-cultural experience in the neighborhood, and that’s what we want to tout. It was pretty successful. We heard back from businesses. Someone went into Alcamo’s after hearing one of the radio spots where they were one of the featured businesses and made a huge purchase. And they had never been there before, loved it, and said they’ll be back.
• From our survey, we found a lot of people go to city hall to pay taxes or take care of other city business. The medical center (at 5050 Schaefer) is a big draw. The museum ranks highly in terms of what people like and reasons to come (downtown). We found others like restaurants, ethnic food and shopping. Kroger was another big draw, until they closed (in November 2008) at Schaefer and Colson. They didn’t want to operate two stores so close to each other, and Greenfield has better traffic counts than Schaefer. There is specific interest in the Kroger property, but it’s preliminary at this point. I think we need to maintain that as a grocery store. It’s a great anchor.