In this rendering, all three buildings for University of Michigan-Dearborn student housing can be seen.

Construction is set to begin this June on a new student housing project that will serve students attending the University of Michigan-Dearborn.

However, the plan to actually open the housing project has been delayed a year and now will not open until August 2013. The campus housing project was originally set to open in August of this year. See earlier story HERE.

“It is going to take a little longer because of financing (challenges),” said Ed Bagale, Vice Chancellor for government relations at the UM-Dearborn.

The good news is that the project is moving forward very quickly. The plan now calls for 521 beds by using two existing buildings and three other structures. The first existing building will be renovated into a student union with eight student apartments. The second existing building will be modified for additional student apartments. The primary apartments will consist of three attached buildings.

To connect the apartments to the UM-Dearborn campus, a walkway will eventually be constructed over Evergreen Road. In the interim, a stoplight will be installed so students can cross.

One of the more interesting options to students who move to this new campus will be the availability of a nutritionist. Bagale tells Deepsaidwhat.com that when students move to UM-Dearborn the focus will be on their health. One of the first people students will meet with is a nutritionist who will map out a plan for healthy eating and living for the rest of their lives.

“It won’t just be a cool place to live,” Bagale said. “It will be place to improve the lives of students,  body, mind and spirit.”

The Dearborn City Plan Commission voted 5 to 4 Monday night and approved a request for a special land use from Goodwill Industries to open a second-hand thrift store in downtown West Dearborn.

The thrift store now heads to the zoning board to obtain final approval.

For earlier story, click HERE.

Jane Ford serves up a hot dog in the parking lot of ACO Hardware in Dearborn. The family had to pack up its second hot dog stand down the road at Westborn Mall at the request of the mall's owner.

After nearly two and a half years of selling hot dogs from her cart outside the Dearborn post office in the Westborn Mall, Anna Ford has been told by the mall’s owner to push on out.

Most Dearborn residents know Anna Ford from her more than 25 years of selling hot dogs from her cart outside of ACO on Michigan Avenue, just west of Military Street. Her Binky’s Hot Dog and Sausage stand has been selling Dearborn Sausage brand hot dogs and Detroit’s Better Made chips in the parking lot of the hardware store for seven days a week without incident.

But that apparently wasn’t the case in Westborn Mall. Anna Ford tells DeepsaidWhat.com that the owners of the recently opened Red Olive restaurant in the mall, who offer coney dogs on their menu, apparently viewed the hot dog stand as competition. Although Binky’s does not sell coney toppings for its hot dogs, the owner of Westborn Mall told them they had to leave, she said.

“I do wish the Red Olive well,” Anna Ford said. “It is tough to starting a new business. I have no animosity toward Westborn Mall or the Red Olive. I just think that some of the workers in the mall don’t have time to go out to a sit-down restaurant. Running to my stand is just easier for some of those people with limited time. I just wish it could have worked out for all of us. I don’t think our businesses compete.”

While Binky’s Hot Dog stand didn’t pay rent for sitting in Westborn Mall’s parking lot, it is hard to view the hot dog cart as competition for the restaurant, which offers a full menu that goes beyond hot dogs and chips.

The former Brothers Tuxedo in downtown west Dearborn is now razed.

A dilapidated building in downtown west Dearborn that once was home to Brothers Tuxedo has finally been razed.

Crews began demolishing the building on Friday and by Saturday afternoon all that remained of the two-story brick building was a pile of rubble.

While it has taken years to remove this Dearborn eyesore, the good news is that it is now finally down. And with a clean plot of land on a prime corner of downtown Dearborn there comes hope that it will become something more than just another grassy space.

The building is the second of three dilapidated buildings that Dearborn developer Hakim Fakhoury agreed with city officials would come down. The third building, Bally’s Vic Tanny, is still being prepared for demolition.

The former Brothers Tuxedo building at Michigan and Howard before demolition.

As part of the agreement with the city and a way to save demolition costs, the foundation of the Brothers Tuxedo building, just like the former Giuliano’s, will remain until the property is ready to be developed.

The three buildings, all located between Mason and Military on Michigan Avenue, were being removed as part of a large-scale redevelopment proposed in 2005 by Fakhoury.

That particular development never occurred but clearing the area of these rotting buildings is a step in the right direction.

Springwells Park, the historic early-American subdivision, designed by Edsel and Henry Ford at Rotunda Drive and Greenfield, is the location for the Saturday, May 19 Dearborn Symphony Home Tour.

The Headquarters for this 31st edition of the Tour is the neighboring Tournament Players Club (TPC) where tickets at $15 pre-sale and $20 on Tour day will be available.

Hours are 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Free parking is available at Dearborn Congregational Church on Rotunda Drive adjacent to the TPC. Lunches at $13 will be available at the TPC Clubhouse and nine vendors will display their artworks, plus a Symphony jewelry booth.

Plan to take the tour of the five unique homes. enjoy the plentiful tree-lined streets and get some new decorating ideas.

All proceeds go directly to the Dearborn Symphony for next season’s concerts at the Ford Community and Performing Arts Center.

To obtain tickets or for information, phone 313-565-2424.

The Crystallettes Senior Synchronized Skating Team, representing the Dearborn Figure Skating Club, is looking for sponsors for their Team USA team.

The group is sending skaters and coaches to Goteborg, Sweden to represent the U.S. in this ISU World Synchronized Skating Championships, April 12-14, 2012. Travel to this event is very expensive for the athletes and their families so the group is selling t-shirt advertising spots to help with expenses.

•  For $50 your business will receive two lines on the t-shirt. These t-shirts will be worn by the skaters at these events and in your community and the surrounding communities once the events are over.
• For $100 your business will receive two lines on the t-shirt as stated above as well as ¼ page advertising in the team’s 2012 Ice Show Program. This is a full color program.
• For $250 your business will receive three lines on the t-shirt as stated above as well as 1/2 page advertising in the team’s 2012 Ice Show Program.
• For $500 your business will receive four lines on the t-shirt as stated above as well as full page advertising in the team’s 2012 Ice Show Program.

Those interested please contact:  Holly Teets, 14900 Ford Rd. Dearborn, MI 48126. Checks payable to “DFSC”. Please also include the exact verbiage or artwork you would like on your ad. Dearborn Figure Skating Club is a IRC 501 © 3 not for profit organization.

Best Buy is beginning to acknowledge that its big-box business model, which dominated electronics retailing for much of the past two decades, is no longer working.

The electronics chain said it would close 50 big-box stores this year, test new store formats in San Antonio and Minneapolis, and lay off 400 corporate and support workers as part of a plan to trim $800 million in costs and restructure its ailing business.

It isn’t clear what that means for the Best Buy store on Ford Road and Mercury Drive in Dearborn but the hope here is that it will survive this round of store closures.

The company outlined the following moves:

• It will cut $800 million in costs by fiscal 2015.

• Close 50 big-box stores this fiscal year.

• Open 100 Best Buy Mobile and small stores this year.

• Boost online revenue by 15 percent.

• And Best Buy will change its employee compensation model to revolve around customer service and business goals.

It doesn’t have a title yet, but there’s a sequel in the works to the Museum Guild of Dearborn’s paperback “best seller,” Best Dearborn Stories: Voices From Henry Ford’s Hometown.

The Dearborn Historical Museum announced preliminary plans for the sequel this week.

The 382-page Best Dearborn Stories anthology sold more than 500 copies in the first month after its release in early December, a number believed to rank in the upper 20 percent among new U.S. books. We ran excerpts of the first book here on DeepsaidWhat? You can read the last entry HERE.

“I have to say the book’s reception was a pleasant surprise,” said Kirt D. Gross, the museum’s chief curator. “By our standards, it was certainly a best seller. We hope that plans continue to come together for the sequel.”

Overall, the book has sold more than 800 of its initial run of 1,300 copies, earning gross receipts of more than $16,000. All proceeds beyond the Museum Guild’s initial publication cost go to support the Historical Museum.

L. Glenn O’Kray, vice chair of the Dearborn Historical Commission and coordinator of the publishing project, said editors expect to come up with a title for the sequel within the month.

“It could simply be Best Dearborn Stories, Part II,” O’Kray said. “But there’s been some support for choices like Return of Best Dearborn Stories and Son of Best Dearborn Stories. And we haven’t ruled out popular favorites like Revenge of Best Dearborn Stories.”

He said editors have begun soliciting stories and hoped that publication details could be ironed out within several months.

As with the first book, residents and former residents are being asked to write up to 700 words describing a favorite Dearborn experience or person to help create a sense of place about Henry Ford’s hometown. The 152 authors who contributed stories for the first book covered categories such as Henry Ford, Mayor Orville L. Hubbard, Camp Dearborn, growing up, family, schools, neighborhoods, recreation, cops, diversity and activism.

The first book was published on a tight deadline that covered only 65 days from O’Kray’s original concept to delivery of the printed books.

Those interested in writing for the second book are asked to e-mail their stories by June 1 to lglennokray@cavtel.net. O’Kray said he is willing to assist those who have a story to tell but have a rough time putting it on paper. For an appointment with O’Kray, call 313-724-8203.

Authors may submit photos for their stories to O’Kray at 752 Wagner Ct., Dearborn 48124. Photos will not be returned.

The price of the new book is expected to be $19.95, the same as the first book, O’Kray said.

Based on sales to date, O’Kray said he hoped to sell the remaining 500 copies of the first book “by the end of summer.” It will be sold during Dearborn’s Homecoming weekend, Aug. 3-5, and is currently available for sale at the museum’s McFadden-Ross House, 915 S. Brady, as well as the Henry Ford Centennial Library, the Dearborn Chamber of Commerce, the Dearborn City Hall and Hair Designs North, 841 S. Military.

O’Kray and his wife, Jane, also staked out Westborn Market one weekend to sell books.

“We were pleased not only with the number of books sold,” he said, “but also by the number of positive comments we got from shoppers who had already read it. I frequently run into people who say they had tears come to their eyes on reading some of the stories.”

The book project is one of several initiatives under way to help keep the Historical Museum’s doors open despite funding cutbacks imposed by the City Council for the current fiscal year and beyond. The Museum Guild, a nonprofit group of more than 20 clubs that support the museum, is planning a major fund drive to augment a museum membership campaign begun last year.

For information on Best Dearborn Stories, call the Historical Museum at 313-565-3000.

Public Service Days starts again the week of April 2, 2012 and last through Nov. 30, 2012.

The city of Dearborn wants to avoid having to issue tickets during Public Service Days and has again issued a notice to remind residents that all vehicles must be off the streets on trash days.

Public Service Days starts again the week of April 2, 2012 and last through Nov. 30, 2012.

During this time period, Dearborn provides critical services, such as street sweeping, tree-trimming, and sewer maintenance in your neighborhood on your trash day.

To ensure these services are provided in a safe, effective manner, residents are warned to not park on residential streets from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on your trash day, which is also your Public Service Day.

Tickets will be issued to vehicles parked on the street during a trash day/Public Service Day.

If you are parking in a neighborhood that is not your own in Dearborn, check street signs to determine if it is that neighborhood’s Public Service Day.

As we have mentioned before here, residents can no longer park vehicles across the sidewalk on Public Service Days. You will be ticketed if you park across the sidewalk. In addition, you must not park on lawns or any other unpaved areas or you will be ticketed, too.

You must also keep your trash and recycle carts and yard waste containers off the street on your Public Service Days/trash days.

Additional information is available at www.cityofdearborn.org. For parking issues related to Public Service Days, call 943-2276.

Got a buck?

The Friends of the Library Dearborn (FOLD) has a deal for you.

FOLD is offering videocassettes for five for $1 and audiocassettes four for $1 at its monthly book and media sale Wednesday, April 4 at the Henry Ford Centennial Library, 16301 Michigan Ave.

The sale is 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Also for sale will be books, compact discs, DVDs, and magazines.

Check out the great selection and keep in mind that proceeds from the FOLD sales are used to support popular library programs. So every dollar you spend helps your local library.