The Well, Dearborn's newest bar is now open for business.

Dearborn’s newest pub is now open for business. Located in the West Village Commons on Michigan Avenue, the new bar called The Well is now serving your favorite brew, along with some nice atmosphere.

The Well’s co-Owner Ross Varacalli, a Dearborn resident, had planned to have his new bar (next to the now closed Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory in the West Village Commons) open by July or at least by Dearborn’s Homecoming celebration in August, but getting the needed paperwork done and liquor license hurdles cleared took a bit more time than anticipated.

If The Well in Dearborn is anything like the one Varacalli and his partners operate in Detroit, it should be a hit in Dearborn.

Good luck and welcome to the neighborhood. For the earlier story, please click HERE.

Is it just us or has the whole Dearborn paid parking matter just gotten so confusing that it might be next to impossible to keep up on what to pay, when, what day and at what lot?

New $2 flat fee for some metered lots in Dearborn begins Sept. 21.

The newest tweak to Dearborn’s paid parking system becomes effective Monday, Sept. 21.

In metered Lot C and Lot H, patrons will have the option of a flat $2 parking fee daily after 6 p.m. These lots are located between Mason and Monroe on both sides of Michigan Avenue.

This change is the latest move by the Dearborn City Council to help bar owners in the area who have complained that they are losing some of their customers earlier than usual out of fear of getting a parking ticket for an expired meter.

A parking attendant will work collecting the fees, although we are not quite sure where this person will stand as the city removed and sold its parking booth on eBay months ago when the meters were installed at a cost of more than $200,000. Customers saying for a shorter period of time can still use the meters as they normally would.

In addition, council approved changing the hours of parking enforcement to 3 a.m. instead of the present 4 a.m.

The city’s paid parking system will continue to be operated by Park-Rite through June 2010. The city council approved a contract extension with Park-Rite that pays the company $4,200 monthly, plus 8 percent of parking revenues.

Au Bon Pain, Caribou Coffee, Hot Spot and Super Cuts are all businesses that were once located in the Burton-Katzman development known as West Village Commons. Today they are closed and the development that promised such hope for west Dearborn now sits nearly empty.

And Burton-Katzman, the Bingham Farms developer, that sold the project to our city leaders is now being sued by the City of Dearborn for failing to complete what they promised (for that earlier story, click HERE.)

All that remains in the West Village Commons is the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, a new bar set to open soon called The Well and two businesses owned by Najib Rizk: La Cigar and Maestro’s Restaurant.

Maestro's Restaurant is one of many along Michigan Avenue offering meal specials in hopes of attracting more customers.

Like many businesses along Michigan Avenue, Mr. Rizk is doing all he can to keep his business open. While La Cigar is doing relatively well, the restaurant that he and his cousin opened a couple of years ago is struggling, he freely admits.

“We tried to work with our landlord Burton-Katzman to get our rent lowered but now with the city lawsuit Burton-Katzman isn’t doing anything,” Mr. Rizk says. “We are advertising in Hour magazine, the Detroit papers and WNIC radio. We have done a lot of advertising but it hasn’t helped. I don’t know what can be done. And my landlord seems to be okay with having an empty building.”

Mr. Rizk has cut back the hours at Maestro’s, serving just dinner from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. seven days a week. On Friday and Saturday he offers entertainment and is open until 2 a.m. Two weeks ago he began offering bargain prices on all of his entrees: half off on all entrees or essentially $7 for a good dinner.

Hoping to attract customers, Mr. Rizk approached the city with the idea of offering valet parking. He says Dearborn officials killed that idea saying they were worried about traffic backing up onto Michigan Avenue. His suggestion to move the valet parking location drop-off to the rear of the parking lot farther away from Michigan Avenue or even on to Village Road also was rejected.

“Trying to get things done in this city can be so hard,” says Mr. Rizk, a Dearborn resident. “The dispute between the city and my landlord has put a clamp on things. We are stuck in the middle.”

The impact of Michigan’s struggling economy isn’t just hurting Maestro’s. All along Michigan Avenue, restaurants are struggling and doing all they can do to stay afloat, offering both lunch and dinner specials. Bob Evans is offering free Internet and special prices on all its meals, Mr. Pita is offering $1 sandwiches, Kiernan’s Steak House, Parisian Bistro Post Bar, Crave and many others are also offering great specials, as well.

We realize there are many food options available to all of us but if you are going to go out and dine let’s at least try and include Dearborn restaurants on our consideration list, too.

The owner of Dearborn’s 33-year-old Hyatt Regency hotel has fallen on hard times, defaulting on a loan because of cash flow problems.

The owner of Dearborn's Hyatt Regency hotel will give up its control of the hotel, taking a $10.9 million loss.

According to Crain’s Detroit Business, the owner of Dearborn’s Hyatt Regency hotel — Dallas-based real estate investment trust Ashford Hospitality Trust Inc. (NYSE: AHT) — will give up its control of the hotel, taking a $10.9 million loss.

Ashford Hospitality Trust Inc. (NYSE: AHT) disclosed the change in its second-quarter earnings report. The company stopped making payments in June on its $29.1 million mortgage because the operating cash flow for the hotel did not cover the principal and interest payments, Crain’s reports.

As a result, the lender issued a notice of default.

“We have not cured the notice of default and intend to fully settle the debt via a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure or foreclosure of the hotel property,” the company stated in its 10-Q report.

The company’s analysis of the value of the property resulted in a loss of $10.9 million.

The hotel, built in 1976 at 600 Town Center Drive, is 14 stories tall and has 772 rooms.

Crain’s reports that the original lender on the property was Prudential Financial, however, the special servicer on the loan, who will take control of the property, is CW Financial, according a real estate source with knowledge of the financing of the property.

It isn’t clear what, if any, impact the loan default will have on the City of Dearborn’s desire to secure funding to construct a Convention Center near the hotel. Clearly, the hotel needs more business and a Convention Center could be one way to generate additional business for both the Hyatt and Dearborn’s Ritz-Carlton, just down the street.

The artistry of Dearborn jewelry designer, Sherry Duquet of Solstice Designs, is being featured in the newly released jewelry hardcover book, Beading with World Beads, from Lark Books.

Dearborn artist Sherry Duquet, left, and Sandra Boulton founded Solstice Designs four years ago.

Duquet, who was one of only 15 artists selected in the how-to-design book, handcrafted five of the more than 40 designs that depict the creative application of beads indigenous to regions throughout the world. Lark Books is recognized in the jewelry industry as one of the leading publishers of this craft.

“It is an honor to be included in Lark’s Beading with World Beads and to also represent Michigan among 15 talented national artisans,” said Duquet, who has four necklaces and one bracelet in the publication, all created from hand selected natural beads from around the world. The pieces are all one-of-a-kind designs.

In celebration of the book’s release, Duquet and business partner Sandra Boulton have collaborated with Barnes & Noble at 3120 Fairlane Drive in Allen Park for a book-signing and demonstration event to be held at 7 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 20. Patrons will be able to purchase the book, have it personalized by Duquet and enjoy an easy “how-to” demonstration for creating one of the featured designs.

The demonstration will be based on a design called “Afternoon Bazaar” that features authentic African Trade Beads in a bracelet and necklace set. There is no charge to attend the event.

Duquet and Boulton founded Solstice Designs, a woman-owned jewelry design studio, four years ago.

“Being small business owners, we use our jewelry designs to support women-based charities whenever we can,” said Duquet. “This year we accomplished our largest undertaking with support from the community and our clients to donate 400 necklaces to domestic abuse shelters in the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence.” The project was featured in the May 2009 issue of Family Circle magazine.

Recent accolades for Duquet’s design work include “Featured Artist of the Month” in the March 2009 issue of Styleline Magazine and second place winner, as well as honorable mention in two categories, at the International Jewelry Design competition at the National Bead Museum in Washington, D.C. in September 2008.

To shop Solstice Designs at their virtual boutique you can visit them at www.SolsticeD.Etsy.com  or call for more information at 313-724-9400.

Opening soon: The Well pub in Dearborn.

A new pub called The Well is soon set to open in the West Village Commons development on Michigan Avenue.

The Well’s co-Owner Ross Varacalli, a Dearborn resident, said the new bar (next to the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory in the West Village Commons) is completed and in the process of getting the needed paperwork completed so it can open. We took a peek inside and it looks good with its stained wood-paneled walls and stone face bar.

Varacalli was hoping to have the pub open in time for Dearborn Homecoming but the paper approval process has taken a bit longer than anticipated.

This is the second location for The Well. The first Well is located in Detroit at 1228 Randolph St. That pub opened in 1997 and Varacalli and his team have owned it for the last five years. The Well in Detroit draws a student-heavy clientele from Wayne State University and the University of Detroit.

While gaining the Well in the West Village Commons is a good addition, another business in the development has decided to close its doors.

The latest west Dearborn business casualty.

American Home Fitness, one of the first tenants in the West Village Commons, closed its doors, adding to the recent string of west Dearborn business casualties.

 The store carried top line exercise equipment and in this economy people simply do not have the disposable income for $1,000 exercise machines.

Finally, just west of American Home Fitness, at the southwest corner of Michigan Avenue and Military sits the Gateway Plaza. One of the businesses working to move into the development is a restaurant called Caliente Grille. While some work has been completed on the restaurant, legal battles have now slowed the project to a crawl.

This week restaurant co-owner Jeremy Sutton and Gateway Plaza developer Hakim Fakhoury will be back in Dearborn District Court on Aug. 21. Fakhoury is trying to evict the restaurant and its owners, claiming they failed to move forward with their restaurant. Sutton is countersuing, claiming breach of contract. Dearborn 19th District Court Judge Mark Somers will try to sort the matter in his courtroom this week.

Six months after covering the glass with white paper and posting signs that a new business was coming soon, two of Norm Newman’s larger vacant buildings remain closed.

But Norm Newman now tells Deepsaidwhat that he is “getting closer” to finalizing a deal to fill the vacant Inca and Pier 1 buildings he owns.

“We have had meetings (with an unnamed developer) and we are that much closer to getting there,” Newman says.

Newman remains tightllipped on who the potential developer might be, only saying that it is a “good company.” Deepsaidwhat reported here in February that the German-owned Aldi grocery chain was the business moving into the properties.

“We are negotiating,” he says. “Either we will make a deal soon or we won’t.”

Asked if the business going into his two vacant buildings was an Aldi grocery store, which some top city officials have privately told us it is, Newman would only say “no comment.”

We are still keeping our fingers crossed something will soon move in to these two vacant eyesores.

If you haven’t had a chance to read Dearborn resident Dan Howes’ column in The Detroit News about the closing of Annam, one of Metro Detroit’s top-notch Vietnamese restaurants, it’s worth a read. Dan, a former colleague of mine during my years as a reporter at The News, writes that the closing of Annam is “one more casualty in a city accumulating empty storefronts like boys collect baseball cards.”

A note posted on the door of Annam tells it all. Dearborn resident and owner Phuong Nguyen tells Deepsaidwhat that if the economy improves she might one day reopen in another location. Making rent became much too difficult with her decline in business, she told us.

Dan hits on many of the topics we have heard from other businesses in town about fewer Ford workers at lunch, owners haggling with their landlords and paid parking.

” . . . the city’s on-again, off-again, can’t-make-a-decision dithering on paid parking and this summer’s construction on pock-marked Michigan Avenue and it’s a wonder all operating in the business district from Brady to Military aren’t out of business,” he writes.

Annam owner Phuong Nguyen tells Dan that “Dearborn is dead. It’s sad. Dead is when you drive and not every corner is fully leased. This is not normal for a downtown.”

No, it isn’t “normal for a downtown” but these aren’t normal times either and every city in America is struggling. It’s just in a short section of road in a city like ours that it’s a whole lot easier to count the vacant buildings. Nguyen’s words about Dearborn are more frustration than fact.

My neighbor sent me an e-mail with Dan’s article attached early this morning with just two words: “Oh, no!”, she wrote. Indeed. But Dearborn will survive this latest casualty. From where we sit, it is far too early to be writing the obituary for West Dearborn. 

For Dan’s full article, please click HERE.

New retail is headed into vacant AT&T store.

The long vacant AT&T store on Michigan Avenue is expected to soon have a new retail tenant. Yes, we said retail not restaurant.

While it isn’t yet clear what type of retail will go into the vacant space, we have been told that the space has been leased to a new tenant.

We will chase down the who and the when. But it certainly is a bit of good news for the building at 22137 Michigan Ave., located on a very visible part of Michigan Avenue.

Stay tuned.

In an effort to insure the construction of a new six-story parking deck planned for the Dearborn Town Center is on solid ground, a new process will be “felt and heard” by businesses and residents in the area beginning Wednesday and continuing through Friday.

As part of the preparation work for the City’s public parking structure that will accompany the medical facility, the Dailey Company will be driving test piles from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday through Friday.

Pile driving involves hammering large steel units into the ground to hold foundations and structural supports. Noise and vibrations associated with pile driving operations are inevitable.

The testing is a preview of the construction of the deck. Pile driving for the parking deck is expected to begin late August and last about four weeks.

Residents or businesses with questions can call Cindy Grimwade in the city’s Economic and Community Development Department at 943-2180 ext. 6.

This new early testing procedure of the ground should prevent a repeat of the additional work that was done during construction several years ago of the city’s two parking decks at the West Village Commons. During that construction, additional steel units had to be driven into the ground so the structural supports could go deep enough to find a solid foundation. This unexpected work added cost and development time to that project.