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.

Get ready for some major traffic headaches Monday along a quarter mile stretch of Michigan Avenue in the west Dearborn business district.

Traffic along Michigan Avenue will be reduced to one lane in each direction from Monroe to 700 feet east of Brady to accommodate the city’s storm sewer separation project along Michigan Avenue.

Construction begins Monday, June 22, and will last about seven weeks.

The sewer separation is part of the City’s Combined Sewer Overflow Control Project, which is mandated by the federal government.

The majority of the construction over the seven weeks will take place from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. to reduce the inconvenience created by this improvement project. However, some of the work may be performed during the day, such as concrete paving.

With Dearborn’s 14th annual Arab International Festival now smoothly underway this weekend, we thought it might be worth reflecting for a moment on the media controversy unnecessarily created about our city by an evangelical Christian group from Anaheim, California.

Websites and newspapers across the country carried the story about the Christian group’s lawsuit against Dearborn, alleging the city violated its rights by restricting access to the annual festival that draws some 300,000 people.

Dearborn, however, did not violate anyone’s rights. This was never about an Arab festival or a city having issues with the group, Arabic Christian Perspective. It was simply about maintaining safety and crowd control, which is the city’s job.

U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds agreed, denying the group permission to hand out literature on the sidewalks. “It appears to be a legitimate governmental interest for crowd control and safety,” Edmunds said in denying the request. “The festival area is more akin to a fair than a normal city street.”

As it is, the city of Dearborn, which does not run the festival, is allowing the group to hand out literate at the entrance to the festival this weekend.

The reality is that Arabic Christian Perspective was trying to make this something it was not — a violation of free speech rights. This wasn’t about being denied the right to convert Muslims to Christianity. This was about grabbing headlines and creating controversy. On those two fronts, the group can claim success.

One simple fact seemingly lost by most media outlets was that this group could have simply purchased space to be at the festival for just $150, the same amount three other Christian groups and some 137 other organizations paid to be inside the festival area.

If this were simply about proselytizing efforts, the group, which claims to have spent $50,000 on printed materials for use in Dearborn, surely could have afforded an additional $150 to have a booth at the festival. We wonder what the group would have done if festival organizers simply paid the booth fee for them and told them to come for free.

We hope the group will respect Dearborn’s laws in the future. And, next time, simply get a table.

At full capacity with cats, the Dearborn Animal Shelter is asking cat lovers to step up to ease the strain during June’s Adopt-a-Cat month and the shelter’s Feline Family Fun Day on Saturday, June 20.

“We’re at our limit,” said Elaine Greene, Friends executive director. “(We have) 211 cats at the shelter and 97 more in foster care.”

Cat overpopulation is a perennial summer problem. However, the Dearborn Animal Shelter’ overflowing capacity is due in part to an unexpected situation. “We were called in to rescue over 40 cats from a single resident,” Greene said. “So, of course, we made room for them.”

The additional felines now are overcrowding the shelter’s “Cat House. Educating the community about cat awareness is an essential element of Adopt-a-Cat month and the Feline Family Fun Day.

 “Throughout the year we encourage owners to spay and neuter their cats and to microchip them,” Greene said. “This June we want to put a giant spotlight on cat concerns. We will also be extending our special cat adoption rate of $20 through June 30. We’re doing everything we possibly can to help cats in need.”

Greene also is encouraging residents to become part of the Dearborn Animal Shelter’s Bed & Breakfast Foster Family program. “We could not be successful without our wonderful foster families. We train families in cat care and supply them with kitty essentials, but they provide the love.”

Betty is one of many cats the Dearborn Animal Shelter is searching to find a home.

Those planning to attend Feline Family Fun Day this Saturday from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. can take part in a number of activities, including free Kitty 101 classes to help novice cat owners learn how to live with and care for cats; a Kitten Garden sale featuring cat-friendly plants; and Kids Kitty Krafts, such as face painting and sifting for prizes. At noon, Roary, the Detroit Lions mascot, will join the festivities. From 1:00 until 3:00, Dr. Shera Dickey from St. Julian’s Cat Care Clinic will be on hand to answer your cat questions. Dr. Dickey is the Dearborn Animal Shelter’s local cat expert and will provide tips on creative ways to enrich your cat’s indoor environment.

In honor of Adopt-a-Cat month, the Animal Shelter will reduce the cost of adoption for cats four months and older to just $20.00. This is a 75 percent adoption fee reduction and includes all the usual benefits: spay/neuter, microchipping, vaccinations, kitty comforter, and training DVD.  The first 15 cat adopters on June 20 will receive a “stimulus bonus”: a kitty starter kit, which includes litter box, litter, scoop, food samples, and toys.

If you are interested in becoming a foster family, please contact the Dearborn Animal Shelter at (313) 943-2697 or stop by the Dearborn Animal Shelter, located at 2661 Greenfield Rd.. Donations and inquiries may also be made online at www.DearbornAnimals.org

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.

If you plan on voting in Dearborn’s August. 4 city primary you’ll need to be a registered voter. The voter registration deadline for the primary is Tuesday, July 7.

This is an important primary as we have 25 candidates vying for seven City Council seats. The top 14 vote getters will proceed to the general election. So if you aren’t a registered voter, please get out and do so before the deadline.

The voter registration deadline for the November 3 city general election is Monday, October 5.

Cigar aficionados will soon have a new place to buy and smoke cigars. A vacant building along Michigan Avenue will soon be the home of a new cigar bar called Cigaro Lounge.

Ashraf Abbas is working on a plan to transform the small vacant building at 22037 Michigan Ave., the former site of the Hob Nob Gallery, into a cigar bar, which would be located next to the Double Olive martini bar and the closed La Shish restaurant.

The planned cigar bar would serve coffee, tea, sodas some desserts but there are no plans at this time to serve alcohol at this location. There also would be an outdoor patio lounge, similar to the one currently operated by the Double Olive.

The 1,500 square foot building is expected to offer comfortable seating inside for cigar and hookah fans, along with music and television sets.

Talk about a student going above and beyond.

Edsel Ford High School senior Danielle Boettger designed and built a kayak in her high school woodshop class.

Boettger spent 100 hours on her kayak, working toward her special launch day, which took place last Friday in Edsel’s pool, where friends, family, school administrators watched and cheered as she demonstrated her “rolling” techniques.

Boettger’s headed to Michigan Tech University on a full ride scholarship. We say well done and good luck at university. Below is the video story:

Turf for the new football field is scheduled to be installed by month's end.

The artificial turf for Dearborn High School’s new million dollar football field is expected to be installed by month’s end.

Below are some images of the current state of the new field that is being installed along Outer Drive. For those wondering, the home team’s bleachers will be on the east side of the field. The visiting team bleachers will back up to Outer Drive.

We aren’t thrilled with the location of the new field, which we have said before HERE.  But we are told this is progress and the field will be ready for Pioneer football this fall.

Looking toward Dearborn High School from behind the yet-to-be installed scoreboard.

Burton-Katzman, the Bingham Farms-based developer being sued by the city of Dearborn for not completing a multi-million dollar downtown residential-retail complex, has been named the developer of $146 million Unity Studios project in Allen Park.

According to Crain’s Detroit Business, Jimmy Lifton, the brainchild of the development and founder of Burbank, Calif.-based Oracle Post said Burton-Katzman was chosen from among many developers who submitted proposals.

The media studio, retail and residential development will be built on 104 acres in Allen Park.

“Many developers submitted proposals to us in what was a vigorous competition to be selected as the firm that would build Unity Studios,” Lifton said in the Crain’s article. “Burton-Katzman turned in a compelling proposal that not only gives us a solid partner in the construction phase but also an equity partner in the studios and village. It was the best proposal for those and other reasons.”

Peter Burton, principal at Burton-Katzman, who is named in the Dearborn lawsuit, told Crain’s that his company is thrilled to be serving as both the developer and builder of Unity Studios.

“Unity Studios is not only an extraordinarily attractive business venture for Burton-Katzman, it also represents a new source of opportunity and hope for all of southeast Michigan, and we are proud to be associated with it,” Burton said in a press release.

In April, the Michigan Economic Growth Authority board today approved a high-technology tax credit worth $2.8 million over 12 years for the project.

The 750,000-square-foot production facility will also include the full spectrum of production, post-production and related infrastructure and part of it will be built on the 630,000-square-foot office and engineering center at 16630 Southfield Road, adjacent to the Allen Park’s city hall. The property was formerly the Visteon Technical Center.

The project is expected to employ 3,000 skilled workers and 83 management positions.