Mobile Workshops

Thursday, September 19, 10:15 am

Convention-goers chose one of these Mobile Workshops to see all the amazing things happening in Detroit. Lunch was included with each workshop.

Bike the DeQuindre Cut

The DeQuindre Cut Greenway, an urban recreational path, is a 1.35 mile pedestrian link between the Riverfront, Eastern Market and many residential neighborhoods in between.  Attendees biked from the Riverfront to Eastern Market Shopping District where they took a tour of the market and enjoyed lunch at Bert's Warehouse Theatre in the Eastern Market Shopping District.

 

 

 

Detroit's Urban Core Housing

Attendees visited the different kinds of housing stock and neighborhoods in the downtown area.  The League’s own Sean Mann, a proud and active Detroit resident, served as the tour guide. The group visited the turn-of-the-century Woodbridge National Historical District; a recently renovated 1920’s apartment building in Downtown, and new lofts and retail in Midtown. The session ended with lunch at Traffic, Jam and Snug. 

 

 

Innovation Districts

An Innovation District is a designated area within a city that encompasses higher-education institutions, and public and private sector industries. They focus investments in high tech sectors and concentrate public infrastructure development to to attract entrepreneurs and encourage cross-disciplinary partnerships. The group saw why the Brookings Institute and the Governor’s office have earmarked Detroit's Midtown as an ideal Innovation District, and what’s being done to lure entrepreneurs and investors to this section of the city. Lunch was at the Detroit Historical Museum.

Public/Private Partnerships

The group heard from Dan Gilbert’s team members on their visionary placemaking and retail plan for Detroit’s urban core.  The tour included a trip to and tour of the 1917-vintage Madison Theatre Building, an incubator for 32 tech companies, where they heard a session on how local communities can work in collaboration with the private sector to maintain the cultural and historical integrity of a community.  Lunch was on the rooftop of The Madison.

 

 

Eastern Market Shopping District

The Eastern Market local food district includes more than 250 independent vendors and merchants processing, wholesaling and retailing food. As many as 40,000 visitors flock here on a market day. This tour was a rare chance to see the "bones" of the market when it's closed as the group visited unique retail shops in the district such as DeVries & Co and the Detroit Cheese Company. Lunch followed at Vivio’s Food & Spirits. 

 

 

Retail Revitalization

The Detroit Economic Growth Corporation showed how innovative retail is helping to reinvent and revitalize Detroit. The tour included the Cass/Canfield intersection, where Midtown’s hot new shopping district is buzzing with exciting and unique new retailers like the Global Detroit Human clothing design collective and Source Booksellers. Lunch was at the new Whole Foods in Midtown.

 

 

Detroit’s Music History

From Motown and Jazz to Techno music, the tour showed the history of music in the Motor City and its influence on the world. Feet on the Street Tours highlighted landmark music venues as they toured through the Harmonie Park/Paradise valley section of the city, with a brief stop at the Carr Center for the Arts. Lunch was at Bert’s Warehouse Theatre.