Lansing’s Old Town will soon welcome a new flower and gift shop featuring local and Michigan-made products and a lot of quirk.

Tallulah’s Folly will open Aug. 1 in a renovated 1,700-square-foot building next to Mama Bear’s Cafe and Craving’s Popcorn at 1220 Turner Street.

Owner David Gregware envisions a place where people can drop in for last-minute gifts and bouquets, hang out, rent event space and enjoy a little whimsy.

“I read an article once about ‘folly,’ a European thing where people would create these little buildings way back on their properties, a place where they could get away for a little shenanigan,” Gregware laughs. “I realized, that’s what I’m building here. I’m building a folly.”

Tallulah’s – which is named after Gregware’s dog – will feature a section where customers can pick out individual stems to create their own bouquets, and he’ll offer regular workshops on flower design and other topics.

Gregware is the owner of Bloomin’dale’s on East Street, which he says he recently decided to close to focus less on flower wire services and more on local products.

Source: David Gregware, Tallulah’s Folly

Writer: Louise Knott Ahern

Dawn-Marie Joseph had a simple philosophy when she opened her restaurant and coffee shop, Gracie’s Place, in Williamston two years ago.

Let the customers dictate the future.

What they wanted out their most recent move: A massive expansion that would more than double the size of the restaurant, allow Joseph to be open for dinner every day and – perhaps most importantly – make room for an actual kitchen.

“Our current kitchen is so small that we don’t even have a stove,” Joseph says. “We have a Panini grill, two soup pots, four hot plates and an oven. That’s how our chefs have been cooking everything.”

Gracie’s Place is located in a renovated historic building at 151 S. Putnam. Joseph purchased the vacant 1,700-square-foot building attached to her current spot earlier this year.  

When finished in August, Gracie’s Place will feature 2,700 square feet of restaurant and bar space and will be able to accommodate 80 people – up from 24.  

They will also be able to finally make full use of their liquor license. Gracie’s currently serves wine and beer, but the expansion will allow space for an actual bar.

Joseph is currently interviewing for the roughly 20 more staff people she will have to hire to handle the larger space and dinner crowd.

Source: Dawn-Marie Joseph, Gracie’s Place

Writer: Louise Knott Ahern

Liquid Web Inc. is growing again.

The Lansing-based web hosting giant has announced that it is opening a new office located in Scottsdale, AZ. The new office is staffed by eight software development engineers and plans to add 15 more by the end of the year.

That brings Liquid Webs facility count to four. The company has three data centers in Lansing, two on Creyts Road and a third on Ena Drive.

The new office is more good news for Liquid Web, which is also celebrating the launch of a new product feature called Storm Bare Metal. The feature creates an automated system that allows Liquid Web customers to make changes to their own server accounts – such as how much server space they need at any given time – without going through a technician.

It also allows customers to create their own personalized server configurations, depending on their IT needs.

Liquid Web was founded in 1997 in Lansing. The company now has more than 20,000 clients in 120 countries.

Source: Travis Stoliker, Liquid Web

Writer: Louise Knott Ahern

The Greater Lansing Food Bank is moving into a new building that will give them much-needed space for food distribution and its other programs.

CB Richard Ellis/Martin negotiated a lease for the food bank on a 5,631-square-foot building at 919 Filley St. in Lansing.

Executive Director Terry Link says the new space will allow the food bank to house all of its programs under one roof.

“This will make us more effective with the resources we have,” Link says. “We were crunched in space and our various programs were not under the same roof. It made communications a little more difficult.”

The food bank does not provide meals directly to individuals, but instead distributes food to a network of food pantries in Ingham, Eaton and Clinton counties. Link estimates their services touch 70,000 people annually and help to move 3 million pounds of food.

The food bank is currently gearing up for its annual “gleaning” program, in which volunteers harvest fresh produce from area farm fields that would otherwise go to waste.

For more information, visit www.greaterlansingfoodbank.org

Source: Terry Link, Greater Lansing Food Bank

Writer: Louise Knott Ahern

Michelle Gross knows that if you want to sell premium jeans, cocktail dresses and one-of-a-kind accessories, location matters.

Which is why Gross strategically decided to open her new clothing boutique, Jeanologie, just a few blocks away from a row of Michigan State University sorority houses in East Lansing. Her display window along M.A.C. Avenue can’t be missed by young women on their way to class or work.

“I was in a sorority at Michigan State, and I know how hard it can be to find cocktail dresses and other clothes for events,” Gross says.

Jeanologie opened July 1 in a 500-square-foot store at 303 M.A.C., across from the Marriott Hotel at University Place.

Gross offers a variety of sizes and brands – including BCBG, Kensie, Lucky Brand and Betsey Johnson.

“I don’t carry more than a few of each dress because I don’t want girls on campus running into each other wearing the same thing,” she says. “I carry a range of sizes, too. For a dress, I might have a size zero, an eight and maybe a 12.”

Gross is a graduate of Michigan State University with a degree in apparel and textile design. She is working with some of her former professors to offer current students a chance to carry their own designs in her store on consignment.

Source: Michelle Rose Gross, Jeanologie

Writer: Louise Knott Ahern

A year ago, the house at 551 Emily Street in Lansing was an unlivable eyesore.

Today, it’s waiting for a new owner to move in, thanks to the work of a nonprofit partnership called YouthBuild.

The program trains high school drop-outs the craft of carpentry and home renovation while giving them a second chance at an education.

The Emily Street home is around 800 square feet and has two bedrooms and two bathrooms, says Brindley Byrd, program director. It’s the first of an expected five that YouthBuild participants will renovate while attending classes at Lansing Community College.

The program hosted an open house July 15 to show off the refurbished home. A second is expected to be finished by the end of summer, Byrd said.

“Our mission in YouthBuild is to give these young people the chance to restart,” Byrd says. “They now know they can do it. They can be successful in college, and they can fix something. They can take a house and turn it into a home.”

Of the roughly 20 teens and young adults who worked on the Emily Street home, 16 earned a certificate of completion from LCC, Byrd said. Seven or eight earned a GED.

YouthBuild is a cooperative program among Capital Area Michigan Works! and the Ingham County Land Bank, which donated the homes to be renovated.

The renovated homes will now be put on the market for low-income buyers.

Source: Brindley Byrd, Capital Area Michigan Works!

Writer: Louise Knott Ahern

Photo: Andrea Kerbuski

MSU Federal Credit Union is wasting no time on its plans to open a new branch inside a Downtown Lansing building that once housed a landmark restaurant.

Just one month after announcing that it was planning to buy the building at 104 South Washington Avenue – former home of Dimitri’s Restaurant – the credit union held a groundbreaking ceremony on July 19 to mark the beginning of construction.

MSUFCU jumped at the chance to buy the building because of its location, says April Clobes, vice president of marketing and e-commerce.

“This provides us with a store-front opportunity in a well-traveled intersection of the Downtown area,” Clobes says.

The new branch will open in early 2011, she said, and will provide between 15 and 20 new jobs in the Lansing region. Clobes says they’ll start hiring for the new positions within a month, and the new employees will spend several months in training.

Dimitri’s closed its doors in June after nearly 40 years in business. The restaurant took up half of the roughly 14,000-square-foot building, but MSUFCU will take up the entire building, Clobes says.

Source: April Clobes, MSUFCU

Writer: Louise Knott Ahern

It was once the third-tallest structure in the entire world, but the famed WKAR broadcast tower on Dobie Road in Okemos will be replaced over the next few months with a new antenna designed to improve radio and TV reception for public programming.

The Michigan State University Board of Trustees approved construction of the new, 1,000-foot tower at its June 18 meeting. It will be finished by January 2011, after which the original 1953 tower will be dismantled.

The new tower will improve reception quality for WKAR’s television programming and its AM and FM radio broadcast channels. All have suffered from poor signal strength since the federally mandated conversion from analog to digital, said Diane Hutchens, WKAR communications manager.

“We have lot of people in Eaton Rapids and Jackson to the south of us who have a difficult time picking us up, even with converter boxes,” Hutchens said. “These are people who depend on public broadcasting for a lot of their news programs and entertainment programs, and they are so frustrated.”

During construction, WKAR will periodically operate at a reduced rate and will alert viewers and listeners ahead of time.

Funding for the project comes from a variety of sources, including grants, private donations and matching contributions from MSU.

Source: Diane Hutchens

Writer: Louise Knott Ahern