Updates from east side and downtown

Sorry about the lack of recent posts. Something something irons, something something fire. Here are some developments I noticed on Carpenter Road, and was told about at 4th and Liberty downtown.

Carpenter And Ellsworth’s shopping center is getting a new facade. This was snapped a few weeks back, the work has progressed since then. The stores that were previously open all appear to still be open.

The former Pier 1 Imports on Carpenter Road has been split into two storefronts. One of them is now open — an Aspen Dental location (a chain, like Subway, only for dentists, not Sandwich Artists).

The other store was still stripped to the walls when I took this photo, but there were literally people in there making plans, so expect something soon. Last year this was a pop-up Halloween store, so this is something like progress.

The photos below, from the Fourth and Liberty corridor, were provided by Lex, a Friend of A2RS.

Le Bon Macaron is an eastward expansion of a bakery and coffeehouse with previous locations in Grand Rapids and Lansing. Though their pride is their Macaron, the french sandwich cookie, they are sadly unaffiliated with the lead singer or any other members of the band Duran Duran. (“Le Bon” literally means “The Good” in French. I didn’t even have to look that up.)

La Taqueria arrives on Liberty in the back section of the former Selo/Shevel Gallery, a spot recently occupied by Maize & Blue Delicatessen’s ill-fated expansion into Shinolaville. People love tacos and if the bar is good and the prices decent, this should be a winner.

Drought is a Detroit-based raw juice company with six retail locations.
Lex has some thoughts on this particular store:

Although it’s nice that some Detroit-based businesses are successful enough to branch out to other locations, I can’t say that I will be utilizing the Ann Arbor location of “Drought” anytime soon. The premise is that there is a clean, stark store with a case of expensive juice. The juice isn’t made in the store. It’s literally just a case of juice. It comes in glass bottles, and most of the bottles seem to be around $9-13 each bottle.

Maybe I am just getting old, but I found the concept of having an entire empty store with just a case of juice to be incredibly bizarre. Another thing is this isn’t on Main Street, or even Liberty Street, it’s on Washington Street — not exactly a high traffic area. I wish them luck, of course, because I am not a jerk, but I just don’t think they’ll make it.

I welcome your thoughts via the usual channels.

One Reply to “Updates from east side and downtown”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *