Arbor Update

Ann Arbor Area Community News

Jackson's $25k Cool Cities contest, 7 May

18. April 2005 • Murph
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If we ask really nicely, perhaps Brandon will tell us more about this event,

Students from UofM will be presenting their design proposal for the Cool Cities Design Competition at 9am on Saturday, May 7th at the Jackson Chamber of Commerce. UofM is competing with students from MSU, Harvard Design, MIT, Wayne State, Arizona State, CalTech, and Cleveland State for a $25,000 prize that is based on the best proposal for the revitalization of an 8-acre site in downtown Jackson, MI. Presentations are open to the public.

which he (in a group with 11 other planning students)a group of his classmates has entered. Jackson last year won a Michigan Cool Cities grant for the Armory Arts project, a plan to rehab part of the old state prison into affordable artists’ live/work space, and has been trying to build on that success.



  1. Carpool, anyone?

    Jackson’s an interesting place – an Ypsi-sized city with a few fifteen-story-tall buildings scattered around. At some point, somebody thought it was about to take off, and the downtown has the remnents of this thought stabbing upwards out of blocks of two-story buildings and parking lots. A few years ago, Consumers’ Power came along and completed the architectural bizarreness by capping off one end of downtown with a building that resembles the entrance to Angell Hall tacked onto the Life Sciences building.
       —Murph    Apr. 18 '05 - 02:08AM    #
  2. I actually do want to see the entries, and I’ve got a small station wagon with good gas milage. Who else is up? The neoclassical front of the CMS building was the old post office, I think.
       —Dale    Apr. 18 '05 - 03:25AM    #
  3. I go out there for meetings for work every once in awhile. I like it. They, like most small Michigan cities, have fucked up the downtown by sending too-wide roads through and around the downtown … but it’s one of those places that has “potential.” =)

    I’d be up for a field trip. If there’s no room in the car, I’ll tag along on my two-wheeled dinosaur burner…
       —Scott    Apr. 18 '05 - 01:41PM    #
  4. One can also take Amtrak—leaves AA westbound around 8AM (or 12 or 6pm) and there 3 options for returning: 12:45, 6, 10:45.
       —Chris F    Apr. 18 '05 - 02:18PM    #
  5. Oh, now there’s a plan. ArborUpdate Amtrak party to Jackson. Looks like a AAA price of $14.40 round-trip for the 8am leave, 6pm return, so definitely not cheaper than driving. But cooler.
       —Murph    Apr. 18 '05 - 02:47PM    #
  6. Sorry, I’m not involved in this! I am involved in a prize-free smaller class project in Jackson!
       —Brandon    Apr. 18 '05 - 05:51PM    #
  7. Can you tell us about the project anyway? :) Or have you not paid attention to what they’re up to?

    I’m still interested in going, since I still do know a bunch of people involved in it, and since it is Jackson. Chelsea is halfway in between Ann Arbor and Jackson, and I came to Ann Arbor probably weekly at least while growing up, and Jackson . . . maybe once a year when my mother was Christmas shopping at the Toy House. There’s a fun split between A2 and JXN (I dig their Amtrak code).
       —Murph    Apr. 18 '05 - 07:01PM    #
  8. Murph, I actually don’t know all the details on their project. Their first presentation was on the day of the GEO walkout, so I obviously wasn’t there. They’ll be giving a practice presentation tomorrow in 2216 @ 8 AM… I’m sure you can ask to sit-in if you want.
       —Brandon    Apr. 18 '05 - 09:06PM    #
  9. 8am, eh? (sigh).

    I’ll ask Raju about it…
       —Murph    Apr. 18 '05 - 09:14PM    #
  10. So I read a blurb that the Wayne State team won. Anybody have the inside dope or a good link on this? I’m out of the loop but still interested in hearing how it went.
       —Dale    May. 11 '05 - 03:17AM    #
  11. Wayne State won, with UMich coming in second. My housemate on the team is a little bitter – he thinks UM had the better proposal, but WSU did a better job of playing the audience at the presentation. (There’s a lesson in there, I think . . .)
       —Murph    May. 11 '05 - 03:00PM    #