[Docta_Love]

Well if we're all on board to keep this thread going I've got a few projects I've come across here a couple interesting new ones. The history of Japanese in Metro Detroit is actually a pretty interesting story, according to Wikipidea..


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histor..._Metro_Detroit

The first Japanese people came to Detroit in 1892. There were no particular waves of immigration.

However, after World War II ended and the Japanese internment camps were disbanded, the first significant wave of those with Japanese origins came to Metro Detroit,with many coming from California. By 1951 there were about 900 Japanese in Detroit. A concentration of Japanese existed in Highland Park and others were throughout the city of Detroit.

...

By the mid-1980s, anti-Japanese sentiment in Detroit had decreased. The level had especially decreased among young working age people. Leaders in government and business had toned down remarks regarding Japan. Japanese cars became increasingly common in Detroit, including within blue collar communities. In 1991 Sharon Cohen of the Associated Press wrote that anti-Japanese sentiment had largely decreased from 1981 and American automobile industry trade union members were working for Japanese companies. She added that "Japan-bashing" still occurred in Metro Detroit, with politicians and Iacocca making public statements against the Japanese automobile industry.

In a ten-year period ending in 1992, the Japanese population in Metro Detroit had tripled. Sharon Cohen wrote in a 1991 Associated Press article that "The Japanese community [in all of Michigan] is tiny and transient: estimates range from 6,000 to 8,000." In 1990, there were 3,500 Japanese expatriates in Metro Detroit.In 1992 there were about 5,000 Japanese nationals in Metro Detroit and there were estimates of up to 270 Japanese companies there. By 1990, Chrysler was purchasing steel from Mitsui which had an office in Southfield. By 1990, since the number of Japanese companies with Detroit branches had increased to almost 300, with most of them related to the automobile industry, major accounting firms including the "Big Six" hired Japanese employees and catered to the new Japanese business populations. For the same reason Dickinson, Wright, Moon, Van Dusen & Freeman, one of the largest law firms in Detroit, hired Japanese employees. Area hospitals began catering to Japanese patients. A hotel in Novi, the Sheraton Oaks, hired a "director of Japan marketing". By 1990, the Saturday Japanese school operated in three locations.

In the 1990s, several Japanese automobile firms had opened offices along M-14. Nissan Motor Co. opened its Farmington Hills office in November 1991. In addition, Toyota established a technical center in Ann Arbor. In 1993 the Consulate-General of Japan, Detroit, was established partly due to an increase in the numbers of Japanese businesses and residents in the states of Michigan and Ohio. In 1996, 4,084 Japanese nationals lived in Metro Detroit. By 1997, the number of Japanese nationals in Metro Detroit was 4,132. In 1999, the majority of the 8,100 Japanese in Michigan lived in a corridor in southwestern Oakland County along Interstate 696 consisting of Farmington Hills, Novi, and West Bloomfield.

There's actually a house in my neighborhood here in FH that was owned by some Japanese company fitted out for families who were transferred to the area.

Retail, residential plan targets Asian population

Aikens' Novi plan would turn 15 acres south of Twelve Oaks into 'Asian Village'

By SHERRI WELCH
Crain's Detroit Business
May 13, 2018

-A $50 million-$60 million, mixed-use "Asian Village" is taking shape in Novi
-Project will give Japanese, other Asian residents a place to gather and shop for specialty items
-Also expected to be a destination for others in the region



Oakland County's Novi area is home to the largest Japanese population in Michigan, and as a whole, the state is home to the second-largest Japanese population in the Midwest.

But up until now, there hasn't been a dedicated retail, restaurant and entertainment area for Japanese and other Asian populations.

The city of Novi last week approved the $3.15 million sale of just less than 10 acres of land it assembled for the project to Sakura Novi LLC, an affiliate of Birmingham-based developer Robert B. Aikens & Associates LLC. The deal is contingent on creation of a brownfield plan and approval of a Planned Rezoning Overlay plan from the city.

The area slated for the "Asian Village" project is bounded by Grand River Avenue to the south, Town Center Drive to the west and 11 Mile Road to the north. Only a few miles from Novi's Twelve Oaks Mall, the site is zoned for office, service, commercial and light industrial.

Anchored by a new market/food hall concept by One World Market, the pocket Asian Village will span about 15 acres and include 75,000 square feet of lifestyle retail, with lifestyle services, such as exercise facilities and salons and soft goods stores, Japanese, Korean and Chinese restaurants and entertainment such as a Japanese karaoke bar.

Apartments and townhomes and possibly 15,000 square feet of office space are also part of the project.

Those developments would be nestled into a walkable, open-air retail development wrapped around a four-acre lake with Japanese gardens, a walking path and pavilion area surrounding the lake.

http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article...ian-population

Mahindra makes giant leap into Detroit area

By Anisa Jibrell
Automotive News
May 13, 2018

-Investing $230 million in three Detroit-area operations in Pontiac, Troy and Auburn Hills
-Strategy embraces an area shunned for new plants in recent decades
-Sees the advantages in metro Detroit critical mass of engineering resources



For the past 30 years, new competitors have shunned Detroit as a manufacturing site. The last non-Detroit 3 automaker to open an assembly plant in the Detroit area was Mazda in 1987, in a product-sharing deal with its then-part owner, Ford Motor Co.

By itself, the 150,000-square-foot vehicle plant represents a modest investment of $22 million. But Mahindra, a Mumbai, India, industrial conglomerate with annual sales of approximately $19 billion, has bigger visions for Detroit.

The plant will begin building the Roxor, a retro off-road-only vehicle similar to a Willys Jeep. But Mahindra is also one of five manufacturers in the running for a $6 billion contract to design and produce mail carrier vehicles for the U.S. Postal Service. And longer term, Mahindra officials said they want to make use of their new Detroit engineering, manufacturing and supply chain facilities to develop other vehicles for the U.S. market.

The company said additional projects in the pipeline will generate approximately 400 more jobs and an additional $600 million in local investment.

http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article...o-detroit-area