What makes a downtown economically vibrant and attractive? What are the businesses that choose to move into the city's core looking for? What facets of the downtown make it easier for them to find and keep the talent they need to succeed?
Whether it's business, residential, economic, or cultural development, Ann Arbor's downtown is a vital puzzle piece in our community's future health and prosperity.
Concentrate, in partnership with Ann Arbor's DDA, has invited Todd Poole of
4ward Planning, to discuss the economic potentials and pitfalls of our downtown. 4ward Planning assists local governments and developers to achieve sustainable development outcomes through responsible, future based planning through socioeconomic analysis. Their goal is to help communities improve their land-use investment decisions.
We've also invited a panel of local downtown business leaders to weigh in on the challenges and opportunities of working in our downtown - what works for them, what they'd like to see improved, what changes they think are necessary. Your questions will help fill out the conversation.
The panel will include:
John Petz (moderator), director of real estate and public affairs at Domino's Farms Corporation
Jonathan Opdyke, CEO and co-founder of HookLogic
Rich Sheridan, President, CEO and co-founder of Menlo Innovations
Dave Koziol, President and founder of Arbormoon Software, Inc
This event is part of a four-part "Great Places" speaker series, where we invite
Concentrate's readers to an on-going conversation about the future of Ann Arbor's downtown. We hope you'll join us, and invite your friends, coworkers, and neighbors to attend as well.
WHEN:
Thursday, May 17th, 2012, 5:00-7:00pm
WHERE:
Conor O'Neill's in downtown Ann Arbor (318 South Main Street)
WHO: The event is free and open to
Concentrate's readers, but seating is limited so RSVP below.
Doors open at 4:45pm. Refreshments will be served and the speaker program will begin at 5:15pm.
Conversation and questions are welcome afterward.
This is a partnership event with the Ann Arbor DDA as part of the
Connecting William Street Project – exploring topics with the community that are relevant and informative to the planning process. They'll be providing a short 5 minute project update at the beginning of the event.
Concentrate's Speaker Series is sponsored by the
Michigan State Housing Development Authority
ABOUT OUR SPEAKER:
TODD POOLE is president and founder of
4ward Planning, LLC. Todd oversaw the Park Feasibility and Revenue Generation Analysis for New York City's The High Line. Before founding 4ward Planning, Todd served as Director of Economic Planning for EDAW’s U.S. operations – one of the largest land-use consulting firms in the world. Todd and his team supported a variety of public and private land-use projects with economic, fiscal and policy analysis. In this capacity, Todd managed or co-managed variety of large land-use planning projects, incuding the multi-billion dollar redevelopment planning effort for Fort Monmouth, Monmouth County, New Jersey and a mixed-use retail development project within the Pocono Mountain Region, Todd has more than 18-years of extensive urban redevelopment, large-scale land re-use, community development, market analysis and public policy experience, as both a private-sector consultant and a public sector practitioner.
RICHARD SHERIDAN is CEO, President, and co-founder of Menlo Innovations. After only two years in business, Rich became the Forbes "Hire Yourself" cover story for all those choosing entrepreneurship over unemployment. The next year, it was a Wall Street Journal article on the unique office Menlo uses for software design and development. Within six years, Menlo had become one of Inc. 500's fastest growing privately held firms in the U.S..
JONATHAN OPDYKE is CEO and co-founder of HookLogic, a New York-based internet company with over half of its operations in Ann Arbor. Jonathan co-founded HookLogic in 2004 with two former colleagues from Beyond Interactive, an Ann Arbor-based digital advertising agency, with a goal of helping clients to understand and influence shopper decisions. The company grew organically for several years before taking a growth investment from Bain Capital in 2011 to accelerate expansion. He is a graduate of the University of Michigan, holding Bachelor’s and Master’s in Industrial and Operations Engineering from the Tauber Institute for Global Operations. HookLogic recently moved to a new office after completing a renovation of the former Leopold Brothers brewery on Main Street.
DAVE KOZIOL is President and founder of Arbormoon Software, Inc, a downtown Ann Arbor based mobile consulting company. Arbormoon has worked on top 5 iPhone apps in the Music and Sports categories, an award winning iPad app, as well as multiple enterprise Android apps. Arbormoon is actively involved in building local technical communities, including CocoaHeads Ann Arbor, Mobile Monday Michigan, eCommerce Ann Arbor and a new Android Developers Group. Dave is currently finishing up the 2011-2012 A2YLeadership program run by the A2Y Regional Chamber.