Panera Bread of Southeastern Michigan recently opened a new bakery-cafe in Orion, Mich., further showcasing the company’s commitment to growth in the region.

This Friday, Nov. 20, the location will give the first 250 customers a complimentary travel mug including a “free coffee for a month” refill card to celebrate the opening.

The new bakery-cafe is located in the Baldwin Commons Shopping Center at 4804 S. Baldwin Rd.

Hours of operation for the new Panera bakery-cafe are Monday through Saturday, 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Sunday from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. For more information, call Panera Bread’s Orion location at (248) 393-1124. Orders may be faxed to (248) 393-1126.

Jeff Duneske

Here is some great news about the Metro Detroit Housing Market. This report was just released yesterday by Realcomp Multiple Listing System.

All MLS October ‘09 sales at highest levels since 2004

Lowest on‐market inventory levels in any month since January 2006 (42,785 in October 2009, 48,059 in January 2006)

NonForeclosure Sales Top Foreclosure Sales in Metro Detroit. For the month of October, the total nonforeclosure sales were 3,483 compared to 2,938 foreclosure sales. What are your thoughts about this?

Months supply of inventory (MSI) has dropped by nearly 50% ‐ from 11.9 month supply last year to 6 month supply this year

All American Speakers

Geena Davis is one of the best loved actresses, but it seems its time to spend more time being a full-time mother to her three children.

The star has kept her acting work to a minimum. She has devoted herself to the children and Reza Jarrahy her husband of nine years.

Davis may have put her acting on the back burner; however she is continuing her political activism.

Geena will speak in Detroit next week on behalf of the White House Project, a non-profit organization aimed at promoting women in political positions.

The White House Project, a nonpartisan, nonprofit group that works to advance women, is behind the appearance, which is titled "Add Women, Change Michigan." It's part of the organization's rollout of its new survey that will document how women stake up in various arenas.

Jason Beck

For a 20-year-old thrust into the Major Leagues, Rick Porcello defied a lot of expectations this year to reach some lofty marks and earn mention in the same sentence with Dwight Gooden. Now it's time to see how he stacks up against the rest of the American League's rookie crop this season.

The bigger-name Major League awards start off Monday with the AL Rookie of the Year, and there's plenty of reason for Porcello to earn serious consideration for what would be Detroit's second winner in four years, joining Justin Verlander.

What began as a long-shot experiment in Spring Training to jump the former first-round Draft pick from Class A ball, turned into a big league effort well beyond Porcello's age as the youngest player in the league.

His early-season success was a bonus to the front-line pitching that helped Detroit move in front in the division in May and stay there through the break. Once he encountered his midsummer struggles, his second-half adjustment from a sinkerballer to a little more of a power pitcher made him Detroit's most effective starter not named Verlander.

Without Porcello's 14 wins and 170 2/3 innings, the Tigers probably would've lost out in the AL Central race before the tiebreaker. And without his 5 2/3 innings with a lone earned run in that showdown against the Twins, the Tigers wouldn't have had a chance to take the tiebreaker into extra innings.

He was a unanimous pick as the Tigers Rookie of the Year a week and a half ago. In many years, he'd be in a select group of contenders for the AL honor, if not a favorite. It may be his lone piece of bad timing this year that his arrival came in the same year as White Sox infielder Gordon Beckham, Rays starter Jeff Niemann and A's All-Star closer Andrew Bailey.

All Niemann did was lead the defending AL champs in wins and ERA while more than making up for the loss of Edwin Jackson. Beckham drove in 63 runs in just 103 games while banging out 14 homers and 28 doubles. Bailey not only racked up 26 saves, but he dominated opponents in the process, scattering 49 hits over 83 1/3 innings with a 1.83 ERA and 91 strikeouts.

Great as those numbers are, none of those other candidates played as big of a role in a pennant race as Porcello did in Detroit. The stretch run of that race brought out some of the best in Porcello. He went 5-2 with a 3.07 ERA over his final 13 starts, allowing just 66 hits over 73 1/3 innings. Just 18 of those hits went for extra bases.

How Porcello finished surprised even him.

"This being my first year, I didn't know how I was going to feel coming down the stretch," Porcello said in the season's final week. "I can remember last year down the stretch, the last couple starts I had, feeling really good. And this year, I didn't know what I was going to feel like. I'm a little surprised. At the same time, I'm thankful for the rest that they've given me and the work that we've done."

Ultimately, Porcello's chances might rest on how late in the season members of the Baseball Writers' Association of America waited to vote. By rule, ballots were due at the start of the postseason, but the Tigers-Twins tiebreaker was technically a regular-season game. Voters who waited, wanting to watch Porcello in the biggest game of his young career, could've turned in their ballots that night or the next morning.

If several voters waited, they saw a 20-year-old commanding a game for five innings -- against a team that had worn him down two other times in the previous few weeks -- before giving up a big home run in the sixth, and they likely would've been impressed.

"A 20-year-old kid grew up in front of everybody's eyes today," catcher Gerald Laird said at the time. "He had all the excuses in the world. He was young, inexperienced. And he went out there and manned up. He didn't look like a rookie out there."

Porcello didn't take much solace in his season after the last game. But now he might be able to look back and get something out of it.

Stuart Elliot
The New York Times

It may not be the advertising version of “Mission: Impossible,” but it is certainly a challenging, if not daunting, task: produce a campaign to encourage young and creative people to consider Detroit as a place to live and work.

Cue the Lalo Schifrin theme music.

The effort, called Selling Detroit.

The initiative to help change what may be the most dire urban image in America is being sponsored by the Time Inc. unit of Time Warner as part of a yearlong project, Assignment Detroit, that involves reporters and editors from Essence, Fortune, Money, Sports Illustrated, Time and related Web sites.

Several advertising agencies with offices in the Detroit area were asked to develop campaigns; five agreed to take part. Their work is to appear in the Dec. 7 issue of Fortune, due Nov. 23, as well as on three Web sites: cnnmoney.com, fortune.com and time.com.

Visitors to the Web sites will be able to vote, beginning today, for their favorite among the five campaigns. The winner is to be announced on Dec. 2, during an annual awards ceremony in Detroit known as the D Show.

“The whole idea of the contest is that we believe in the renewal of the city,” said Mark Ford, president for the news group at Time Inc. in New York. This is to be accomplished partly by people moving to Detroit with their businesses and creativity, and being there “for the long haul.”

To that end, the campaign will be “targeted more to the 18-to-34-year-old demographic,” he added.


“A lot of smart people are committed to bringing the city back,” he added, and “we’ll do our part.”

The campaigns from the agencies certainly try to appeal to the intended audience. They include elements like special Web sites, blogs, video clips and applications for cellphones.

“There is never a silver bullet to solve a problem, but every little thing you can do along the way can help,” said Matt Canzano, executive vice president and executive creative director at the Birmingham, Mich., office of McCann Erickson Worldwide, one of the five agencies.

“It’s a hard assignment,” Mr. Canzano said of the concept of making Detroit more appealing, “but not unlike the assignment” from the State of Michigan to promote tourism.

Despite remarks like “Who wants to take a vacation in Michigan?” he added, “people are sitting up and noticing” the campaign produced by his agency — part of the McCann Worldgroup unit of the Interpublic Group of Companies — that carries the theme “Pure Michigan” and uses the voice of the actor Tim Allen.

The centerpiece of the McCann Erickson contest entry is a proposed Web site that would be called CreativityLivesInDetroit.com. “This city is built on creativity,” a print ad asserts, listing examples like Pewabic pottery, founded in Detroit in 1903; the Detroit Derby Girls, an all-female, amateur, flat-track roller derby league; and the Von Bondies, a rock band.

Similarly, a print ad from another Interpublic agency, Campbell-Ewald in Warren, features Ro Spit, a D.J. and an owner of a sneaker store, Burn Rubber. He declares: “Detroit is a blank canvas. You’ll find inspiration around every corner. ... What you do with it depends on you.” He also speaks in a video on a Web site (MakeYourMarkDetroit.com).

The campaign “is a recruitment ad,” said Bill Ludwig, vice chairman and chief creative and strategic officer at Campbell-Ewald.

Although “I don’t think any other city has been hit harder by the economy,” he added, “kids who are coming here find it the land of opportunity” in fields like music and film.

The other agencies taking part in the contest are the Troy office of Leo Burnett, part of the Publicis Groupe, with a campaign starring a local celebrity, Kid Rock; Doner in Southfield, with a campaign likening those seeking opportunities in Detroit to the crew that joined the explorer Ernest Shackleton in his expedition to the Antarctic; and GlobalHue in Southfield, whose campaign includes fanciful postcards.

Among other agencies asked to participate was the Troy office of BBDO Worldwide, part of the Omnicom Group. But the office did not take part because of uncertainties over its fate, centered on the coming expiration of a contract with its client, the Chrysler Group. (The office is closing at the end of January, BBDO announced last week.)

Critics contend that a reason Detroit is in so much trouble is because its mainstay industry of automaking has stubbornly ignored ideas from outside sources. What, then, to make of the fact that the contest involves agencies only from the Detroit market?

“We haven’t really found the agencies to be insular,” Daniel Kile, a spokesman for Time, wrote in an e-mail message. “They’re the ones who get what the opportunity is there, and who have a stake in the area’s return to prominence.”