Sterling Heights Arab orchestra building fanbase around the world

When tickets for the Sterling Heights-based National Arab Orchestra’s inaugural performance at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts became available in late January, they sold out within two hours.

People will have traveled from more than 20 states to attend the performance Friday night.

at’s unusual for a group appearing at the Washington, D.C., venue for the rst time, said Tres McMichael, program manager of social impact civic alliances for the Kennedy Center. Even before the tickets for the performance went on sale, people were calling the center’s box o ce asking when they could get them. And even now, “we have people from embassies asking if they can get tickets” to the

1,100-seat NAO performance and two other sold-out performances that are part of the “Taking Back Our Narrative,” three-day festival presented by the center and the Arab America Foundation, McMichael said.

“I think the anticipation and excitement we’ve received from...our standard audience and the new audiences NAO and the Arab America Foundation are bringing…is proof that the work we are doing is strong,” he said.

“And it’s an indicator that (NAO is) a phenomenal, world-class organization.”

Bringing culture to life

Founded just 14 years ago, the small, nonpro t orchestra has quietly built a national and international following.

Music director and maestro Michael Ibrahim, a Metro Detroit resident, and Chairman Usama Baalbaki, co-founded the NAO to keep Arab culture alive and teach others about it.

Ibrahim usually plays an instrument while he is conducting and is “like the Freddie Mercury of the Arab world,” incredibly charismatic and engaging with the audience, NAO’s Executive Director Sherri Richards said.

In the days after it was rst revealed that Ford Motor Co. was planning to buy and redevelop the hulking Michigan Central Station in Corktown, something of a gold rush took place. Details had not even emerged on what eventually has become a nearly $1 billion vision surrounding multiple properties in the hip enclave west of downtown, and still the real estate market became almost immediately — there’s really no other word to describe it — bonkers. Prices skyrocketed. Longtime property owners sought pay dirt, whether they had done anything to improve their assets or not. Rents for residential, commercial, restaurant and other space were soaring in anticipation of what eventually was revealed to be the Blue Oval’s arrival with some 5,000 white-collar workers working on autonomous and electric vehicles.

How precisely the coming months play out for the neighborhoods surrounding the New Center area following the recent announcement of $2.5 billion in Henry Ford Health, Michigan State University and Tom Gores investment is not known, of course.

Some expect a much calmer commercial real estate market response to the news in the weeks and months ahead, citing steady, ongoing largescale investment in that area of town ranging from tens of millions pumped into the Fisher Building on West Grand Boulevard to a costly redevelopment of the Albert Kahn Building into apartments. Nearly $100 million was spent on the Detroit Pistons’ new practice facility and corporate headquarters.

Going back a couple decades, there has also been the redevelopment of the Kahn-designed Argonaut Building and the repurposing of Cadillac Place into state of Michigan ofces.

Pair those with a new apartment building called e Boulevard by Detroit-based e Platform LLC, one of the Fisher Building owners, as well as the tens of millions Henry Ford Health spent on the new Brigitte Harris Cancer Pavilion, and you have a series of neighborhoods clustered around Grand Boulevard that have seen big investments before.

Richard Hosey, a Detroit developer who is spearheading a planned $134 million redevelopment of the decaying Fisher Body No. 21 plant a few blocks east, noted that the North End neighborhood, next to the New Center area, has been drawing lots of developer attention as well, including with the proposed North End Landing project with 177 units.

“My hope is that because it’s not on the absolute edge of a new direction, there has been so much activity in North End further out, there will be less of that (speculation) and as this happens more and more throughout Detroit, there will be less and less of that,” Hosey said.

New Center,” he said.

For Marc Nassif, senior managing director in the Detroit o ce of BBG, a Dallas-based appraisal rm, the Feb. 8 announcement points to a healthy real estate market, with multiple big investors putting big money in various areas around town, ranging from downtown and the east Detroit riverfront (Dan Gilbert), the District Detroit (the Ilitches and Stephen Ross) and Corktown (Ford) — and now New Center and the adjoining areas (Henry Ford Health, Michigan State and Gores).

“We now have multiple user-driven groups coming in looking at Detroit, looking at not only their immediate needs, but spillover to a campus,” Nassif said. “ at should be viewed on one hand as a healthy market.”

However, there are still largenancing gaps to contend with for developers large and small in those areas, Nassif said.

“If you look at smaller in ll developers, people who are taking property in the shadow of the major development, there still is a signi cant hole even in places like Corktown, the (Central Business District) and Midtown, where the asking rates from a rental and sale perspective really have gone up since those developments came into play,” Nassif said.

“But there is still a pretty gaping hole where groups like Invest Detroit, Cinnaire and Capital Impact Partners are coming into those deals and having to ll pretty signi cant gaps in the capital stack to make them work.

AJ Weiner, managing director in the Royal Oak o ce of brokerage house JLL, said that area of Detroit “has kept its own modest momentum going” for years. He also expects a calmer response in and around New Center.

“New Center maybe didn’t get as many headlines as Midtown and downtown and Corktown have received, but there has been a steady stream of activity there since GM worked out a transaction with the state on Cadillac Place,” Weiner said.

“A year didn’t go by where there wasn’t some project happening in e fact that there is a new master development announced does not really close the cap on an in ll or neighborhood building or smaller development,” Nassif said.

For his part, Robert Riney, CEO of Henry Ford Health, told Crain’s he expects more in the coming months to be revealed.

“Just because of the magnitude of our investment, I anticipate that within months of our announcement, there will be some additional announcements from others that feel a desire to become part of this,” Riney said. “I think this is the beginning.” menu at Lekker Choco Treats features just a handful of items, but they’re all hand-made by owner Nakija Mills.| JAY DAVIS/ CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS