(WXYZ) — Here at 7 News Detroit, we want to make sure you start your day off on the right foot, informed about weather, traffic, the latest news and more. That's why we have the 7 Morning Digest, where we'll get you out the door informed and ready to go.
What's the weather for today?
Today: Mostly cloudy with rain chances increasing later in the day. Temps near 60°. Winds: ENE 15-25 mph.
Tonight: Cloudy skies with rain moving through. Some of it could be heavy at times. Low near the upper 40s. Winds: NE 10-15 mph.
Wednesday: Rain is likely with high temps in the upper 50s. Winds: NE 10-20 mph.
Any traffic issues?
No major road closures to know about this morning. We are monitoring a road closure at Middlebelt and 8 Mile for a HAZMAT cleanup. You can see a live traffic map here.
The top stories to know about
Greektown wants you to know they're open for business despite construction
As construction continues in Detroit's Greektown to revitalize four blocks of the neighborhood to make them more pedestrian-friendly, some businesses say foot traffic has slowed down and they want to remind residents they are open despite the orange barrels and fencing.
The Greektown Monroe Streetscape project is officially underway to transform the district into a more engaging public space including having pedestrian zones, human-scale landscaping, enhanced lighting for visibility and safety measures.
The project is expected to take another year to complete with a tentative opening date of summer 2026.
“Don’t mind the big fences, don’t mind the orange barrels — that’s always a deterrent," Greektown business owner Yanni Dionisopoulos said.
Dionisopoulos is active with the Greektown Neighborhood Partnership that's spearheading the project. He says these changes have been a long time coming and when the opportunity came about to receive $20 million in state funding due to a budget surplus, they knew they needed to act fast.
"The vision’s been always there, the funding not and then obviously when the funding was announced yes, we had our own little party," Dionisopoulos said.
However, with the exciting new changes comes construction, which includes street closures, large fencing and orange barrels that may make it seem like the businesses on Monroe Street are closed. Dionisopoulos and other business owners want to make it clear, they're open and need the community's support.
Henry Ford Health donates former hospital to Jalen Rose Leadership Academy for new school
The Jalen Rose Leadership Academy in Detroit will expand after receiving a major donation from Henry Ford Health.
The health system has donated its former Kingswood Hospital, a 70,000-square-foot facility in Royal Oak Township, to the charter school.
The announcement came during the 15th annual Jalen Rose Leadership Academy Celebrity Golf Classic at the Detroit Golf Club on Monday.
"We get zero state funding, so to have the support of Henry Ford Health and the donation of a facility just allows us to expand what we're doing. It's an incredible undertaking," said Jalen Rose, co-founder of Jalen Rose Leadership Academy and former NBA player.
The former behavioral health facility along West Eight Mile Road will be renovated to become the new high school campus for the academy, with construction expected to begin later this year.
"When we started thinking about how we were going to transition out of the behavioral hospital, we thought this may be a great option, and the opportunity to educate is part of what we do," said Jerry Darby, vice president of planning, development and design with Henry Ford Health.
The current Jalen Rose Leadership Academy building will be converted into a middle school, allowing the charter school to accept sixth through eighth graders for the first time.
Dam failures swallowed mid-Michigan towns whole. 5 years later, they’re building back.
Five years since hell broke loose in the lakeside village of Sanford, just about everything is on its way back. Everything except the lake.
"I’d really like to see the water back," business owner Linda Shephard said earlier this month, staring into the former lake that she could now walk across.
No one was killed when a 500-year flood tore through Midland County, but some 2,500 homes were damaged or destroyed, businesses were swept away, four lakes were emptied and residents say they were left to fend for themselves.
Just hours before the dams broke, Shephard got the all-clear from the health department to open her dream business — the Sanford Lake Marina — which she'd spent the last year fixing up.
"I have the piece of paper saying: ‘you can open!’” Shephard recalled. “And by 8 o’clock that night, everything was gone.”
At Cultivate Coffee downtown, the coffee and tea won’t cost you anything. Opening three years after the floods, it’s a place the community can gather, play board games and trade stories. It runs off donations that keep pouring in.
Other businesses have opened too, from ice cream parlors to grocery stores, even a cannabis shop and electric charging stations.
“It’s caused us to reinvent ourselves and get to know our neighbors, if we didn’t already,” Porte said. “And yes, I think the outcome has been phenomenal.”
Not everyone is as optimistic.
Carl Hamann lives just a block away from the Sanford Dam. When it failed, the water in his home reached chest high.
“It was a good year for me,” Hamann said sarcastically. “I turned 65 and lost everything I’d worked for in my entire life.”
The dams were owned and operated by Boyce Hydro, who the State of Michigan sued, accusing of neglecting the dams for years. A judge ordered Boyce to pay an almost $120 million judgment, but the company filed for bankruptcy.
Meanwhile, the state itself is fending off lawsuits from residents like Hamann, who say the Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy knew that the Edenville Dam was at risk of failure but refused Boyce Hydro’s requests to lower water levels.
The state has fought the case for the last five years, but last week, a judge ruled it can move forward.
“The state of Michigan and the government needs to stand up because they helped cause this,” Hamann said.
