SoOthfield officials and business leaders
ark moving forward with plans to boost
economic development in the city.

KIMBERLY UPTON STAFF WRITER

Wendy Strip-Sittsarner and Jeff Nahan
lounge at the theater.

uring a meeting last week at
the refurbished Millennium
Theatre in Southfield, city offi-
cials — dressed in business at-
tire — sat in beach chairs
placed upon makeshift sand.
They met to talk about the
city's first community theater,
housed in the old Northland
Theater on J.L. Hudson Drive.
On the agenda was a discussion
of how to use the stage to con-
tinue already begun marketing
strategies to improve the city's
business potential.
Also on the drawing board
was an update on the debut
performance ofLife is a Beach,
a "retro-1960s beach story"
which officially opened this
week and runs through Dec. 5.
"We had a wonderful first

week of previews," says Jeff Na-
han, the artistic director for the
play being produced by the
Southfield Downtown Devel-
opment Authority (DDA). "We
had over 100 people here a
night — all in the spirit of a
1963 beach."
If all continues to go well
with the debut performance,
more live theater will be
brought to Southfield. DDA of-
ficials predict the $300,000 the-
ater project will stimulate a
business boom within the
Southfield area.
The impact, they say, will be
felt throughout the 76,000-res-
ident city whose population
climbs to 275,000 between 9
a.m. and 5 p.m. on weekdays.
A central location between
Detroit and its outlying sub-
urbs, Southfield is home to at
least 6,400 businesses, among
them Fortune 500 companies,
foreign-owned businesses, au-
tomobile dealers, media orga-
nizations and financial
institutions.
Its convenient proximity to
major roads — Interstate 696,
Telegraph Road, Eight Mile,
and the Southfield and Lodge
freeways — has attracted many
major firms, including Chrysler
Corp., EDS, Thorn Apple Val-
ley, IBM, NCR, Blue Cross-
Blue Shield of Michigan, Lear
Siegler Seating Corp. and sev-
eral television stations.
Yet Southfield, which bor-
ders Detroit along Eight Mile
Road, comes complete with an
image problem — one that offi-
cials know could jeopardize re-

development plans.
"We can't say our plans are
without risk," says Wendy
Strip-Sittsamer, executive di-
rector for the Southfield DDA.
"But we have to be willing to do
the brave thing."
Ms. Strip-Sittsamer often
finds herself in a quandary, con-
stantly defending the city's im-
age. She wishes the problem
would go away, and she is pre-
pared to continue proposing in-
novative ideas to redevelop the
city's older business area.
Once home to most Jewish
institutions and many Jewish
families, Southfield has
changed since the 1960s and
1970s. Today, Southfield looks
more like a melting pot of cul-
tures with whites, blacks,
Chaldeans, Jews, Arabs and
Asians. Because of the city!'s
changing demographic face,
many members of the Jewish
community believe that a re-
vamped Jewish Community
Center in neighboring Oak
Park and ongoing efforts by tIS
Neighborhood Project to pro-
vide interest-free loans for Jevi-
ish homeowners buying in 0*
Park and certain parts Of
Southfield can not alone prO-
vide a Jewish ambience. Firit
and foremost, the community
must be economically vibrant.
`This area is not old, decrepit
and unsafe," Ms. Strip-
Sittsamer adds. "People just
think it is."
Ms. Strip-Sittsamer explains
that a new police substation in
the Northland shopping area
has helped make safe an area

