Here are a few of the stories we're reading this week.

Movement and stand still in the District Detroit

The University of Michigan Center for Innovation is set to break ground later this month in downtown Detroit. But the $1.5 billion plan for the larger District Detroit plan that was supposed to break ground this summer is still stagnant. Olympia still needs the land, but Wayne County hasn't received a new proposal from them. The Ilitches released a statement this week expressing their excitement for the UofM Center for Innovation, with vague remarks about the rest of the District. The project received massive tax incentives over the past year from state and local government. The plan calls for 10 new and/or rehabbed buildings around the area of the Fox Theatre. Detroit Free Press

Vacant office buildings sell

Two vacant office buildings and land between downtown and Corktown have sold, according to Crain's. The two buildings, one 11-story and one 21-story, sit just west of the Lodge. They're located in kind of an island; there isn't a lot of activity in that immediate area besides the bus station. Potential plans for the buildings call for a hotel and residential. Additional parking lots around the buildings can be built upon. A Denver developer is tied to the sale of the buildings, and records show a sale of $16.5 million. Crain's Detroit Business

More transit! says Dan Gilbert

At a forum on Thursday morning, Dan Gilbert expressed his hope that the federal government will fund more mass transit in metro Detroit. He said the Qline was a chance to show the feds that this can get done, and there needs to be more to attract younger people and businesses to the area.

"The more groups that get behind doing a regional system, the more chance of the feds funding it. And just think about how great that would be if you have lines going to Metro Airport, up Woodward all the way to Pontiac and then going west and then going east. It would be unreal. It would be a different city."

Gilbert also said that many businesses and retailers have come into the city lately (or will soon), and that Woodward could be like a mall with all the shopping choices and restaurants. Detroit News