I had a chance to sit down with Claire Nelson, owner of The Bureau of Urban Living recently, and boy did we have a lot to talk about. Her store, which she co-owns with her husband Francis Grunow, has been open for a year now and Claire has all kinds of plans in mind for the City of Detroit plus helpful advice for aspiring shop owners in the area.

The D: So tell me a little bit more about the Bureau of Urban Living.

Claire: Well I live upstairs with my husband. And there’s like 35 lofts in this building. Some time around the time that we moved here and were getting married, I remember thinking that it was kind of evident that we didn’t have many shops downtown that catered to the people that were living and moving here. I moved here from New York in 2002, I lived in Brooklyn last and I just loved the little shops in Brooklyn throughout New York and Chicago.

You do have a bit of a NYC vibe going on here.

Thanks, that’s the nicest compliment.

You’re welcome.

I just wanted to see more shops like this and I figured I may as well try it. It just worked out really well that this space was owned by a friend of ours, and since I live upstairs it was so nice to be able to start it here. The inspiration was kind of like, a modern general store for people in the city, where they can get gifts for their home, but also to share general information about what’s happening. I want to see more spaces where you can walk in and find more information about events in the city, like real estate for instance–people looking for places to live come in once in a while.

I saw on your website, that you guys even throw your own events.

Yeah we do something called “First Thursdays”, we stay open late every first Thursday, and give a percentage of our sales to local non-profits that works to improve the public realm. Organizations like City Scape Detroit, and Preservation Wayne. You know, people who care about the physical city in particular. And you know, we’ve done other events too. We have events where local designers showcase their artwork.

Who are some of the local designers that you work with?

We have a few. City Bird is one of the labels that we carry, the brand by Emily and Andy Linn, who are brother and sister team and are really passionate about The City. They make all of the stuff that has Detroit maps on it, like votive candles holders, plates, there’s a new tote bag, they do soaps that are really popular that have Detroit maps on it. And they keep making new stuff, they hand make it all—their great! They both have other jobs and do this on the side, but they do it because they really love the city and want to spread that love.

We also work with other artists. Like the panels above were done by a designer friend of ours, who also makes the orange bags up front made out of salvaged construction fencing.

Carl Oxley is another artist who lives out of Hamtramck. We sell some of his pillows and baby items that have the monkeys, bunnies, and animals on them. He does murals, he’s a painter, but he works with his wife to do textiles as well.

More after the jump…

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