http://news.yahoo.com/s/ac_detroit/ac_detroit_ts2991

Ferndale's Downtown Development Authority is among five winners of the Great American Main Street Award from the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Still, community leaders say they had to do more than preserve to win the award. They had to restore.

Downtown Ferndale had a 30-percent vacancy rate when revitalization plans slowly started near the turn of the millennium. Today, the ratio is down to 6 percent, notes Cristina Sheppard-Decius, the Downtown Development Authority's [[DDA) executive director.