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Posted Jul 11, 2016, 8:55 PM
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Registered User
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Join Date: May 2012
Location: Metropolitan Detroit
Posts: 712
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Thanks for the update animatedmartian, i'll be downtown this evening ill see if i have time to check out the progress at Orleans Landing. But there has been a lot of news regarding development in the neighborhoods recently, here's some of them. I have a few more articles i'll get around to post later the big news is that Wayne County has hired a consultant to look into moving forward with the fail jail, there's a couple ideas that come to mind on that topic but i feel like it needs to be left for later when i have the proper time for it.
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RFPs for northwest Detroit neighborhood include 100 houses, 257 vacant lots
Lots targeted for 'ecological, agricultural, energy, crop' uses
By KIRK PINHO
July 05, 2016
Crain's Detroit Business
The city of Detroit is targeting a quarter-square-mile of northwest Detroit for large-scale improvements with the release Tuesday of a pair of requests for proposals for 100 vacant houses and 257 vacant lots between Marygrove College and the University of Detroit Mercy.
The city announced that the Housing and Revitalization Department, the Planning and Development Department and the Detroit Land Bank Authority are accepting proposals for the properties, which include 100 Fitzgerald neighborhood houses, the scope of the first RFP.
Some are expected to be rehabilitated. The houses that are beyond repair could be demolished.
The other RFP is for the 257 vacant lots to turn them "into produce landscapes that can include innovative ecological, agricultural, energy, crop and other uses within a neighborhood context," a news release says.
"We are excited about the prospects of using landscape design and preservation of existing homes to support neighborhood redevelopment and eliminate blight," Maurice Cox, director of the city's Planning and Development Department, said in a release. "This has the power to transform and contribute to the neighborhood revitalization of Fitzgerald.
"We expect that Fitzgerald will lead the way in improving quality of life in some of our other neighborhoods."
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The overall Fitzgerald neighborhood is generally bounded by West McNichols Road, Livernois Avenue, Fenkell Avenue and Wyoming Road.
http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article...100-houses-257
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Mexicantown to benefit from reactivation of Main Street program
New marketing materials, activities planned to boost Southwest Detroit district
By MARTI BENEDETTI
July 08, 2016
Crain's Detroit Business
Visitors to Detroit's Mexicantown will be able to navigate its main street businesses and restaurants more easily with a printed and digital marketing brochure available starting in September.
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The boundaries for the Mexicantown-Hubbard Communities Commercial District are West Vernor Highway, from Clark Street to 18th Street, and Bagley Avenue from 24th Street to 16th Street.
"Mexicantown is the authentic heart of the Mexican culture in Southeast Michigan," SDBA President Kathy Wendler said.
She said the program is designed to give local businesses a boost and welcome new businesses to the area.
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Activities will include food and music festivals along the main thoroughfares and in the parks. The SDBA will engage local business and residents to learn what kind of festivities they prefer. The community will also be called upon to help determine the revitalization of the viaduct on West Vernor Highway between Mexicantown and Corktown. One of the plans is to create a welcome sign to Mexicantown in one direction and a welcome to Corktown sign the other way, SDBA Director of Business District Development Myrna Segura-Beltchenko said.
The MCDC was active 2002-08 under the Detroit Mayor'sOffice of Neighborhood Commercial Revitalization Program. It closed its doors when its construction manager took another position. The MCDC was reorganized through corporate contributions and has been back in operation since 2010.
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"LISC is pleased to provide startup funding for the reactivation of the Main Street Program in Southwest Detroit," Detroit LISC Executive Director Tahirih Ziegler said in a news release. 'The promotion of the unique Mexicantown brand is critical to strengthening the commercial corridors along West Vernor and Bagley Avenues, which are important contributors to Detroit's regional economy."
http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article...street-program
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New direction for East Jefferson
Years of effort pay off as small businesses grow in Detroit corridor
By MARTI BENEDETTI
July 10, 2016
Crain's Detroit Business
A force she can't quite explain is responsible for Keasha Rigsby locating her upscale bridal salon in an 1889 mansion in Detroit's East Jefferson Avenue corridor.
"It was meant to be. Every time I drove by this mansion, something was pulling me there," said the co-owner of Beautiful Bridal with Keasha.
She and co-owner Vallery Hyduk moved to Detroit from New York earlier this year after starring in the TLC reality show "Say Yes to the Dress" and hosting "Keasha's Perfect Dress" on TV One last summer. Earlier this year, the partners were the recipients of a $50,000 Motor City Match grant.
Beautiful Bridal, along with a new Caribbean restaurant, a Christian yoga center, women's clothing boutiques, a casual branded clothing store, a used record store, and a coffee shop and bakery, are a few of the more recent businesses that have planted roots along the eight miles between downtown Detroit and Grosse Pointe Park.
Josh Elling, executive director of Jefferson East Inc., which promotes neighborhood redevelopment, said more than 20 years of efforts to revitalize the East Jefferson Avenue corridor on the city's east side have been paying dividends in recent months. "Over the last two years, the amount of interest we've seen in Jefferson Avenue has been astounding," he said.
Since 2009, $1 billion has been invested in the five neighborhoods from Alter Road to downtown along East Jefferson, Elling said, adding that $540 million of that went to improvements to the giant FCA US plant. Within the last year, seven new businesses have opened in the Jefferson-Chalmers neighborhood in the corridor. Since 2007, JEI's budget has climbed from $140,000 to more than $1 million.
"This is one of those areas that continues to grow, but is growing quietly," Elling said, adding that the city and mayor's office have been "very supportive of development deep within the city's neighborhoods."
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JEI has its offices in an old bank building in Jefferson-Chalmers. Elling said Lester Gouvia will open a high-end Caribbean restaurant called Norma G's Caribbean Cuisine in the JEI building. The area's first sit-down restaurant in decades also will serve as a home base for Gouvia's popular food truck. Named after his mother, Norma G's will offer entrees that hail from Gouvia's Trinidad birthplace.
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Construction is expected to begin in the fall, Gouvia said.
The 14,000-square-foot 14700 Jefferson building, on the first block of Jefferson-Chalmers that borders Grosse Pointe Park, was purchased in May 2015 and is being rehabbed by restaurant owner Jessica Caizza, who owns real estate development company Jeff14700 LLC. She said the building and improvements will total more than $1 million.
The second floor of the building was gutted and will become a shared workspace, and retail on the street level will continue to include institutions such as Marshall's Bar and Moe's Bait Shop, she said. "I feel the resurgence of (downtown) Detroit, but I see the need to work on improving the bookends. I bought the building because I want to give more walkable retail to the people who live there. My building is (part) of bridging the two communities (Detroit and Grosse Pointe Park)."
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Elling said the resurgence of downtown, combined with business-supporting organizations such as TechTown Detroit and Motor City Match, has had a positive impact on East Jefferson.
"Where you have a walkable area, people are gravitating there," he said, adding that would include The Villages, parts of Rivertown near downtown and Jefferson-Chalmers. Those neighborhoods are three of the five on or near East Jefferson. The others are the Marina District and Lafayette Park.
Elling said the refurbishing of a handful of large, old, empty buildings on East Jefferson is in the offing for the near future. One of those is the $1 million redevelopment of the 12,000-square-foot, three-story St. Columba Parish building and the 7,000-square-foot church behind it on East Jefferson near Manistique Street. Fox Creek Partners LLC, a local investment group, purchased the buildings from the Episcopal Diocese of Michigan. The group stabilized the building and is beginning work on the upper floors and carving out storefronts for lease on the street level, said Kyle Hacias, co-managing member of Fox Creek Partners.
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Elling said it is too soon to disclose plans for the historic, long-vacant Vanity Ballroom building on East Jefferson at Lakewood Street or the empty, dilapidated block to the west of it, which is being held by the owner who is dealing with a longtime city nuisance-abatement suit.
Across the street from there, the historic building next to the Perry Liquor store will be renovated into the Lakewood Century Apartments.
The $7 million project will include 35 apartment units with retail on the street level, said Dorayd (Ray) Bacall, owner of Detroit-based Bacall Companies Inc., which is developing the apartments.
Meanwhile, two apartment buildings on Marlborough Street off Jefferson will be rehabbed into 19 units. "We are still finalizing financing on those," Elling said. "We want to make sure this is an inclusive neighborhood by providing (a percentage of affordable housing) so long-term residents can stay."
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Since 2014, crime along the Jefferson corridor declined more than 31 percent. In 2015, there was a 38 percent drop in auto theft and a 22 percent reduction in robberies, according to JEI's "Safe Jefferson" program.
Of note is that the Jefferson-Chalmers street-scape improvements, which include a half-mile protected bike lane and a landscaped center island, will be extended all the way to East Grand Boulevard. The work for the extension will begin early next year and the city likely will tie in repaving and additional landscaped islands along Jefferson Avenue. "The mayor (Mike Duggan) likes islands," Elling said.
"People need a third place to go after home and work," he said, adding that Jefferson East keeps that in mind as it plans for new business. "We're also working on transit linkages that tie East Jefferson to downtown."
If given the go-ahead by voters, the Regional Transit Authority will step in to provide enhanced bus service; the city has already put efforts toward improved bus transit along the route.
The corridor has several retail strip centers, which were built about 15 years ago to revitalize the neighborhood. Before and during the Great Recession, the shopping centers struggled, resulting in high vacancy rates. In the past couple of years, new businesses have been slowly moving in. But, Elling said, the days of building suburban-style strip centers in the city are likely over. Duggan has emphasized a new vision that developers are embracing: for the city to offer the type of development the suburbs don't have.
Regina Ann Campbell, TechTown's managing director of place-based entrepreneurship, said that four years ago TechTown started the small-business support program SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats). East Jefferson Avenue was one of four neighborhoods chosen. The other three are Brightmoor, Osborn and Grandmont-Rosedale.
http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article...east-jefferson
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Quote:
Work continues on the restoration of the Detroit Yacht Club
By MJ GALBRAITH
WEDNESDAY, MAY 11, 2016
Model D Media
The Detroit Yacht Club Foundation (DYCF) is kicking off another year of major repairs to its clubhouse with its spring fundraiser, "Restoring the Grandeur: City Lights Gala." The nonprofit dedicated to the restoration of the country's largest yacht club clubhouse expects another full-capacity crowd for the event, which is open to the public and takes place May 20 at the Detroit Yacht Club on Belle Isle.
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He calls the current phase of repairs "sealing the envelope" -- big tasks that must be completed before focus can shift to the building's interior. This summer, as in summers past, the foundation will be repairing the roof, stucco, masonry, and windows, protecting the treasures inside from the weather outside. Lifter says that the remaining roof leaks will be finished this summer. "If you don't fix things, they're going to get worse," he says.
It's a big building with a lot of history, making it a sizable undertaking for a relatively small non-profit. Opening in 1923, it was the fourth clubhouse for the Detroit Yacht Club, which was established in 1868. It was designed in a classic Mediterranean style by George Mason, the architect famous for a stable of postcard-worthy buildings that include Detroit's Masonic Temple and the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island.
http://www.modeldmedia.com/devnews/D...ationWork.aspx
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