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  #2101  
Old Posted Oct 25, 2013, 10:03 PM
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Packard Plant sold for $6 million to Texas woman

Detroit — A last-minute bidding war pushed the sale price of the iconic but crumbling Packard Plant to $6.038 million on Friday, the final day of Wayne County’s annual tax foreclosure auction.

Bids soared from $601,000 shortly after 4 p.m. and skyrocketed in the final minutes of the auction. It was supposed to end at 4:45 p.m. but was extended for a half hour as bids kept coming in. The winning bidder was Jill Van Horn of Ennis, Texas, who was previously unknown to county officials.

....
From The Detroit News: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/2...#ixzz2im11SazS

The guy from Chicago couldn't seem to come up with the $1 million dollars needed to pay the back taxes in time.
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  #2102  
Old Posted Oct 26, 2013, 1:16 AM
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Obviously the bidder doesn't have the money.
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  #2103  
Old Posted Oct 27, 2013, 7:08 PM
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Originally Posted by animatedmartian View Post
From The Detroit News: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/2...#ixzz2im11SazS

The guy from Chicago couldn't seem to come up with the $1 million dollars needed to pay the back taxes in time.
I hope he has a decent plan for the lot.
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  #2104  
Old Posted Oct 28, 2013, 4:25 AM
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Originally Posted by LMich View Post
Not sure how much of a "development" this is as it is a human hand in speeding up the deconstruction of the city. But, since it's mad national news...

I'd much rather these stay commercial woodlands/woodlots than commercial farms. BTW, just so people don't get the wrong impression, this isn't 140 contiguous acres as there are homes and some business scattered throughout the highlighted area.
What is the general consensus about tearing down most of the abandoned housing in Detroit? Is there a general consensus?
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  #2105  
Old Posted Oct 28, 2013, 7:24 PM
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What is the general consensus about tearing down most of the abandoned housing in Detroit? Is there a general consensus?
Not sure what the rest of the country thinks, but those most of us who have lived in the area for our entire lives think it is generally a good thing. The city was built for a population that simply isn't there anymore and the giant swaths of mostly abandoned houses are a haven for crime and a deterrent to redevelopment. Many of these houses are not really what you would call architecturally significant. And while some beauty has been lost, there has and will be far more removal of blight.

I have a two fold plan to save the city of Detroit by the way, it is not politically possible, but it would work.

Step 1. Combine Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties into one city. This would have the benefit of spreading the massive amount of tax revenue generated in the region around a bit more. It would also generally raise the quality of the new city council (since the people of Detroit have consistently showed an inability to chose leaders who have their best interest at heart) AND give them resources with which to work to fix infrastructure and crime. It would make us all DETROITERS. And immediately make the city look better as far as income/crime/economics are concerned.

Step 2. Demolish giant swaths of the city (while moving any remaining residents into designated neighborhoods if they chose to stay). They would be given a payout for a new house with extra cash thrown in if they decide to stay within the city. Work on fixing these new, denser neighborhoods while planting trees and letting nature take over the rest. Then in 10, 20 or 30 years when demand starts to rise again, instead of ever expanding out, Metro Detroit and redevelop this land.

Just a dream...
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  #2106  
Old Posted Oct 28, 2013, 9:07 PM
hudkina hudkina is offline
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I have mixed feelings. There are plenty of historic homes in the city, and even more beautiful brick homes that are worth saving. The problem is that the longer such structures stand vacant, the more likely they are to lose all value to disrepair, scrapping and fire.

I think there are some neighborhoods that this would work great for. But I think they should take a renovation-oriented approach in some of the higher quality neighborhoods. The city had the idea of giving incentives to people to move from the lower quality neighborhoods to the higher quality neighborhoods, and I think renovating some structures in the higher quality neighborhoods should be a part of that plan.
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  #2107  
Old Posted Oct 28, 2013, 10:06 PM
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Originally Posted by Guiltyspark View Post

Step 1. Combine Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties into one city. This would have the benefit of spreading the massive amount of tax revenue generated in the region around a bit more. It would also generally raise the quality of the new city council (since the people of Detroit have consistently showed an inability to chose leaders who have their best interest at heart) AND give them resources with which to work to fix infrastructure and crime. It would make us all DETROITERS. And immediately make the city look better as far as income/crime/economics are concerned.

Step 2. Demolish giant swaths of the city (while moving any remaining residents into designated neighborhoods if they chose to stay). They would be given a payout for a new house with extra cash thrown in if they decide to stay within the city. Work on fixing these new, denser neighborhoods while planting trees and letting nature take over the rest. Then in 10, 20 or 30 years when demand starts to rise again, instead of ever expanding out, Metro Detroit and redevelop this land.

Just a dream...

I, for one, don't think Detroit is somehow a failure. The problems that plague it are vexing a great number of cities in the country. In reality, it's not that "unique." As such, it is important something be done sooner than later to provide a blueprint.

Yes, I've never lived in Detroit...and I'm relatively young. However, I went to school in Birmingham so I do identity with the 1st point. Birmingham has a similar situation. In the 60s people left the city and established independent communities, sucking tax revenue out of Birmingham Proper and the city began to sag (poor services, job opportunities, education, etc). Now, they refuse to contribute anything to the city and won't work to plan regional transportation and the like.

In regards to 2, I think it may be more successful to offer tax incentives to get people to relocate rather than force them to. A good way to do this would be to gradually consolidate schools and build new facilities in the inner city, give a tax holiday to business and residents who purchase homes in the inner city, etc. In effect, they out to establish a de facto growth boundary. The biggest thing Detroit has going for it is the value of property.

My biggest fear, is that they won't correctly leverage all of the new investor interests in the city. A lot of the Chinese developers could be a very crucial aspect of making any plan for the city work well, if they're brought to the table and given a stake.
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  #2108  
Old Posted Oct 28, 2013, 10:08 PM
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The Packard development dream, Round 2.

Quote:
Texas doctor plans to turn Packard plant into manufacturing plant for modular homes, offices
By Kirk Pinho
October 28, 2013



The suburban Dallas family physician who purchased the abandoned Packard plant on Detroit's east side Friday plans to renovate the 3.5 million-square-foot plant and turn it into a manufacturing site for modular homes and offices.

Jill Van Horn, who along with investors from Detroit purchased the plant for $6,038,000 at a Wayne County tax auction, has until 4:15 p.m. today to pay the county for the shuttered plant, which sits between Interstate 94 and East Grand Boulevard.

Davis Marshall, a spokesman for Van Horn, said the doctor is meeting with Wayne County officials to finalize the deal and that more detailed plans for the site are expected to be released once it is finalized.

"We are just trying to make sure that the deal is finalized, the moneys are paid and then we'll move to the next part," Marshall said. "What you'll find is that a number of people who are involved with the Van Horn team are from Detroit."

Marshall declined to name who the other investors are in the Packard plant, which was formerly owned by Bioresource Inc., a Warren-based entity belonging to Dominic Cristini.

According to a news release sent by Marshall, more than 6,000 employees would be needed to staff the plant.

A message left at Van Horn's office on Monday morning was not returned as of noon.

Wayne County Chief Deputy Treasurer David Szymanski said he spoke to Van Horn and Marshall and said "they indicate sincerity in the offer." Szymanski added that he was working out the details of the payment requirements but that "for payment of $6 million there will likely be some short extension."

.....
http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article...cturing-plant#
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  #2109  
Old Posted Oct 29, 2013, 2:49 AM
ladsnine ladsnine is offline
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Originally Posted by phoenixboi08 View Post
I, for one, don't think Detroit is somehow a failure. The problems that plague it are vexing a great number of cities in the country. In reality, it's not that "unique." As such, it is important something be done sooner than later to provide a blueprint.

Yes, I've never lived in Detroit...and I'm relatively young. However, I went to school in Birmingham so I do identity with the 1st point. Birmingham has a similar situation. In the 60s people left the city and established independent communities, sucking tax revenue out of Birmingham Proper and the city began to sag (poor services, job opportunities, education, etc). Now, they refuse to contribute anything to the city and won't work to plan regional transportation and the like.
I tend to think the difference between Detroit and a huge number of other older formerly industrial cities is that, usually, the extreme disinvestment is more or less confined to one portion of a city where the factories and associated low-quality workers' housing was. I live in Buffalo, a city that is often compared to Detroit. Buffalo does have problems, but here as in most places, when people conjure a stereotypical postindustrial image of decay and urban prairies, that image is true but it only describes a relatively small portion of the city. The factories were located on the east side mostly, and that area has mostly returned to urban prairie, but it only makes up about 30% of the city's land area. The rest is relatively prosperous, or at least not bombed-out.

In Detroit, on the other hand, the extreme decay and disinvestment seems to be a lot more wide-spread, perhaps due to its extreme dependence on the factories and thus a more even collapse across the city? There are nicely kept areas, to be sure, but they seem relatively physically small compared to the rougher sections.

I should also note that it's also all a matter of marketing, reputation and perception. I spent many years living in Chicago. As great a city as it is, the dense and vibrant and happenin' part you hear about makes up only about 1/3 of the city's land area if that. The rest of it very much resembles any other legacy industrial city with all the abandonment and disinvestment and crime that you would stereotypically expect. Some areas, especially in the mid-south side, are completely abandoned. Detroit, for whatever reason, has gotten a bad reputation which likely only worsened its plight over time, a reputation that Chicago mostly avoided for various reasons (mostly having a strong mayor at the right time in the 60s).

To be fair, I haven't lived in Detroit so I can't fairly judge, so feel free to set me straight. I have read tons about it (good and bad) and I have visited to try and understand it better, but obviously it's not the same.
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  #2110  
Old Posted Oct 29, 2013, 3:56 AM
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Originally Posted by ladsnine View Post
In Detroit, on the other hand, the extreme decay and disinvestment seems to be a lot more wide-spread, perhaps due to its extreme dependence on the factories and thus a more even collapse across the city? There are nicely kept areas, to be sure, but they seem relatively physically small compared to the rougher sections.
That's pretty accurate. Back when urban planners were deciding where to plop the freeways that now crisscross the city, they took major factories and where workers lived into account.








http://atdetroit.net/forum/messages/6790/43221.html

These particular industrial areas have since shrunk from hundreds of businesses and companies to now probably only a handful in each area. So it's no surprise the areas with the highest number of workers are now parts of the city with the highest vacancy rates.

Though what this map doesn't show is that after the development of freeways, the factories didn't simply disappear. A lot of Detroit's industrial base moved into the suburbs. There's quite a few corridors of industrial development fanning out from the city to the north, west, and south sides of the metro (there's a few clumps of industrial development in Oakland County, but not as much as Macomb and Wayne). For that reason, you don't see the same amount of decay outside of the city then what has occurred within it. That also brings with it the problems of having an economy sprawled out over a practically transit-less metropolitan area.
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  #2111  
Old Posted Oct 29, 2013, 2:25 PM
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Interesting. Thanks for that info.

But isn't part of it also the sheer size of the city? It's pretty large, no?
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  #2112  
Old Posted Oct 29, 2013, 4:00 PM
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Originally Posted by ladsnine View Post
I tend to think the difference between Detroit and a huge number of other older formerly industrial cities is that, usually, the extreme disinvestment is more or less confined to one portion of a city where the factories and associated low-quality workers' housing was. I live in Buffalo, a city that is often compared to Detroit. Buffalo does have problems, but here as in most places, when people conjure a stereotypical postindustrial image of decay and urban prairies, that image is true but it only describes a relatively small portion of the city. The factories were located on the east side mostly, and that area has mostly returned to urban prairie, but it only makes up about 30% of the city's land area. The rest is relatively prosperous, or at least not bombed-out.

In Detroit, on the other hand, the extreme decay and disinvestment seems to be a lot more wide-spread, perhaps due to its extreme dependence on the factories and thus a more even collapse across the city? There are nicely kept areas, to be sure, but they seem relatively physically small compared to the rougher sections.

I should also note that it's also all a matter of marketing, reputation and perception. I spent many years living in Chicago. As great a city as it is, the dense and vibrant and happenin' part you hear about makes up only about 1/3 of the city's land area if that. The rest of it very much resembles any other legacy industrial city with all the abandonment and disinvestment and crime that you would stereotypically expect. Some areas, especially in the mid-south side, are completely abandoned. Detroit, for whatever reason, has gotten a bad reputation which likely only worsened its plight over time, a reputation that Chicago mostly avoided for various reasons (mostly having a strong mayor at the right time in the 60s).

To be fair, I haven't lived in Detroit so I can't fairly judge, so feel free to set me straight. I have read tons about it (good and bad) and I have visited to try and understand it better, but obviously it's not the same.
I also don't live in Detroit but follow its situation closely and I would agree with a lot of your post.

Read yesterday about Hantz Woodlands and wonder what the locals think of it. I am struck by the apparent logic of the initiative: Detroit land needs to be more scarce to make it more valuable to prospective investors (don't purchase land or buildings now since it will be cheaper next year). And purchases like this 140 acre buy will do just that. I realize it is not a panacea but will it help? Thoughts?

Here's the link to the article I read in The Atlantic Cities project:

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/nei...-detroit/7371/
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  #2113  
Old Posted Oct 29, 2013, 5:35 PM
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Originally Posted by phoenixboi08 View Post
Interesting. Thanks for that info.

But isn't part of it also the sheer size of the city? It's pretty large, no?
City proper isn't really all that much bigger than other cites. Though the difference is that cities of a similar size usually have/had a more diverse job base than what Detroit had. Detroit pretty much had a mega-factory every few miles from each other that seemed to employ 100,000+ workers each. Without them, the city would have likely had a population roughly similar to that of other Rust Belt cities.

The metropolitan area is fairly spread out a little moreso than a city of its population size should be. It's probably the direct effect of a lack of reinvestment in the inner-city.
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  #2114  
Old Posted Oct 29, 2013, 6:04 PM
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I also don't live in Detroit but follow its situation closely and I would agree with a lot of your post.

Read yesterday about Hantz Woodlands and wonder what the locals think of it. I am struck by the apparent logic of the initiative: Detroit land needs to be more scarce to make it more valuable to prospective investors (don't purchase land or buildings now since it will be cheaper next year). And purchases like this 140 acre buy will do just that. I realize it is not a panacea but will it help? Thoughts?

Here's the link to the article I read in The Atlantic Cities project:

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/nei...-detroit/7371/
The thing is, the land he's buying won't be cheaper next year. Only a few miles from downtown and almost adjacent to the waterfront? And mostly around Indian Village?



There's other vacant sections of the city where a land grab wouldn't seem so obvious.
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  #2115  
Old Posted Oct 30, 2013, 2:47 AM
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Statement from winning bidder on Packard Plant raises concern
OCTOBER 29, 2013
CHRISTINE MACDONALD THE DETROIT NEWS



Detroit— Wayne County officials expect to see money Wednesday from a Texas doctor who won a tax-foreclosure auction for the Packard Plant, but acknowledge they’re concerned about a statement released by her staff that likened Detroit’s potential to hydroelectric power.

“It is the process that allows us to transform the lake from a canoeing and fishing kind of place into an energy producing kind of place,” reads a three-page statement from Dr. Jill Van Horn’s staff that was released to the media on Tuesday. “Detroit’s assets, like energy, also have a dormant value.”

The statement cited an energy analogy put forth by Spanish explorer Hernando DeSoto.

“Dr. Van Horn’s prophecy was to resurrect Detroit by providing education, jobs and vocational training to the city’s residence, simultaneously unplugging the financial arteries of the city,” the statement read.
Quote:
In fact, if county officials doubt her means, she and her investors “are prepared to travel from Texas to Detroit and sit down the with county and make an offer for every vacant, abandoned and dilapidated apartment building within Detroit,” the statement reads.

Detroit has an estimated 70,000 vacant homes and structures.

The statement was attributed to Mark Day, who is identified as a Van Horn representative, and released by her spokesman, Davis Marshall. It was meant as a speech to investors, Marshall said.
From The Detroit News: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/2...#ixzz2jAZroghn
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  #2116  
Old Posted Oct 30, 2013, 3:13 AM
hudkina hudkina is offline
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Originally Posted by ladsnine View Post
In Detroit, on the other hand, the extreme decay and disinvestment seems to be a lot more wide-spread, perhaps due to its extreme dependence on the factories and thus a more even collapse across the city? There are nicely kept areas, to be sure, but they seem relatively physically small compared to the rougher sections.
Detroit as an urban center is over 4x larger than Buffalo, so even if Detroit had 4x as much dilapidated land/housing, it would still be proportionate to Buffalo. Detroit has a much larger suburban base than Buffalo, so as a proportion of the total urban population, Detroit still might have it better even if it has a much larger volume.
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  #2117  
Old Posted Oct 30, 2013, 5:18 AM
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Detroit still wields quite a bit of power in the business world and has a lot of corporate philanthropy compared to other rust belt cities. Name recognition and being the center of the auto industry does help to attract other global businesses and money to the area. So, I don't think Detroit will languish in decay for decades as some seem to think.
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  #2118  
Old Posted Oct 30, 2013, 7:27 AM
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Looks like Wayne County is ready to give the failed jail site to Rock Ventures to expand Gilbertown:

Quote:

Crain's Detroit Business

Source: Wayne Co. Commission expected to OK Gilbert bid for jail site on Wednesday

by Dustin Walsh | Crain's Detroit Business

October 29, 2013

...

Rock's plan is a $500 million development of 1.7 million square feet of space, with 700 residential and hotel units with 200,000 square feet of retail and parking.

The source said Rock's bid was in the $40 million range.

In a previous interview, Rock CEO Matt Cullen told Crain's the project could resemble L.A. Live, the $2.5 billion, 5.6 million-square-foot development in Los Angeles that includes the Nokia Theatre, Grammy Museum, ESPN broadcasting studios, two hotels, condominiums and several restaurants. L.A. Live is next to the Staples Center, a multi-purpose arena.

...
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  #2119  
Old Posted Oct 30, 2013, 5:14 PM
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Well it looks like the Texas Doctor won't be redeveloping the Packard site after all. Huge surprise...

Now talks have moved on to the next highest bidder. I still doubt anything will come of the site any time soon, but at least the next guy is an actual developer from Chicago.
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  #2120  
Old Posted Oct 30, 2013, 7:21 PM
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Originally Posted by phoenixboi08 View Post
I, for one, don't think Detroit is somehow a failure. The problems that plague it are vexing a great number of cities in the country. In reality, it's not that "unique." As such, it is important something be done sooner than later to provide a blueprint.

Yes, I've never lived in Detroit...and I'm relatively young. However, I went to school in Birmingham so I do identity with the 1st point. Birmingham has a similar situation. In the 60s people left the city and established independent communities, sucking tax revenue out of Birmingham Proper and the city began to sag (poor services, job opportunities, education, etc). Now, they refuse to contribute anything to the city and won't work to plan regional transportation and the like.

In regards to 2, I think it may be more successful to offer tax incentives to get people to relocate rather than force them to. A good way to do this would be to gradually consolidate schools and build new facilities in the inner city, give a tax holiday to business and residents who purchase homes in the inner city, etc. In effect, they out to establish a de facto growth boundary. The biggest thing Detroit has going for it is the value of property.

My biggest fear, is that they won't correctly leverage all of the new investor interests in the city. A lot of the Chinese developers could be a very crucial aspect of making any plan for the city work well, if they're brought to the table and given a stake.
Most of the people in the city don't pay taxes. The city can't collect 80% of the taxes it is owed so I am not sure tax incentives would be effective.
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