OT: Ford purchases Michigan Central Station in Corktown, Detroit
This is pretty exciting news for Ford and Detroit — and the state of Michigan, as it tries to retain more in-state college educated kids. Hopefully it nudges GM to move Cadillac headquarters back to Detroit, away from their mega-millions pointless "studio" in SoHo, Manhattan.
Worst-kept secret in town for a couple months, particularly as an anonymous buyer was gobbling up property all around the station. I will remain skeptical about this, as I have about every proposed project for the station (which was built too big to start--the top floors were never finished or used for its entire functional history), but this has the strongest possibility of working out.
All in all, great news.
I will start with the disclaimer that I moved out of the state over a decade ago, but from from those who I knwo who still live there is that the commute from the burbs to detroit is getting unbearable. As jobs continue to move downtown that will only get worse and more will start moving down there which will increase tax revenue.
Yes in the short-term a lot of families with childern >2 will move out but it will start to create a stable tax base which will slowly allow for upgrades in schools, services etc.
It's not an overnight quick fix but it is a sustainable growth situation downtown.
I have the fortune of only needing to commute to the next town over, but for those I know who do commute into the city from out here in western Wayne County (in my case), the long-term work on I-75 and now I-696 have made already somewhat congested freeways like I-94 and The Lodge virtual parking lots at certain times of the day. I live 25 minutes (in reasonable traffic) from downtown and when I have had to start my day there for a meeting, it has taken an hour or more to make an otherwise short 18-mile hike if I do not leave egregiously early.
And when Millenials flee for the suburns, GenZ can move in, and then the Millenial offspring and so on and so fourth until the city generates the revenue to rebuild neighborhoods worth raising a family in.
Cynicism at its finest.
The better argument is that it's great that big developments are happening in and adjacent to downtown, and that young people are moving to, and investing in the city.
But Detroit remains a geographically large city (thanks to massive annexations of surrounding towns/villages in the 19th and early 20th centuries) for which massive swaths remain underinvested, underdeveloped, or outright barren. Gentrification remains a threat, uneven investment is a sustained reality, and basic services will remain a challenge. And there are more than a few close observers who are uncomfortable with the fact that the bulk of investment seems to be done by a single party (Dan Gilbert) whose resources may be overstretched.
You do know that millenials are in their mid-to-late 30s? And sure, Detroit schools aren't great. But there are other educational options in the area if parents decide to do so, and perhaps with an influx of younger residents there might be some actual improvements to the school system.
I always find people bitching about a younger generational funny because either they are self-owning OR they are part of some other much-derided generation and have no sense of irony.
That's fine if you want to think of Millennials as those born around 1990, but factually speaking it's mostly people born between 1981 and 1997-ish. I'm about your age, and while I'd consider myself closer to Gen-X than Millenial, it's a gradient that is pretty close. It's not like someone who is 34 cares about things like schools demonstrably different than someone who is 43.
There are private schools, charter schools, magnet schools like Cass Tech, etc. I mean, those are options. And I saw this in NY - schools in gentrified neighborhoods got better when more people showed up and started to put money into them. It takes time, and some people will undoubtedly leave, but it's better than empty buildings and no tax base.
Some southwest Detroiters see the downside to booming home prices
https://on.freep.com/2xts7BU
Increased housing prices are a great thing for residents and the city. Higher net worth for home owners, more money in property taxes to reinvest in needed services like schools and public safety or provide financial relief in the form of lower tax rates. More demand for housing means more money being brought into neighborhoods to support local jobs. There are a lot of places where gentrification is a result of restrictive planning and people pay more to get nothing. In Detroit's case its a result of a couple of consecutive years of governance that aren't an unmitigated disaster. Everyone there needs/deserves that and its overdue.
Now, if someone really wants a challenge - what to do with the Packard plant?
that has been said to see sitting empty and in decay. Hopefully Ford restores it and puts it back into use.
It's klnda sad that this will likely never again be what it was actually designed & built for: A transit hub. Though the current train traffic would never be enough to support it alone, it could have been reborn as a train station/bus station with shopping & restaurants. Would have been a lot nicer than the current mediocre bus station & horrible excuse for a train station.
It's good to see the building will finally be used, but I wonder what Ford will do with the station part, as that isn't exactly made for office space as the office tower behind it.
For real - it would be really interesting to see Ford or someone put it back into operation and maybe start building commuter rails and running trains to suburbs. Even out to Ann Arbor and the airport. Shit, link up with a line that goes all the way west to Kalamazoo, GR and then Chicago.
I'm a Long Island boy and I grew up with the LIRR just a mile from my house. I could walk there and be on a train and in midtown Manhattan in 50 minutes. When I got to AA, I was shocked that there was no rail or really any easily accessible transportation options to get to Detroit and it was roughly the same distance away.
There is incredible value in cities and rail/transit systems add to that. It's a shame sometimes to think of the decline of public transportation in this country but I would love to see Detroit bring it back.
This. This. 1000x this.
I live in Harlem now. Don't own a car. Don't really miss having one. There are some places I can't get to in this region without mass transit, but they're few, far between & mostly unnecessary. When I go home to Detroit it's like culture shock.
The little bit of transit that does exist is so poorly designed and/or implemented that it could be argued that that it is intentionally so in order to be an example of why transit doesn't work in Detroit. For example: In the city of Detroit there are currently Three separate forms of mass transit, (DDOT, DPM & the Q-Line) each with their own separate management. None of the three work together. Even in NYC a Metrocard can take care of the fare when you go between the MTA & Path. It's ridiculous that in Detroit they can't have some sort of cooperative fare system where you could buy a monthly pass & use it on all three forms of transit. (If they were only reliable.)
Also, the Q-line to me just seems like a transit line built by people who have never actually used mass transit before.
Made the trip up the river a couple of time from the Lake Erie islands and it sucks there's no place to dock on the Detroit side. We would've stopped for lunch and walked around a bit if there was
According to wikipedia William G. Milliken State Park and Harbor has 52 slips. It's located at the east end of the riverwalk. Also, it looks like the Detroit/Wayne County Port Authority has public docks (right between Hart Plaza and The RenCen). I'd call ahead at the very least next time.
Would have never worked.
It's only 14 floors.
is pretty short and blah. We never ventured into Detroit much when I was a kid save for a Tigers game or 2 every year for about 15 years. I had and still have family that lives near 7 mile and Detroit Mercy but I haven't visited in years and visits back then were few and far between. Never ventured downtown at all until Comerica opened. It did not impress me then.
A few years passed, in 2008 I attended a concert at the Joe, had some free time before hand and drove around downtown a bit, I was just shocked at the emptyness and lack of activity on a work afternoon. My drive home that night took be along Grand River Ave and there were blocks of non functioning traffic signals and street lights, a complete ghost town. Probably the only time I actually felt fear in Detroit.
Between 2008 and 2012 I made several trips in and around Detroit just to explore and see some sites etc etc. It was at times just so sad to see such a beautiful city rotting away. I drove the length of Grand River Ave from the burbs and was just blown away that an American city could even look like that.
Anyway I didn't get a chance to go back until 2016 again for the Tigers and was pleasantly surprised by the resurgance around downtown, one year later I was blown away again by the activity and changes to the downtown areas and along Jefferson Ave.
Sidenote, its better now but the transition between Detroit and the Grosse Pointes along Jefferson Ave was just incredible a decade ago. I had to turn my car around just to make sure I was seeing what I was seeing. Ghetto to million dollar mansions in one block.
This building has been the Jenna Jameson of ruin porn for years.
Good to see that they are going to do something positive with it at last.
Now on to the Packard factory . . .
Left Detroit 10 years ago but still go back to visit familly.
3 biggest factors I see:
Gilbert, bankruptcy, the worst publicc officials (Kilpatrick, Conyers) being removed.
Its incredible going back to even drive down Woodward. Never thought I'd see something like this again, and it seems like its got momentum of its own.
They even turned the old ballpark in a pretty legit softball field.
Gets me downtown 2 times a month at least!