Can Paradise be regained in Detroit today?
Is it really possible today to undo the damage that urban renewal policies of 50 years ago did to Detroit’s African-American community?
The City of Detroit hints at that in its plans to build a new inclusive community on the former Brewster-Douglass public housing site, a project in which businessman Dan Gilbert’s Bedrock will play a leading part.
The city’s request for proposals issued in January boldly stated that a goal of the project was to “repair the tear in the urban fabric” that the demolition of the historic Black Bottom and Paradise Valley neighborhoods created in the 1950s.
Black Bottom and Paradise Valley were historic African-American districts where black businesses thrived, including theaters, pharmacies, groceries, tailors, nightclubs and more. The neighborhood was demolished by the construction of the I-75 corridor and other urban renewal projects of the mid-20th Century.
Similar urban renewal projects wiped out older neighborhoods to the north and west of downtown as well as Black Bottom. Much of what was once part of the Corktown district was bulldozed and replaced by a light industrial park around that same time. And the construction of the Detroit Medical Center gobbled up more of Detroit’s near-north neighborhoods.
Long-time observers say it’s unlikely any new development could possibly undo that long-ago damage. For one thing, the new developments in the Brewster-Douglass site would house only about 1,500 new residents, compared with the 150,000 or so former black residents who once lived on Detroit's near lower east side but were forced to move due to the building of I-75 and other projects.
As John Mogk, a longtime professor of law at Wayne State University, said, “It would be one small stitch in repairing a very large tear.”
June Manning Thomas, a professor of urban planning at the University of Michigan, suggests that even those who wrote the "repair the tear" language knew that the past could not be reversed. Even so, she said, the city's plans calling for a significant amount of mixed-income housing as well as open green space and other amenities shows the city is trying to create a model on the site for equitable and sustainable development. The city is requiring that the project include recreational, educational, retail and community facilities.
"The city is to be praised for trying to make sure that the legacy of low-income housing was at least acknowledged," Thomas said. "Probably the market was there to do only higher-end housing."
Area goes upscale
Indeed, projects already under way near the site show just how fast the one-time distressed market is going upscale.
The Scott at Brush Park, a residential apartment project under construction at Woodward and Erskine, will offer 200 market-rate apartments, a 300-space parking deck and 15,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space. The most expensive apartments are being offered for close to $3,000 per month rent. Meanwhile, one-bedroom units measuring under 700 square feet are being offered for close to $1,600 per month rent.
The city said last week that a team including businessman Dan Gilbert’s Bedrock Real Estate Services had won the right to redevelop the Brewster-Douglass site as well as two sites in Eastern Market. The selection is tentative until approved by City Council. The Bedrock team also includes Enterprise Community Partners, a national developer of affordable housing projects, and two minority-owned firms, Ginosko Development of Novi and KBK Enterprises of Columbus, Ohio.
So far, city officials have said little about the plans beyond what was included in public documents. "At this time what can be said for certain is that the sites in Brush Park are expected to include both residential, park/open spaces, new streets, commercial as well as a federally qualified Health Center and other community support services," Arthur Jemison, director of the city's Housing & Revitalization Department, said last week in a statement.
The project comes as new developments are filling up the greater downtown area, both in renovations of long-vacant structures like the old Strathmore hotel in Midtown and new construction like the Orleans Landing and DuCharme Place projects taking place east of downtown. Mayor Mike Duggan has called for such projects to make at least 20% of their units "affordable," which generally means leasing them to residents whose household income is no higher than 80% of the regional median household income. But even that would exclude the working poor from almost all the newer projects around the greater downtown.
The planned Brewster-Douglass project would go beyond that by including units set aside for lower-income residents.
The city plans to apply for a Choice Neighborhoods grant from the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department, which if approved could bring as much as $30 million to the city for the project. The Choice grants are targeted toward former public housing sites, such as the Brewster-Douglass homes, and winners of the grants must include a mixture of “deeply subsidized, affordable and market rate rental and/or homeownership units,” according to HUD regulations.
The city has said it plans to go ahead with the project even if HUD denies its application for a Choice Neighborhood grant. But how the site might develop could take many forms. For now, the city and Bedrock team envision that a significant portion of the affordable housing units will be built in one multi-family building dedicated primarily to elderly residents. Much of the rest of the development could be built as market-rate units.
The Kresge Foundation gave the city $515,000 to plan for its application for the HUD grant. Wendy Lewis Jackson, interim co-managing director of Kresge's Detroit program, said the foundation believes the project must go beyond a mere real estate development to address concerns about health and the environment, early childhood development, youth and adult employment, and other social concerns.
"With our investment in helping the city with the planning for the application, we're hoping that it aligns with a focus on creating green, healthy and active neighborhoods, not just at that site but across the city," Jackson said. "If the application can live up to those principles, then hopefully Detroit will have a success project."
Contact John Gallagher: 313-222-5173 or gallagher@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @jgallagherfreep.