Detroit seizes the moment to rebuild
As varied interests cooperate, results rise in concrete, steel
June 21, 2007
BY JOHN GALLAGHER
FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITER
Detroit's new RiverWalk, which officially opens Friday in a splash of celebrations and special events, offers more than fountains, a carousel and waterfront promenade.
It also offers a new model of redeveloping Detroit.
Born of widespread regional cooperation, the project saw the City of Detroit, General Motors Corp., the Kresge Foundation and dozens of other public and private players team up to create the RiverWalk and its nonprofit governing body, the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy.
In a region riven by city-suburban feuds over such issues as Cobo Center, bus routes and water rates, the RiverWalk shows that competing interests can and do cooperate to achieve major goals.
"We really created a sense of urgency by convincing ourselves that this was a moment in time," Matt Cullen, a GM executive who serves as co-chair of the nonprofit riverfront conservancy, said this week.
"Three hundred years of history on the riverfront, and there was never a time in our history when somebody had the opportunity to say, 'We're going to reclaim the whole thing.' It was the coming together of a powerful vision and a real sense of urgency."
Nor is the RiverWalk a one-of-a-kind phenomenon. Similar models of public, private and nonprofit cooperation led to the creation of Campus Martius Park in 2004 and to the city's effort in hosting Super Bowl XL in 2006.
The same blend of city, corporate and nonprofit effort will see the Eastern Market reconstruction begin soon. The Riverfront Conservancy will take over operation and maintenance of an old railroad right-of-way known as the Dequindre Cut that the city is turning into a landscaped pedestrian and bike greenway.
This broader cast of characters marks a substantial change from development practices in the 1970s through the mid- to late 1990s, when then-Mayor Coleman Young often negotiated deals one-on-one with powerful executives such as Henry Ford II, Peter Stroh and Max Fisher.
"The old way is Hank the Deuce and Al Taubman and Mike Ilitch and Coleman Young would sit down, and they would get a project done," Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick said this week. "But this is a new model, and because it's a new model, bringing everybody to the table, it's spurring so much development in other ways, people saying, 'Let's make it all happen.' "
Richard (Rip) Rapson, president and chief executive of the Kresge Foundation, which contributed $50 million in matching grants to create the RiverWalk, said the foundation tied its gifts to specific contributions and actions by others.
"It was an attempt to try to create the broadest possible spectrum of civic engagement in the project," he said.
Frustrations exist
This new model doesn't mean that development in Detroit has gotten easy, even for the RiverWalk.
"It's frustratingly slow at times," Cullen said. "There's a lot of times when it took a lot of cajoling and handholding to convince everybody to keep all the puppies in the box."
George Jackson, president of the city's Detroit Economic Growth Corp. and Kilpatrick's chief development officer, agreed.
"We haven't always been bosom buddies through the process," he said of the RiverWalk. "Not everyone agrees on everything. But I think the critical piece here, even with our differences, we all had the same objective, and we didn't let anyone get off the objective of making this a reality."
Robin Boyle, a Wayne State University urban planning professor, said the greater cooperation is real, not just a slogan.
"You do see a more diverse range of players who are making an impact. Is it a big enough impact? That's the $64,000 question. But at least it's different from 20 years ago, when the silver bullet was still being sought."
A turning point
Why the change? By the late '90s, planners began to realize the old single-player, single-project mode of development wasn't helping the city much.
Throughout the '70s, '80s, and early '90s, highly touted projects like the Renaissance Center, Riverfront Apartments, Harbortown and Stroh River Place tended to be individual projects that had little spin-off effect.
Similarly, Young's efforts to encourage new downtown skyscrapers saw two built -- One Detroit Center in 1992 and 150 W. Jefferson in 1989 -- but both did little more than take tenants from older downtown buildings.
"Back then, the focus was on building projects instead of building the city," said Larry Marantette, principal of the Detroit consulting firm Taktix Solutions who in the '80s helped develop the Harbortown project and later served as president of the Greater Downtown Partnership, which helped plan the Campus Martius area.
Beginning in the mid- to late '90s during the administration of Mayor Dennis Archer and continuing under Kilpatrick, planners have emphasized broader plans to revive entire districts, like the RiverWalk and Eastern Market.
"They're not one-off projects as much as a city rebuilding plan. There's a big difference," Marantette said this week.
New financial angles
Today's redevelopment efforts also benefit from a raft of new tax credits, investment pools and other aids that weren't available until the late '90s or later.
The Book-Cadillac Hotel renovation and several other recent downtown projects got part of their financing from the Detroit Investment Fund, a $52-million private capital fund set up by the corporate leadership group Detroit Renaissance to help revitalize the city.
"I think it's becoming a little more mainstream," said Colin Hubbell, a residential developer who has built several projects in the city's Midtown district. "There's more people that have gotten their arms around what we're doing in urban development."
As varied interests cooperate, results rise in concrete, steel
June 21, 2007
BY JOHN GALLAGHER
FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITER
Detroit's new RiverWalk, which officially opens Friday in a splash of celebrations and special events, offers more than fountains, a carousel and waterfront promenade.
It also offers a new model of redeveloping Detroit.
Born of widespread regional cooperation, the project saw the City of Detroit, General Motors Corp., the Kresge Foundation and dozens of other public and private players team up to create the RiverWalk and its nonprofit governing body, the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy.
In a region riven by city-suburban feuds over such issues as Cobo Center, bus routes and water rates, the RiverWalk shows that competing interests can and do cooperate to achieve major goals.
"We really created a sense of urgency by convincing ourselves that this was a moment in time," Matt Cullen, a GM executive who serves as co-chair of the nonprofit riverfront conservancy, said this week.
"Three hundred years of history on the riverfront, and there was never a time in our history when somebody had the opportunity to say, 'We're going to reclaim the whole thing.' It was the coming together of a powerful vision and a real sense of urgency."
Nor is the RiverWalk a one-of-a-kind phenomenon. Similar models of public, private and nonprofit cooperation led to the creation of Campus Martius Park in 2004 and to the city's effort in hosting Super Bowl XL in 2006.
The same blend of city, corporate and nonprofit effort will see the Eastern Market reconstruction begin soon. The Riverfront Conservancy will take over operation and maintenance of an old railroad right-of-way known as the Dequindre Cut that the city is turning into a landscaped pedestrian and bike greenway.
This broader cast of characters marks a substantial change from development practices in the 1970s through the mid- to late 1990s, when then-Mayor Coleman Young often negotiated deals one-on-one with powerful executives such as Henry Ford II, Peter Stroh and Max Fisher.
"The old way is Hank the Deuce and Al Taubman and Mike Ilitch and Coleman Young would sit down, and they would get a project done," Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick said this week. "But this is a new model, and because it's a new model, bringing everybody to the table, it's spurring so much development in other ways, people saying, 'Let's make it all happen.' "
Richard (Rip) Rapson, president and chief executive of the Kresge Foundation, which contributed $50 million in matching grants to create the RiverWalk, said the foundation tied its gifts to specific contributions and actions by others.
"It was an attempt to try to create the broadest possible spectrum of civic engagement in the project," he said.
Frustrations exist
This new model doesn't mean that development in Detroit has gotten easy, even for the RiverWalk.
"It's frustratingly slow at times," Cullen said. "There's a lot of times when it took a lot of cajoling and handholding to convince everybody to keep all the puppies in the box."
George Jackson, president of the city's Detroit Economic Growth Corp. and Kilpatrick's chief development officer, agreed.
"We haven't always been bosom buddies through the process," he said of the RiverWalk. "Not everyone agrees on everything. But I think the critical piece here, even with our differences, we all had the same objective, and we didn't let anyone get off the objective of making this a reality."
Robin Boyle, a Wayne State University urban planning professor, said the greater cooperation is real, not just a slogan.
"You do see a more diverse range of players who are making an impact. Is it a big enough impact? That's the $64,000 question. But at least it's different from 20 years ago, when the silver bullet was still being sought."
A turning point
Why the change? By the late '90s, planners began to realize the old single-player, single-project mode of development wasn't helping the city much.
Throughout the '70s, '80s, and early '90s, highly touted projects like the Renaissance Center, Riverfront Apartments, Harbortown and Stroh River Place tended to be individual projects that had little spin-off effect.
Similarly, Young's efforts to encourage new downtown skyscrapers saw two built -- One Detroit Center in 1992 and 150 W. Jefferson in 1989 -- but both did little more than take tenants from older downtown buildings.
"Back then, the focus was on building projects instead of building the city," said Larry Marantette, principal of the Detroit consulting firm Taktix Solutions who in the '80s helped develop the Harbortown project and later served as president of the Greater Downtown Partnership, which helped plan the Campus Martius area.
Beginning in the mid- to late '90s during the administration of Mayor Dennis Archer and continuing under Kilpatrick, planners have emphasized broader plans to revive entire districts, like the RiverWalk and Eastern Market.
"They're not one-off projects as much as a city rebuilding plan. There's a big difference," Marantette said this week.
New financial angles
Today's redevelopment efforts also benefit from a raft of new tax credits, investment pools and other aids that weren't available until the late '90s or later.
The Book-Cadillac Hotel renovation and several other recent downtown projects got part of their financing from the Detroit Investment Fund, a $52-million private capital fund set up by the corporate leadership group Detroit Renaissance to help revitalize the city.
"I think it's becoming a little more mainstream," said Colin Hubbell, a residential developer who has built several projects in the city's Midtown district. "There's more people that have gotten their arms around what we're doing in urban development."
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