Quote Originally Posted by Novine View Post
"It would take forever for those blocks to develop one by one [[or 1/3 by 1/3, i.e. a single building on a block which could hold three buildings) via traditional development."

It takes forever in Detroit because you have land speculators along with empire builders, like Ilitch, who sit on property forever, whether there's a demand for development or not. Are we supposed to believe that the entire area behind the Fox/Fillmore is almost entirely vacant because there was no demand for that property? Add to that the city's Byzantine process of permitting and the interference run by the likes of the DDA and Demolition Jackson, when he was in charge, and you have an environment that discourages any kind of development other than the mega developments like Ilitch is proposing. This isn't just a Detroit thing. I've seen this in other cities where they actively discourage incremental development hoping, sometimes for decades, for some mega development to suck up all that vacant land.
You are both right, but in this case, Novine is more right. Going all-in on this concept is simply the best hope to rectify all of the issues for this space of the city, whether caused by Illitch or not. To the extent the building boom loses steam [[perhaps west of the Fox) one would really hope that the Illitch empire gets splintered up so that piecemeal development can occur.