'Bold, new, and more democratic' vision unveiled for East Riverfront

**Junjie** · March-03-17, 11:38 AM

Originally Posted by Gsgeorge

Thanks for the additional links. That last rendering is beautiful - Detroit's own little Grant Park. Would love to see it come to fruition.

I notice we didn't get any update on transit which was part of the initial RFQ... wonder if we'll hear more later? Bus improvements and M-1 extension had both been mentioned back in 2015.

**royce** · March-07-17, 04:39 PM

Originally Posted by dtowncitylover

Ok, not to hijack the thread but what the hell happened to the Rhinoceros Club? I'm looking through the Freep archives and it seems to be a pretty hip place as late as 1998, but within 10 years its closed and hollowed out and then demolished? Did it suffer a fire? Did the failed casino district make it leave? Cool building too...

The building was up for sale at some point after the casino-debacle. It caught on fire at some point before it was sold. It was torn down by the city I presume. However, they left the ruins on the site for several months. At one point, a group of bar owners took the name and renamed a bar in Paradise Valley/Harmonie Park with the Rhinoceros name. That bar now has another name.

**casscorridor** · March-08-17, 11:55 AM

Originally Posted by Gsgeorge

Not sure I agree with removing Larned street, but certainly making it more accessible/narrower would be nice.

Those near-east side superblocks have really stifled that part of town. It's so bland and desolate over there. I'm really hoping the city has plans to remove this district and restore the street grid that existed in that area before Elmwood Park was developed. It's a huge area, I'm surprised it ever happened in the first place. But replacing the city with apartments did nothing to improve that area. It would be much better served with through-streets, corner stores/markets/commercial buildings mixed in. While I welcome the Campau Greenway, I agree with royce that it would be much better as an actual through-street.

I would say it's one of the better areas of the city, positioned very close to Downtown. Improvements to the area can be made through remaking public spaces and pedestrian and bike paths, along with infill development to increase density. The "superblocks" don't really matter. Uninterrupted grids benefit mostly benefit cars. "Campau Greenway" doesn't need auto traffic. There's an over-abundance of "through streets" in Detroit. Cars can go the long way; prioritize pedestrians, bikes and public transport.

**Hypestyles** · March-09-17, 01:58 PM

hopefully a community center will be part of the redevelopment plans.

**Junjie** · March-09-17, 05:12 PM

Originally Posted by casscorridor

I would say it's one of the better areas of the city, positioned very close to Downtown. Improvements to the area can be made through remaking public spaces and pedestrian and bike paths, along with infill development to increase density. The "superblocks" don't really matter. Uninterrupted grids benefit mostly benefit cars. "Campau Greenway" doesn't need auto traffic. There's an over-abundance of "through streets" in Detroit. Cars can go the long way; prioritize pedestrians, bikes and public transport.

Strongly disagree - there's a severe lack of through streets in this part of Detroit, and forcing cars into only a few routes creates large, ugly, highway-roads like Jefferson that are hard to cross and use for pedestrians and cyclists. Uninterrupted grids also benefit pedestrians, transit users, and cyclists by putting the largest amount of places within the shortest distance. See the first image in this post - blue is the area a pedestrian can reach in about 5 mins [[1km walk). There are good reasons why many cities are actively breaking up superblocks from the 60s and 70s to recreate pedestrian-scale street grids.

You can see some visualizations of the extreme difference between the original street grid on the east side of downtown and the failed superblock grid we have today in this document.

**Jason** · March-09-17, 06:05 PM

The superblock argument doesn't really hold for the area north of Jefferson.

The superblocks are permeable by foot and bicycle.

And from a pedestrian point of view the roads that are there, like Chene, are heavily simplified boulevards, which are very easy for pedestrians to safely cross. There are barely any intersections or cut outs and there isn't two way traffic. It's very controlled and predictable. You just look to one side, if there are no cars then you walk to the median.

The roads inside of the developments are mostly low speed parking lots which are also good for pedestrians. Some of them are even low speed mixed car/pedestrian spaces which is as safe as you can get for pedestrians without outright removing the cars [[which all of the pedestrian paths do, btw).

The superblock problem does exist south of Jefferson though because they blocks are so wide.

imo one of the greatest things they could do would be to acquire the land to bisect the wide blocks.

So far all the plan really does is make the obvious choice to remove the private land south of Atwater and fix up the various assets that are already there. Those are good things for sure, but bisecting the big blocks would be very good for the longterm future.

But replacing the city with apartments did nothing to improve that area. It would be much better served with through-streets, corner stores/markets/commercial buildings mixed in. While I welcome the Campau Greenway, I agree with royce that it would be much better as an actual through-street.

That area is the largest and one of the few stable areas in Detroit, and it's one of the only places where you can go where there are minimal signs of physical blight. It has some of the best schools, a community center, parks, a variety of housing typologies for different types of people. It has a comparable density to the occupied parts of the city despite the large amount of park space. It's an affordable area with a range of incomes and it provides some of the highest quality of life in the city. While I agree that the quality of architecture is inconsistent [[not that very many places in the city actually have good design quality anyway), and that commercial should have been better integrated into it, it's hard to make the objective claim that that area is worse off than it would have been.

**stasu1213** · March-10-17, 05:19 AM

Originally Posted by royce

The building was up for sale at some point after the casino-debacle. It caught on fire at some point before it was sold. It was torn down by the city I presume. However, they left the ruins on the site for several months. At one point, a group of bar owners took the name and renamed a bar in Paradise Valley/Harmonie Park with the Rhinoceros name. That bar now has another name.

Larned Street could be a designated bike and pedestrian street

**royce** · April-19-17, 04:33 AM

One area of the east riverfront that could stand improvement is the Stroh River Place surface parking lot. It's directly east of the proposed Atwater Beach. It is an eyesore and an inefficient use of space. Riverfront property for a parking lot! Really? There should be residential on that site. I know parking is needed, so why not build a parking structure on the northern half of the property? Better yet, work out an agreement with the owners of the St. Andrews Bar and owners of the large building just north of their parking lot and build a parking deck on Atwater. Some nice townhouses along the RiverWalk in that location would be ideal. However, please do not build anything like Orleans Landing. I am very disappointed in that development, and I'll comment on that thread once I find it. At any rate, my two cents.