New Large Medical Warehouse in Midtown!!

[gthomas]

http://www.freep.com/article/2012053...xt%7CFRONTPAGE

[Detroitnerd]

Oooh! A warehouse!

[dmike76]

Hey, it ain't sexy. At all. But it's sexier than the abandoned buildings that it's replacing.

[Mind field]

Oooh! A warehouse!

Well the 140 jobs moving from Romulus to Detroit is something to Oooh about!

[AGinthe313]

Actually looks better than the WholeFoods rendering - lol

[SWMAP]

Jobs in logistics and sales bringing new life to a neighborhood; helping create a medical nexus and amplify Detroit's medical excellence reputation with ancillary services.

[Detroitnerd]

Yup, three cheers from the "at least they gonna build sumptin" crowd. All they have to do is remove all the old buildings, do away with the street grid, add shit-tons of parking, and WHEE -- 140 jobs!

[gameguy56]

Jobs in logistics and sales bringing new life to a neighborhood; helping create a medical nexus and amplify Detroit's medical excellence reputation with ancillary services.

Is this a Press Release?

[SWMAP]

Just how I see it.

[Detroitnerd]

Eds and meds can be great. They did good things for Philly and Pittsburgh, and helped diversify the kinds of jobs in the inner city.

My worries are the same old worries I have about anything else here: The narrow scope of imagination, the pedestrian quality of architecture, the outrageous parking demands, the dissolution of the street grid, the lack of reuse of structures, the paltry benefits to the surrounding community -- basically the fact that our leading lights usually do things in the most regressive, utilitarian way, then condemn critics as bashing "job-creators" or some such thing.

Basically, we had this out about two years ago when the project was announced. I don't know where the thread is now ...

[dmike76]

What would you suggest be done with that area, Detroitnerd? If all it is is a bunch of old railroad tracks and empty petroleum and manufacturing buildings, then I'm all for it. I love sarcastic comments with no solutions or valid ideas to back them up.

The joint effort with the Detroit Medical Center and Cardinal Health, a Dublin, Ohio health company, will build a large medical warehouse to the area just west of the Ford and Lodge freeways, on land pock-marked with old railroad tracks and empty petroleum and manufacturing buildings.

[SWMAP]

Detroitnerd seems to prefer "street art" as the way to help Detroit grow into a finer City. That really dresses up the neighborhood WAY more than pedestrian warehouses . He touts the gentlemen's agreements that keep hoodlums and gangsters from tagging over the "street art" [[as its advocates insist) and acts shocked when it IS tagged over and becomes even more of a mess than it was. He thinks the itinerant street "artists" contribute so much more to the quality of life in our city than a mere 140 jobs in a "pedestrian warehouse" will.

[dmike76]

As boring as they are, an active warehouse is much more productive than blight. And guess what? All big cities have boring warehouses. Thousands of them. I think that it's safe to say Detroit needs more 'pedestrian' warehouses in the city. Not before decent neighborhoods, city services, etc. of course.

[Detroitnerd]

What would you suggest be done with that area, Detroitnerd? If all it is is a bunch of old railroad tracks and empty petroleum and manufacturing buildings, then I'm all for it. I love sarcastic comments with no solutions or valid ideas to back them up.

I call bullshit. Just because you think a plan is pedestrian or shitty doesn't mean the onus is on little ol' you to think up a better plan. I know a lot of well-meaning boosters love to try to use the why-tear-down-without-building-up fallacy to shush people who think we can do better, but I'm afraid I'm not impressed.

Whatever. Want to give up 300 acres of street grid? It's a wonderfully quixotic street grid that could be rebuilt the way it was platted someday, but once the grid is obliterated it can't be brought back. Detroit has good bones for redevelopment, but not as long as we keep sweeping them away to get 140 jobs. I'm sure it breaks down to gaining about three or four jobs for every block lost. I have no doubt that this plan will go through, and that in 100 years these inorganic forms will be dead zones where nobody wants to build because it wasn't built to human scale. That's cool. Detroit's tough. It can take another couple hundred acres of abandoned warehouses and baking asphalt.

Eds and meds can be good for cities. But when you look at someplace like the Medical Center, personally, on every level other than economic activity, that place is awful. I'd never want to spend more than a moment there. If that's the current vision for cities, I think, yeah, we can do better.

[Detroitnerd]

Detroitnerd seems to prefer "street art" as the way to help Detroit grow into a finer City. That really dresses up the neighborhood WAY more than pedestrian warehouses . He touts the gentlemen's agreements that keep hoodlums and gangsters from tagging over the "street art" [[as its advocates insist) and acts shocked when it IS tagged over and becomes even more of a mess than it was. He thinks the itinerant street "artists" contribute so much more to the quality of life in our city than a mere 140 jobs in a "pedestrian warehouse" will.

Why are you trying to deflect, SW? Why not just start a thread on something you want to talk about and we can discuss the merits of that issue there? Kinda childish behavior. I'm surprised, SW. You're an intelligent person with good opinions who shouldn't have to stoop to this kind of stuff ...

[SWMAP]

Just helping you out in your quest to make readers understand your sneering disdain of pedestrian work and preference for more artistic stuff.

[Detroitnerd]

Just helping you out in your quest to make readers understand your sneering disdain of pedestrian work and preference for more artistic stuff.

I see. I'm critical. And you don't like that.

So you're going to get MORE critical and throw every low, base critical trick in the book at me.

Because I'm critical.

Oh, brother.

[Wheels]

It's a wonderfully quixotic street grid .

Definition of QUIXOTIC. 1: foolishly impractical especially in the pursuit of ideals; especially: marked by rash lofty romantic ideas or extravagantly chivalrous action

Nice argument!

[Detroitnerd]

Definition of QUIXOTIC. 1: foolishly impractical especially in the pursuit of ideals; especially: marked by rash lofty romantic ideas or extravagantly chivalrous action

Nice argument!

Haha. Yeah. Tell that to the West Village. I never could make sense of the streets on the west side south of 14th Street in Manhattan. But the results were often interesting. Narrow streets that turned onto unexpected blocks, shade-dappled lanes that opened onto busy thoroughfares. The decaying warehouses of the meat packing district, now home to fabulous nightclubs.

But that's OK. What the hell. Lay out large, prefabricated warehouse buildings in nice open parking lots with wonderful, wonderful four-lane thoroughfares. It will have all the beauty and luxury -- and practicality!! -- of Macomb County.

[gazhekwe]

There is a significant patch over there with no "street grid" just north of the tracks between Trumbull and Rosa Parks. It would be nice if they could get more specific about the location.

http://goo.gl/maps/Zqx4

[DetroitPlanner]

This may not seem like much at first glance, but it is a good example of agglomeration effect. This effect created places like New York's garmet district or Detroit's manufacturing know-how.

[Detroitnerd]

There is a significant patch over there with no "street grid" just north of the tracks between Trumbull and Rosa Parks. It would be nice if they could get more specific about the location.

http://goo.gl/maps/Zqx4

Well, since I know they probably won't be able to do anything east of Lincoln [[I have friends who live there own a building or two), I imagine we're talking almost everything in between 16th Street and Lincoln, the Boulevard and the Ford Freeway. I'm thinking a 60-block area centered on Rosa Parks/12th?

[Wheels]

The bottom line is HFMS is about to invest 500 million along with another 500 million from investors in that area. t
There is a lot more coming with a lot more jobs attached. This is just the beginning.

With that kind of commitment to Detroit they can build any dam thing they please!

[Detroitnerd]

Oh, yes. The bottom line. Very easy to see on a document.

Not so easy to see over the centuries of a city's life, though.

Whatever. I'm sure future generations will throng there and celebrate our shining warehouse on a hill.

[SWMAP]

Detroitnerd says this warehouse will take up a 60-block area. The article says that the project will use 300 acres.

Google [[http://www.asknumbers.com/acre-to-square-mile.aspx) tells us that: 300 Acres = 0.4687500 Sq Mile
Google says that one-half square mile converts to 128 midwest urban blocks:
http://www.convertunits.com/from/square+city+block+[Midwest+U.S.]/to/square+mile

Much bigger than Nerd anticiaped. However, Detroit can easily afford to give over 128 pocked vacant that are not shady lanes:

"Detroit’s thinning population is vividly – some would say disturbingly – illustrated in a new map that is creating a buzz in local planning circles.
The map shows how to tuck the land mass of Manhattan [[23 square miles), San Francisco [[47 square miles) and Boston [[48 square miles) — and their combined populations of nearly 3 million people — into Detroit. All three urban areas fit snugly within Detroit’s 139 square miles with room to spare.
Detroit, where the population peaked at 2 million in the early 1950s, is home to about 900,000 today and is still losing people. The depopulation and demolition of abandoned properties has left the city dotted with thousands of vacant parcels, ranging from single home lots to open fields of many acres.
The map is the handiwork of Dan Pitera, a professor of architecture at University of Detroit Mercy. He says he created it as a simple and dramatic illustration of how underpopulated Detroit has become.
To see for yourself: Use Google Earth or a similar computer program to fly over the city and see how many vacant parcels you can find. Pitera estimates that all that empty land adds up to about 40 square miles — nearly the land mass of San Francisco."