WSU will try to raise funds for new Hilberry Gateway project

**emu steve** · May-10-14, 06:02 AM

http://www.freep.com/article/2014050...ateway-Midtown

Cass and Forest. But isn't it really Cass and Hancock?

BTW, as has been mentioned, WSU has big important blocks at Woodward and Warren [[SW corner) and the site which was supposed to house a new Bus Ad building, think it is Warren and Ferry [[?) which will be critical to the development of Woodward in Midtown.

**DetroitPlanner** · May-10-14, 08:37 AM

I wish WSU luck on this. It won't be easy expanding the university for a non-bio-tech-law sort of project. The money is just not there for the arts in our greedy society.

**Danny** · May-10-14, 12:00 PM

OH! Wayne State University have the funds within 3 to 5 years at least. It work with their various campus projects, including Tech Town.

I remember that area used to be Forest Apts. I used to live there for two years while was in WSU. It's was getting very old and poorly maintained. I even got stuck in the elevator twice. Now its long gone and dirt filled parking lot. A new state of the art theater would benefit Midtown.

**poobert** · May-11-14, 04:17 PM

I still worry about the Mackenzie house. Ironically, WSU has possibly the worst record of preservation [[in part due to its longevity) in the city. In the 1960s there were plans to level all of Woodbridge for more athletic fields and complexes. I still think the unwelcome center at Woodward and Warren is a mistake. It's huge and ungainly, makes poor use of the massive amount of space it takes up, and, speaking as an alumni, serves virtually no purpose. There are multiple administration buildings on campus already, and all I ever did there was pay tuition to some dumb person once or twice [[which could have been accomplished in a facility the size of a cubicle).

All I'm saying is: be ever wary of the mind-numbing WSU bureaucracy and what its next move may be. I'm not sure they can even concoct a coherent scheme at this point, since they go through a new President every year or so.

The rendering also looks like the typical WSU-green-glass-insipid-early-21st-century-crap school of architectural thought.

For the Hillberry though, it seems like good news. I do find Detroit's theatre scene, as much touted as it is, to be lacking, and WSU has a fine theatre department.