Brush Park: Why Has Work Stalled?

[dove-7]

But beyond that, what else you got to sell me? The house with a history benefit is just a major selling point for one small slice of customers looking to buy a condo. For the rest its a nice benefit, only after they factor in their proximity to shopping, restaurants, bars, ....... neighbors, low crime, good schools, etc....

If you were right, there'd at least be one person in a metro of 5.5 million willing to pick up one of those houses since Superbowl XL. Each of them would be more marketable if they were somewhere else.

And let's not forget the primary reason for lack of renovation and sells. The big E aka economy. There really isn't anything in Detroit anymore. Detroit was what it was because of the auto industry that brought people from all over the country and immigrants here to work. That is what made Detroit a major city. When the majority of business left related to racism, exodus to the suburbs, crime etc. Detroit pretty much turned into a desolate city. And we can't forget about the shitty politics back in Michigan.

Those homes are for a niche market. A very small one. If you don't have things around you to survive in a major city, it's fruitless. You know, stores near you, a solid transit etc. people won't stay long. There has got to be something there to make the city thrive/alive to make them want to stay.

[Zacha341]

As a life long Detroiter I never, ever drive with doors unlocked. Nope. They stay "locked" in the burbs too... I know women who'd had their doors opened and purses grabbed at stop lights. I don't need that.... caution is best.

Considering I've parked on John R for Tigers games probably 150 times without incident [[and no, my car was never broken into, although it was twice on Washington Blvd. in front of the Statler), this is a major exaggeration. The bogey man is not hiding in the bushes waiting for someone to come along. There are so few people in Brush Park right now that it would be pointless for robbers to hang out there waiting. The worst you'll come across is a homeless guy asking for change.

[Zacha341]

Friday night I drove around thru there.... up an down Edmund, Alfred, John R. the back side of the Crosswinds by Woodward etc. Many of the Brush houses I recall a decade or so are gone. More empty lots and some homes on the the more populated streets have full bars on the first floor windows and doors. There's one isolated refurbed house with huge bright spotlights shining on it from the front yard, sitting... not sure what that was about?

I did not realize how close the abandoned Brewster projects where to Brush park, I drove around there too... an eye sore indeed and the more creepy end of the area. One thing that stood out was the Edmunds Place restaurant! It is still in business...and the restoration on this beautiful building is outstanding. I noted the tattered "coming soon" etc signs on other buildings... but it is apparent work has been halted.......

I guess I didn't think of it that way. It's probably been 5 years since I actually drove through Brush Park. I have not actually seen how open it is.

[Huggybear]

This thread is so typical of Dyes threads - it's myopic. Your favorite Victorian house in Brush Park is not being renovated, so nothing is [[or ever has been) done there. The same is true of the Lafayette Building threads - you suddenly show interest in something, and then it's emblematic. Ahem.

You can correct my history [[I got here in the late 1970s), [[historic) Brush Park has not, within the lifetime of anyone on DetroitYes, been a desirable neighborhood - having been abandoned by two different groups before becoming a working-class tenement area around [[or after WWII). As such, I think it's fair to say that Brush Park [[at least what's left now) has been in decline longer than it has existed.

One problem is demand writ large - and the other is demand for houses that cost more to reconstruct [[yes, reconstruct, not renovate) than they would be ever be worth, subsidies and tax breaks notwithstanding. That's not an economically sustainable model - and probably precisely the reason that most of you [[DetroitYes people) are not dumping your life savings into restoring the old Victorians. You want someone else to take that loss. Sorry you're not finding any takers.

And when you look at what they will ever be worth, consider that the location bordered by two freeways [[I-75N and I-75S) and a seven-lane road [[Woodward) is not tremendous. And that's to say nothing of the horrendous neighborhood that surrounds and includes the former Brewster Projects [[follow the I-75S service drive to its end point if you want a really good look). The fact that the Brewster Projects ended up there is a good indicator of how bad the neighborhood was by the 1950s.

Are the Crosswinds condos the best-looking option? Probably not, given the new condos nearer to Brush & I-75. Even Crosswinds did some nicer ones in Dearborn off Michigan, behind the Starbucks. But they were what the market could bear at the time. They're not bad, nor are they the best. Has the pace been slow? Yes. But if you can't sell the units, how are you supposed to get a bank to finance more?

Are they appropriate in scale? Yes. This was never a mid-rise neighborhood, except in a couple of apartment buildings that became hellholes over the decades [[well, at least until they were gutted and renovated recently). Remember that the former Motown Building was the sole structure over two stories on the north side of Vernor Highway [[now I-75).

I think in sum, Brush Park is adequately bookended by restored historic buildings and that if someone came in with a proposal to in-fill all the gaps with something that was at least historically compatible and economically viable, I would clear-cut the remaining dis-occupied Victorians in a second. Go up to Ferry east John R if you want to see some nice infills. As someone pointed out, people want to live in a "complete" neighborhood, not one with random decaying structures. We should be respectful of history - but not to the point where we have no future. And what is new now, if done right, will be historic in the future.

Some further points for thought:

1. If people in their peak earning [[and taxpaying) years very often have families, why would we ever want multi-unit developments that peak out at or under 1,500 square feet? The economics in Detroit [[and I have asked several developers about this) do not support multi-unit dwellings above that size.

2. Why do people agitate for multistory construction on Woodward where it never existed? That's not exactly being historically-minded.

3. Is clear-cutting and rebuilding the Brewster neighborhood an idea whose time has come? Political implications aside, Lafayette Park [[Detroit's most notable neighborhood to the outside world) benefited greatly from the ability to build from the ground up - and is one of Detroit's most stable neighborhoods. And if you look at the values of the Mies townhouses [[witness the courtyard houses routinely selling at $2K a sf), they're among the highest per unit size in the city.

4. And on the "intermediate" solutions - having been a spectator on various in-fill and gradual replacement projects over the better part of a decade, I can only offer the observation that these either don't get finished or they don't get done in a way that really makes anyone happy. Maybe we need to understand that eventually you hit a tipping point where a historic neighborhood is no longer defined by the historic structures. I give the people who decided to try to save Brush park in the late 80s/early 90s credit for at least trying to reconstruct a neighborhood that was not otherwise coming back - and getting a lot of the job done.