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Michigan Chronicle

Vol. 81 – Number 14 | December 13-19, 2017

City seeking proposals for Lee Plaza, Woodland Apartments The City of Detroit and the Detroit Building Authority recently announced that they are seeking proposals to redevelop Lee Plaza and Woodland Apartments, two historic apartment buildings located among the fastest growing areas of the city. The two projects would include nearly 250 mixed-income units in total. The city is requiring developers to set aside more than 20 percent of the units in each building for individuals making $38,000 a year or less at Woodland Apartments and Lee Plaza. “For years these buildings have been seen as a symbol of our city’s decline. In partnership with developers in the community, they will become examples of the city’s resurgence that is now reaching into more neighborhoods and becoming more accessible to people of all income levels,” said Mayor Mike Duggan. “We’ve seen progress in the areas around both Lee Plaza and Woodland Apartments. While these are challenging projects, these buildings can become major anchors in these communities.” The redevelopment requests come after a $1.7 million transaction earlier this year with the Detroit Housing Commission that transferred Lee Plaza and Woodland Apartment buildings to the Detroit Building Authority, as well as 127 single family properties to the Detroit Land Bank Authority. Many of the vacant single family homes couldn’t be sold under DHC guidelines, but under the deal, they are being added to the Land Bank’s auction website. The deal also positioned the DHC to become a high-performing commission, which gives it more flexibility to apply for federal and state programs. Lee Plaza Lee Plaza was constructed in 1928 as a luxury apartment hotel, featuring hotel-like amenities for residents such as a concierge and room service. While it has been vacant since 1997, Lee Plaza continues to be one of the most architecturally significant towers in Detroit, built with elaborate detail. Lee Plaza is located in the NW Goldberg neighbor-

George N’Namdi — PHOTO: Montez Miller

N’Namdi has a plan:

Create an art district in Detroit By Keith A. Owens Senior Editor

Detroit development is one of the hottest topics in the city. George N’Namdi, owner of the N’Namdi Gallery located in what is now Midtown (but was the Cass Corridor during the gallery’s earlier days), has gotten a peek at what he believes can be the future of development in Detroit. First, it’s not downtown. Second, it’s not all white people. “A lot of the opportunities for downtown are gone, by and large. One of the reasons is what it costs to play now. You have a multi-billionaire who’s leading the development,” said N’Namdi. The vision of Detroit’s rapidly growing downtown and surrounding areas has given hope to many that the city’s comeback story is for real this time. Plus, the relatively recent rollout of proposed neighborhood developments has at least temporarily placated the critics who have consistently drawn attention to the yawning gap between downtown and everywhere else, because now there does seem to be no small amount of attention being paid to the areas where the majority of Detroiters who didn’t just arrive actually live. The best development opportunities for black developers are in the neighborhoods, and N’Namdi hopes that others can see what he sees on a broader scale,

which is maintaining a strong black presence in the city’s growth plans. On a more scaled-down vision, N’Namdi is looking at a specific area of Detroit — Grand River between Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King — where he envisions something similar to a Harlem Renaissance type of community where culture, arts and raw intellectual stimulation could be unleashed simply by affording a welcoming space to those most willing to appreciate such a space. “We need to have more of an art district. I do see it as more of a diverse place that brings all sorts of people there. We need to have more of an intellectual environment here. and an environment that is inclusive. Because when people of color are the developers, you end up with a more diverse development than when the person is European, he said. “Europeans generally fall back on the 25% rule” which aims to keep the level of non-whites at no higher than 20-25% in order for it to be sustainable. Any higher than that and the belief among too many white developers is that the neighborhood automatically deteriorates because anything over 25% is when white people start leaving the neighborhood. “I want a city where, like Brooklyn, where you have that whole intellectual vibe. See, we don’t have a place where young people — professional, intellectual — can really hang out.”

He continued, “What I’m seeing is that we have a need in Detroit: one, to maintain the African American presence and energy in terms of development, and just the overall vibe of Detroit because Detroit is a city that is very unique from other cities because of African Americans’ role in it. African Americans have more of an ownership role here than practically any other city that I know of. We have a history of owning. It’s not the size of the African American community, it’s more the mentality. Detroiters will always say, we can go anywhere and do things.” Which, to N’Namdi’s way of thinking, explains why he expanded his gallery to include one in Chicago and another in New York. His son has a gallery in Miami. It was Detroit that gave him the confidence to push outward, without fear that something could maybe go wrong. “There is a funk here in Detroit, and the base of that funk is grit. That means we can just keep going,” he said. “Someone said to me, ‘Wow, you know what? You have three galleries in the African American intellectual meccas.’ Detroit allowed me to be able open in Chicago and New York without fear. Detroit empowers African Americans. It’s somewhat of a sidebar, but that’s one reason why today it’s a challenge for us because our power came from having

See N'NAMDI page A-4

See PROPOSALS page A-4

WHAT’S INSIDE

Will Coalition recommendations produce brighter future for DPSCD? Time will tell, but there are good signs

Robert Bobb’s tenure began in 2009, it had become painfully apparent that the supposed goal of emergency management — to restore DPS to health and prosperity — wasn’t anywhere close to being achieved, nor would it ever be under a system that had essentially been designed to remove any amount of community input and control over its own schools, meaning parents and voters had little to no say over what was being done with their tax dollars when it came to expenditures related to public education.

By Keith A. Owens Senior Editor

HUD Secretary Ben Carson unveils EnVision at Boys and Girls Club gala See Roots B1

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Three years ago, when the Coalition for the Future of Detroit Schoolchildren was formed, it wasn’t at all a solid bet — or necessarily a smart one — whether such a broad range of so many participants from such diverse backgrounds, with so many apparent agendas, could ever do much to move the needle in any noticeable fashion on public and charter education in Detroit. There was concern about whether this was more about posturing than anything else, especially since the given deadline for the members (33 on the steering committee and six cochairs) to accomplish its ambitious set of goals was roughly three months.

So yes, emergency management had to go.

Tonya Allen, Coalition co-chair and Skillman Foundation CEO, with two of the many children she has worked with over the years Yeah, right. One of the most important and urgent of those goals was to deliver DPSCD (DPS at the time) from under the oppressive burden of emergency management and return the school

system to the voters via an elected school board and chosen superintendent. After suffering under the oppressive weight of four successive state-appointed emergency managers since emergency manager number one

Last week, the Coalition, which is still together years past the 90-day deadline, issued a report containing six priority recommendations designed to hopefully launch DPSCD towards a future that is as bright as its recent past has been tumultuous and troubled. Time

See DPSCD page A4