Mayor Duggan Proclaims Progress During State of City Address

By Sherri Kolade

On Tuesday, March 7, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan gave his 10th State of the City speech at Michigan Central Station, aptly representing buoying hope, resiliency and history.

Duggan delivered his annual address live in the newly renovated Grand Lobby of Michigan Central Station, the center of Michigan Central’s hub for advancing new technologies and programs that overcome barriers to greater social, economic and physical mobility.

The historic Station, which has served as a symbol of Detroit’s deterioration around the world for decades, is expected to be repaired and usable by the end of this year.

“When it opened in 1913, the city had 100,000 visitors a year,” Duggan said to a packed crowd of the historic site, which was shuttered in 1988 after the last train left and blight entered the picture on the aging, downtrodden facility. “This was their [the guest’s] first impression of our town.”

In 2009, Detroit City Council voted 7-1 for its demolition.

“The people who blocked demolition were the ones who felt it had value,” Duggan, elected in 2013, said. “I knew one thing for sure it was not going to be demolished.”

Duggan, who took heat years earlier for an agreement with the station’s owners to put new windows on the facility in 2015 (some described it as putting lipstick on a pig), said that the criticism eventually turned into praise.

“When the windows started going in the effect was electric,” Duggan said of the building’s facelift looking better and in turn making the city shine a bit brighter, too.

During Duggan’s rousing address, he discussed how the city didn’t remain so economically viable—even roughly around a decade ago.

Less than a month after entering office, in January 2014, the mayor delivered his first State of the City address. At the time, the city was bankrupt, under emergency management, and was struggling to provide even the most basic services. Since that time, the city has seen the biggest construction boom since the 1950s, the lowest unemployment rate in more than 20 years and a historically high increase in property values in practically every neighborhood.

An increase in the city’s economy is good news for everyone, like job seekers (thousands more positions will soon become available) or residents redefining Detroit through their remarkable works and volunteerism.

From Detroit surpassing Silicon Valley in electric vehicle production and manufacturing (with new charging opportunities coming online soon) to the passage of Proposal N – progress is being made in the city and many ad- vancements are also coming from Black developers.

“We have developers from this community building across the city,” Duggan said during the address.

An example is the Fisher Body 21 factory, which will be transformed into 433 apartments and a public market as part of a $134 million development project led by builders Greg Jackson and Richard Hosey. They also hope to provide affordable housing to the city’s Greater New Center region.

Jackson and Hosey are not alone.

From developers to owners, an emerging crop of Black-led projects is coming online across the city and the roughly one-year-old Detroit Pizza Bar in Detroit is no exception.

The Black-owned pizzeria, which opened last April 1, was given a shoutout in Duggan’s speech as exemplifying one of the many bourgeoning businesses improving commercial corridors and businesses, especially in neighborhoods like Livernois-Six Mile (Live6). The project, funded by the Strategic Neighborhood Fund, a public-private partnership aimed at improving 10 neighborhoods throughout Detroit, is one more meaningful way of how the city helps emerging business owners.

Byron Osbern, co-partner at the Detroit Pizza Bar, told the Michigan Chron-