Discuss Detroit » Archives - Beginning July 2006 » Waterfront Estates « Previous Next »
Top of pageBottom of page

Nativegirl
Member
Username: Nativegirl

Post Number: 64
Registered: 01-2004
Posted From: 12.75.44.206
Posted on Wednesday, August 30, 2006 - 9:05 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Is anybody familiar with this new project of million dollars estates that is being built along Lycaste and St. Jean St? Someone in construction gave me the community's brochure. I told him that this was the old GarWood mansion site. Although he's a life long Detroiter, he was not familiar with GarWood.
Top of pageBottom of page

Bibs
Member
Username: Bibs

Post Number: 555
Registered: 10-2003
Posted From: 152.163.100.8
Posted on Wednesday, August 30, 2006 - 9:23 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

My father works at Conner's Creek power plant so I know there are plans to put condos on the site. That's about all I know. That and the PetroChem plant down the street caught fire on Monday.
Top of pageBottom of page

Royce
Member
Username: Royce

Post Number: 1789
Registered: 07-2004
Posted From: 69.209.137.86
Posted on Wednesday, August 30, 2006 - 10:09 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

The development is just south of the Petrochem plant that caught fire on Monday. I think the fire is going to put a damper on whether or not this development is completed. Some homes are already up but not completed. Given the size of the homes they look to be in the $400,000+ price range.
Top of pageBottom of page

Skipp
Member
Username: Skipp

Post Number: 91
Registered: 06-2005
Posted From: 68.43.105.124
Posted on Wednesday, August 30, 2006 - 11:01 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Anybody know of some new park in that area?
Top of pageBottom of page

Royce
Member
Username: Royce

Post Number: 1795
Registered: 07-2004
Posted From: 69.209.137.86
Posted on Thursday, August 31, 2006 - 1:23 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Maharas-Gentry park is the biggest park near by. Take Conner and go south of Freud until Conner runs straight into the park. Some major renovations were made to the park that added a number of little league baseball diamonds and a landscaped pond. It was very crowed there last Sunday.

BTW, I stumbled across what I think is a new park at the foot of Alter Road and the riverfront called Mariner's Park. Looks like it replaced a portion of the trailer park that used to be along that part of the river. Anyone have the scoop on this park? Thanks.

(Message edited by royce on August 31, 2006)
Top of pageBottom of page

Irish_mafia
Member
Username: Irish_mafia

Post Number: 622
Registered: 10-2003
Posted From: 69.216.143.252
Posted on Thursday, August 31, 2006 - 6:04 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Royce, your not talking about Angel PArk are you? That's at the foot of Alter at the river.
Top of pageBottom of page

Royce
Member
Username: Royce

Post Number: 1796
Registered: 07-2004
Posted From: 69.209.137.86
Posted on Thursday, August 31, 2006 - 7:55 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Mariner's Park is on the Detroit side of Alter Road. It's about 100 yards east of Riverfront-Lakewood Park. This park is essentially connected to the Alfred Brush Ford Park which you enter from Lakewood and Freud streets. I've seen different names for these latter two parks. However, Mariner's Park looks very new and has a sign that points to Wayne County's involvement, eventhough it is run by the Detroit Department of Recreation.
Top of pageBottom of page

Mikem
Member
Username: Mikem

Post Number: 2797
Registered: 10-2003
Posted From: 68.43.15.105
Posted on Friday, September 01, 2006 - 3:45 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Mariner Park was built where the old Marine Hospital was located. See the first link in this thread:

US Marine Hospital in Detroit


Top of pageBottom of page

Janesback
Member
Username: Janesback

Post Number: 57
Registered: 08-2006
Posted From: 69.153.7.127
Posted on Friday, September 01, 2006 - 5:15 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

mm, snow,. I can't begin to tell you what a welcome site that is, considering its about 102 degrees outside. I just got chills looking at that photo. :-) Jane
Top of pageBottom of page

Bindetroit
Member
Username: Bindetroit

Post Number: 1257
Registered: 10-2003
Posted From: 69.246.117.31
Posted on Monday, September 04, 2006 - 11:44 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

From Crain's Detroit Business - Auigust 21, 2006:

Creative financing, incentives drive Detroit development

By Tom Henderson and Robert Ankeny

A sales trailer had not yet gone in, the ad campaign hadn’t begun, and none of the first 15 homes were near completion. But by early August, six homes in Morgan Waterfront Estates had sold, by word of mouth alone, at prices ranging from $580,000 to $880,000.

Sterling Heights-based Morgan Development L.L.C. broke ground on the project, on the Detroit River next to the Detroit Edison Conner Creek plant on Detroit’s east side, five months ago.

For years, city officials have talked of reclaiming the Detroit riverfront. Morgan Waterfront Estates is the latest proof that creative financing and tax incentives are helping to reshape the waterfront.

The 43-acre Morgan project area, once a repository for pyramids of coal, is to include 43 single-family homes, ranging from 3,500 to 7,000 square feet, all with three-car garages, at prices from $450,000 to $1.2 million by the time construction on all three phases ends in three or four years,

Also planned are 88 low-rise condominiums, to sell from $190,000 to $250,000 and 198 condos in a 23-story high rise, ranging from $425,000 to $1 million for a penthouse.

Belle Isle sits to the south across the river. A deep-water, 1,400-foot inlet bisects the property, and will allow boat docks at 12 of the homes once a breakway is completed. The inlet is wide enough and deep enough that Great Lakes freighters once steamed in to dump their tons of coal.

The two best lots, with water frontage and unfettered views of the island, will be developed last, and the developer hopes houses there will fetch $1.2 million or more each.

Carnell Carter and Nathaniel Hall are two buyers. Both are Detroiters from the west side who said they decided to buy on the east side because of the lure of the water, and the lure of property-tax abatements.

Hall and his wife, Shakeisha, “looked at the site plan, and we thought it would be a premier development,” Hall said. “All the amenities really mattered, and the tax abatement was a big part of it.”

When asked why he decided to move into what was a much more expensive house than what he has now, Carter said he liked the amenities that came with the houses, the proximity to the river, the idea of being in a gated community, and that “there were a lot of tax incentives.”

Both expect to move in before Christmas.

NEZ abatements at Morgan Waterfront Estates were approved by city and state officials for the legal maximum of 12 years, reducing the city tax rate from 67 mills to 17 mills for home owners. For example, on a $600,000 house with a taxable value of $300,000, annual taxes would be around $5,100, rather than about $20,100.

“The city has been just superb. I’ve been doing this 30 years and compared to some of the suburbs we work in, how can I say it? It’s one of the most talented, energetic staffs I’ve ever worked with,” said Dennis Nowak, vice president of project management for the Morgan Development.

“If this was in the suburbs, I’d have figured two years from buying the land to getting the permits to starting construction. Here it took a year. And we could have got going in six months but we had to do the brownfield tax credits through the state,” he said.


Morgan Development is owned by Jerome Morgan, who also owns Harbor Hill Marina a few blocks to the west, and recently closed on an 18-acre site on the river a few blocks to the east, along Lenox Street. The proposed name for an eventual development there is Lenox Waterfront Estates.


Associated Environmental Services L.L.C. of Bloomfield Hills coordinated for Morgan Waterfront Estates the various approvals required for the tax-increment financing that brownfield development is eligible for. The project required approval by the Detroit Brownfield Redevelopment Authority, the Michigan Economic Development Corp. and the Michigan Economic Growth Authority, according to AES President Nicholas Maloof.

Under brownfield-development rules, the developer pays for site preparation and remediation and infrastructure improvements.

Maloff said Morgan will be reimbursed about $11.6 million from property-tax collections and gets a $3.9 million single-business-tax credit for a total of $15.5 million in incentives. The SBT credit is based on 10 percent of the $39 million development cost.
Top of pageBottom of page

Broken_main
Member
Username: Broken_main

Post Number: 1153
Registered: 06-2005
Posted From: 69.222.11.226
Posted on Thursday, September 07, 2006 - 12:18 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I drove past these estates the other day. Of course they are big estate homes but putting them in that area just didn't seem to make a lot of sense to me.
Top of pageBottom of page

Jerome81
Member
Username: Jerome81

Post Number: 1091
Registered: 11-2003
Posted From: 64.142.86.133
Posted on Thursday, September 07, 2006 - 1:29 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Why don't they reduce the taxes for everyone in the city by the same amount?
Top of pageBottom of page

Broken_main
Member
Username: Broken_main

Post Number: 1157
Registered: 06-2005
Posted From: 69.222.11.226
Posted on Thursday, September 07, 2006 - 1:30 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Jerome81..that sounds too much like right!!!
Top of pageBottom of page

Lmichigan
Member
Username: Lmichigan

Post Number: 4363
Registered: 10-2003
Posted From: 67.177.81.18
Posted on Thursday, September 07, 2006 - 4:37 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Because the city would be in bigger financial disarray than it already is. Where would it make up those lost taxes? It is a very tricky chicken/egg situation, though. At the moment, these tax reductions are being used as a means to try and offset the continued exodus of the tax base, so they are really trying to plug a hole in the Titantic, so to speak. The only fiscal reason for a city as cash-strapped as Detroit to cut taxes would be if they felt that it was mostly taxes that was detering enough potential residents, or pushing out too many citizens.

And, it seems to be that they could cut taxes until they were blue in the face, until the schools are brought back to competitive levels, crime brought down considerably, among other things, many of the neighborhoods will never be "desirable" enough to compete for potential residents with other "desirable" neighborhoods in the city and suburbs. It just such a difficult and complicated problem, and you wonder if there is anyway Detroit can win considering the times

(Message edited by lmichigan on September 07, 2006)
Top of pageBottom of page

Royce
Member
Username: Royce

Post Number: 1809
Registered: 07-2004
Posted From: 69.209.132.28
Posted on Tuesday, September 12, 2006 - 12:07 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

On Sunday I passed the Petrochem plant on Freud that caught on fire a couple of weeks ago. It was spewing out some nice smelly smoke from one of its smoke stacks. Can't wait to move into my half-million dollar house just south of it where I can catch a whiff of that smoke everyday. Yay!

(Message edited by royce on September 12, 2006)
Top of pageBottom of page

Karl
Member
Username: Karl

Post Number: 3985
Registered: 09-2005
Posted From: 68.110.101.59
Posted on Tuesday, September 12, 2006 - 1:08 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Seems like the city can afford to "cut" taxes to develop areas that aren't generating any significant tax revenue at the moment. Combine the new tax revenue (compared to -0-) with added sales tax activity within the city and it begins to make sense.

Since Detroit has an abundance of vacant land currently generating nothing but headaches, seems like expanding this program would be great for the city, resulting in more revenue all around.

The end goal would be tax cuts for everyone, but I digress............
Top of pageBottom of page

Mikem
Member
Username: Mikem

Post Number: 2849
Registered: 10-2003
Posted on Saturday, September 16, 2006 - 10:27 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Introducing Morgan Waterfront Estates:















Top of pageBottom of page

Detroitplanner
Member
Username: Detroitplanner

Post Number: 196
Registered: 04-2006
Posted on Saturday, September 16, 2006 - 10:53 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Wow all brick McMansions! Upscale suburbs have found the City!
Top of pageBottom of page

Patrick
Member
Username: Patrick

Post Number: 3591
Registered: 10-2003
Posted on Saturday, September 16, 2006 - 11:26 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

fark! looks like they ripped those things out from Shelby Township and brought em down to the D.


next!
Top of pageBottom of page

Lmichigan
Member
Username: Lmichigan

Post Number: 4447
Registered: 10-2003
Posted on Sunday, September 17, 2006 - 5:04 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

It seems only one of the models is halfway decent, but there is room enough in Detroit for all types of housing, so I'm not going to complain too much. It is ironic, though, that sometimes housing developments can almost seem as disappointing as vacant lands. lol I do wonder how these will hold up over the next few decades, though. Certainly not worse than the wood-framed/faced houses, but I really doubt for what they cost we'll be looking back at these with the same "suburban" homes that rose in Sherwood Forest and Palmer Woods. Even historic auto-oriented suburbia was given more attention to detail than houses twice the cost today.

(Message edited by lmichigan on September 17, 2006)
Top of pageBottom of page

Dtown1
Member
Username: Dtown1

Post Number: 159
Registered: 08-2006
Posted on Sunday, September 17, 2006 - 11:53 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

MikeM, I do want to point something out. The people seeing part of the old seven sisters factories may change their mind rapidly about moving over there. The city probably's building over there because of all the water. However, thats only one aspect to look at. The middle and upper class folks arent going to move in a polluted area like that.They want somewhere where they can breathe clean fresh air. So to me, these suburban styles homes arent afeecting anything whenn it comes to the populations. So in other words, the govrenment truly isnt doing anything but paying an arm and a leg for developers to build 3 times as big homes than what most people moving into these homes should need.
Top of pageBottom of page

Motorcitymayor2026
Member
Username: Motorcitymayor2026

Post Number: 1313
Registered: 10-2005
Posted on Sunday, September 17, 2006 - 12:26 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

hmm..

looks like my neighborhood. Interesting for Detroit
Top of pageBottom of page

Detroit313
Member
Username: Detroit313

Post Number: 190
Registered: 02-2006
Posted on Sunday, September 17, 2006 - 1:28 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

It's looking very nice over there. Not a big fan of having the huge plant as a backdrop though.! 313
Top of pageBottom of page

Hysteria
Member
Username: Hysteria

Post Number: 1355
Registered: 02-2006
Posted on Sunday, September 17, 2006 - 6:25 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

So, new residential construction in Detroit on a former coal repository. Certainly not a bad thing for the city. At least the homes don't have the pre-fabricated look that's taken Macomb County by storm. I do agree some of the vistas are a little unusual for an upscale neighborhood.
Top of pageBottom of page

Llyn
Member
Username: Llyn

Post Number: 1631
Registered: 06-2004
Posted on Sunday, September 17, 2006 - 7:50 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

"The people seeing part of the old seven sisters factories may change their mind rapidly about moving over there. The city probably's building over there because of all the water. However, thats only one aspect to look at. The middle and upper class folks arent going to move in a polluted area like that."

It kinda seems like they already are moving in there from the article and the progress on construction.

One thing to keep in mind is that the power plant won't be there forever. It's one of the oldest in the system. (Actually, it's probably the oldest... certainly older the Monroe, Trenton Channel, Fermi, Marysville, and Belle River). I'll bet it's not around too many more years... there's got to be some inefficiencies.

Long term, buying there might be a smart move.
Top of pageBottom of page

Bibs
Member
Username: Bibs

Post Number: 566
Registered: 10-2003
Posted on Sunday, September 17, 2006 - 8:37 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

The power plant is currently using natural gas so I don't the pollution from the plant will be a problem. Noise pollution could be a problem from trucks etc. There is a foam recylcing plant on St Jean that recently caught fire. This plants produces noxious fumes that take your breath away if you don't hold it. If that place fires back up, these home owners are in trouble.
Top of pageBottom of page

Boynamedsue
Member
Username: Boynamedsue

Post Number: 1
Registered: 03-2005
Posted on Sunday, September 17, 2006 - 9:23 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

their website is www.morganwaterfrontestates.co m
Top of pageBottom of page

Boynamedsue
Member
Username: Boynamedsue

Post Number: 2
Registered: 03-2005
Posted on Monday, September 18, 2006 - 5:54 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I like how one of the nice features of living there is enjoying sunsets. Only problem is that the view is toward the southeast
Top of pageBottom of page

Fjw718
Member
Username: Fjw718

Post Number: 32
Registered: 11-2005
Posted on Monday, September 18, 2006 - 8:07 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Grand Opening Special Pricing*

Floor Plan Sq. Ft. Lot # Price*

ALBANY 3440 3, 9, 13 $516,000
ST. CLAIR 3474 5, 14 $521,100
CHAMPLAIN 4076 6 $611,400
NIAGARA 4222 4, 10 $633,300
ST. LAWRENCE 4300 7, 12 $645,000
MERRIMACK 5005 2, 11 $750,750
PENOBSCOT 5050 15 Coming Soon
HUDSON 5464 1, 8 $819,600

Add Your Message Here
Posting is currently disabled in this topic. Contact your discussion moderator for more information.