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Detroitman
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Username: Detroitman

Post Number: 997
Registered: 06-2004
Posted on Monday, September 18, 2006 - 11:22 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Highland Park, Hamtramck see renewal

By Robert Ankeny

6:00 am, September 18, 2006

Detroit’s two enclave suburbs — Highland Park and Hamtramck — are quietly moving ahead with economic redevelopment efforts after getting out of some of the fiscal problems plaguing them in recent years.

In Highland Park, the signs of improvement include gaining a major soft-drink distribution center and a major retailer and getting rid of an old tax debt owed to DaimlerChrysler AG.

In Hamtramck, several loft condominium projects are underway and work has begun on some 200 infill houses to be built to satisfy a 40-year-old federal civil rights case.

Forman Mills Inc. opened a clothing factory warehouse store Aug. 4 in 55,000 square feet of the former Ford Motor Co. Model T plant on Woodward Avenue.

“They spent more than $600,000 to develop the space and brought in 160 new jobs,” said Harriet Saperstein, executive director of HP Devco Inc., the city’s private nonprofit development agency.

Earlier this year, Coca-Cola Bottling Co. of Michigan began consolidating its Detroit and Madison Heights sales and distribution operations into a new 176,000-square-foot center on a 21-acre site on Oakland Boulevard. The plant is to employ about 384 people, including between 40 and 50 new jobs, and begin full operations early next year. The project cost about $5 million for land and building improvements and $500,000 in machinery, equipment, furniture and fixtures, officials said.

“We’re encouraged by these major developments,” Saperstein said. “Smaller projects are more difficult, reflecting the general economic situation.”

HP Devco continues to work securing developers for the eight-acre former Sears site on Woodward across from Model T Plaza, she said.

Plans call for 40,000 square feet of retail space along the avenue with residential units to the west. Saperstein said one developer’s plans for the project proved too costly and he withdrew.

“With Woodward Avenue repaved, we’ve put banners up and have begun a facade improvement program. These are little things but they make the community feel better about what’s happening,” Saperstein said.

In July, DaimlerChrysler agreed to forgive the city’s $8.7 million debt to the corporation, which cut Highland Park’s budget deficit to about $4 million. Arthur Blackwell II, the city’s state-appointed emergency financial manager, said the agreement for the company to forego refund of overpaid taxes puts it on the road to fiscal recovery.

Hamtramck, which was under state-ordered financial management in the 1990s, also is seeing development growth.

Two Rochester-based developers, Michael Furnari of Grand Haven Homes L.L.C. and John Dziurman of Town Center Homes L.L.C., this summer started building 200 homes on sites across the city, most of which will be sold at discounts to African-Americans displaced by a 1960s urban-renewal program that a federal judge in 1971 ruled was discriminatory.

“The objective is for completion by fall of 2008,” said Erik Tungate, Hamtramck’s director of community and economic development.

Meanwhile, he said the city also is getting its first live-work loft project: four units in a three-story former Disabled American Veterans post on Joseph Campau south of Holbrook.

The lofts will be priced from $180,000, and the total project will cost between $400,000 and $700,000, Tungate said. The developer is Christopher Bray of Unique Urban Space L.L.C., and construction is scheduled for completion in early 2007, Tungate said.

Also, a six-unit townhouse project on Mitchell Street in Hamtramck’s north end is being built by Gilbert Opaleski, owner of Detroit-based Platinum Building & Development L.L.C.

Another loft rehabilitation is underway, Tungate said, on the west side of Jos. Campau at Belmont with 12 units planned in a four-story building.

Tungate said while Hamtramck hasn’t yet seen substantial loft or townhouse construction, the current projects point to his city catching up.
http://www.crainsdetroit.com/a pps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/2006 0918/SUB/60915015/-1/toc
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Innercity_detroit
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Username: Innercity_detroit

Post Number: 8
Registered: 02-2006
Posted on Sunday, October 01, 2006 - 3:55 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Very informative article Detroitman,but bare one thing in mind,and that's Harriet Saperstein is just a front for HP Devco.She lives in Grosse Park,and she is really bringing businesses into Highland Park without approval of the City's planning Commission,which forward their opinion to City Council.A few years ago Saperstein along with the former Emergency Financial Manager Ms Pearson and the former Community Development director Fred Durhal,brought the North Pointe development into Highland Park,and them houses was a failer with no owners to this date.So I suggest that before one make a judgement look into what you are about to judge,and get the real facts.
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Danny
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Username: Danny

Post Number: 5049
Registered: 02-2004
Posted on Monday, October 02, 2006 - 8:55 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Highland Park and Hamtramck are NOT suburbs. They are cities within the cities. Centerline and Lathrup Village are suburban cities within the suburbs.
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Jfried
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Username: Jfried

Post Number: 910
Registered: 11-2003
Posted on Monday, October 02, 2006 - 9:02 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Innercity_detroit - what difference does it make where the community development corp director lives?
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Innercity_detroit
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Username: Innercity_detroit

Post Number: 13
Registered: 02-2006
Posted on Tuesday, October 03, 2006 - 8:09 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

JFried, I will answer your question on the grounds that there is no debate or big issue behind my reply.However I do believe that whenever outside people comes into the inner city confusion always starts. Why? Well let me explain from a Community Activist viewpoint. How can anyone say what's good for urban renewal or community development IF one do not understand the economic problems in a community? That's just like living in West Bloomfield Hills,and you come into the inner-city trying to convince people that you have the solution.Here is another example the Mayor of Detroit gave the Director of the Detroit Water & Sewage dept a $10,000 dollor raise plus expenses,and this man is already making 240,000 a year,and if its not that must its somewhere within that range. That's the differences Fried. In closing I am involved in the community development of Highland Park,and everything I have seen Saperstein touch seem to always turn into a flop. Hopefully I expressed myself to you clearly,and again the answer is a director should know what is good and what is bad for a community. Saperstein is fixing up Woodward ave,but what about the abandon homes & buildings that's ruining the neighborhoods where people live. Have a nice day.
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Dtown1
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Username: Dtown1

Post Number: 280
Registered: 08-2006
Posted on Saturday, October 21, 2006 - 9:52 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

"Earlier this year, Coca-Cola Bottling Co. of Michigan began consolidating its Detroit and Madison Heights sales and distribution operations into a new 176,000-square-foot center on a 21-acre site on Oakland Boulevard."


The Coke factory in Detroit was on the Boulevard and Mt. Elliot, wasn't it, not far from the new locations, because thats where they store their trucks
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Revolutionary
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Username: Revolutionary

Post Number: 116
Registered: 09-2004
Posted on Thursday, November 02, 2006 - 1:47 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I know that housing is thought of as an indicator of the health of a community but I think they're missing part of the story in Hamtramck.

I'm noticing a lot of reinvestment by mom and pop operations, especially along Conant. There are a handful of new commercial buildings going up, not something you see in many parts of the city.

I don't know about the new housing being built, it doesn't seem like people are going to drop $130k on a new place when they can buy a "used" home for $70k made out of superior materials.

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