 
Dtown1
Member
Username: Dtown1
Post Number: 207
Registered: 08-2006
| | Posted on Friday, September 29, 2006 - 7:24 pm: |    |
When will someone try to attempt to restore the Hotel Park ave. or the Hotel Eddystone or Hotel Fort Wayne. Also, why isn't the Salvation Army using their building to house some of the homeless, the building on Woodward. I believe it's a waste of useful land for commerce and hotel space. Someone did recently try to restore the Frot Wayne, but didnt suceed. They named it American Hotel. Now it sits there empty with shattered windows. Could someone please explain these lost but not gone hotels and housing developments on the N side of downtown Detroit. IT's truly a shame to have to commute through all that gulk and aboandonment when heading to and from work every morning. IT puts shame on the whole city. This is the case for all the ghetos headed into downtowns. Please someone do something so we can create some type of image and help these lost but not gone historical buildings. |
Gumby
Member
Username: Gumby
Post Number: 1430
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Friday, September 29, 2006 - 7:29 pm: | |
Hotel Park Ave. is not abandoned.
Eddystone is slated for restoration as soon as the Carlton is doen as well as the Salvation Army's Harbor Light Center. |
Innovator
Member
Username: Innovator
Post Number: 27
Registered: 07-2006
| | Posted on Friday, September 29, 2006 - 7:34 pm: | |
I'll try and fix them up this weekend. |
Gumby
Member
Username: Gumby
Post Number: 1431
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Friday, September 29, 2006 - 7:37 pm: | |
Sounds great Innovator if I didn't have to work I could have borrowed my friend's pick up and gave you a hand but I am sure you can handle it by yourself. |
Detroitplanner
Member
Username: Detroitplanner
Post Number: 222
Registered: 04-2006
| | Posted on Friday, September 29, 2006 - 7:40 pm: | |
Dtown, the problem is it would take millions of dollars to get a building like the Fort Wayne to the point of having a Certificate of Occupancy.
Salavation Army is doing some wonderful things to their building on Fort Street. The bottom line is the Salvation Army needs money to operate. Caritable donations are down in general due to the economy and malls are making things worse for them by refusing them to stand in front rining a bell at a kettle.
If you think it is ashame to commute through the abandonement and ghettos, do something about it yourself. Why not move into the area and keep your house tidy? Put your money where your mouth is. Don't bitch about the Salvation Army not doing enough (they do as much as they can) or how ugly the city looks that you have to drive through. BE PART OF THE SOLUTION OR YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM!! |
Dtown1
Member
Username: Dtown1
Post Number: 208
Registered: 08-2006
| | Posted on Friday, September 29, 2006 - 8:03 pm: | |
I keep my house nice and tidy my outside is one of the best on the block and I dont live near any of these buildings. AS a matter a fact, I live near 8 Mile rd. Also, I never said the Salvation Army themselves had to move people into the housing development. We do need more shelters around the city though and any one of these buildings would be perfect. I'm sure people would want the intention that maybe their driving into a suburb instead of a limited lifeul downtown. Fro example, they could fix up woodward so people from the suburbs could sight see and say soemthing's finaaly happening instead of saying when will they ever get that dang building and do something with it. Detroit has already set its fate when one of our fair mayors stated that we didnt need the help of the suburbanites. However, its mostly the suburbanites that run the city. Also, I don't want to see an empty Eastern Market wen traveling to and from downtown going down GRatiot with for sale signs on the buildings. There is hardly anything viable on the N side of downtown that would lure people towards that area except gambling and sports game. Their's nothing that would want people to stay a little longer and explore what Detroit has to oofer unless it was the downfall of the city itself. The abandon building just put into people minds of how far the city has fallen. development would give poeple the idea of how the city has risen from once it once was before. DetroitPlanner, Salvation Army has plenty of ways of earning money like school fundraiser, or community drives so the salvation army not having enough money or earning enough, thats no excuse. I would first create a sorng bond with the federal government and try to get enough people in the city to receive proper funding by lowering taxes and fixing the local issues on time and immediately. Then the city would receive better funding, which should be enough to start a bulldoze of unneccesary buildings galore. then once I got enough money flowing in from the fed's and increasing population, I would hire a developer to at least renovate the outside of the buildings. Of course, outside appearance always decides the outcome of things. Then I would hold neighborhood drives, for all who want to participate to participate in funding and helping renovate the insides of these historical buildings. However, the ones that are no longer neede will of course be partly renovated inside and out and entered into the urban museum to get some of that money to pour in also. This overtime should improve the budget somewhat and improve the budget. Alos, I would put the mandatory neighborhood watch ordinance in effect and enforced to make sure our citizens feel a liitle safer. |
Rhymeswithrawk
Member
Username: Rhymeswithrawk
Post Number: 83
Registered: 11-2005
| | Posted on Friday, September 29, 2006 - 11:15 pm: | |
The abandon building just put into people minds of how far the city has fallen.
I'm glad that the suburbanites see that when they come down town. The way I see it, it's their fault. "LOOK AT WHAT YOU DID!!!" |
Lmichigan
Member
Username: Lmichigan
Post Number: 4516
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Friday, September 29, 2006 - 11:25 pm: | |
Cass Park is one of the few inner-city neighborhoods that has yet to see substantial rebirth. That's what I take from the state of the area. It would be different if nothing was going on around it, but there is plenty going on just outside of Cass Park/Cass Farms. It's the last frontier more than anything else, and it's time is quickly coming. |
Eric_c
Member
Username: Eric_c
Post Number: 855
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, September 30, 2006 - 7:39 am: | |
I think you need to remember what Downtown looked like in 1986. Then 1996. Then now.
It's all coming; be patient and invest as best you can in the core city. |
Lmichigan
Member
Username: Lmichigan
Post Number: 4522
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, September 30, 2006 - 6:58 pm: | |
Exactly. Who'd ever though we'd be seeing new construction and renovation in Brush Park just a few years back? Cass Park/Farms will be the next, and last neighborhood directly surrounding downtown that will see renovation. |
Gistok
Member
Username: Gistok
Post Number: 2868
Registered: 08-2004
| | Posted on Monday, October 02, 2006 - 1:26 pm: | |
Rhymeswithhawk... if you're going to blame the folks in the suburbs, a more realisitic statement would be "look at how this part of Detroit has been trashed and scavenged since you left!"
(Message edited by Gistok on October 02, 2006) |
Stecks77
Member
Username: Stecks77
Post Number: 106
Registered: 08-2006
| | Posted on Monday, October 02, 2006 - 3:13 pm: | |
Dtown1: I've lived in Detroit since the summer of 2003 and I can't get over the changes I've seen since then.
Unfortunately, we live in a fast food culture that expects change to happen instantaneously.
Actually, I'm pretty happy with the way things are, at least in the downtown area.
I understand, it gets frustrating driving through rough parts of town and seeing the same old burned out buildings day after day, but give it time.
This city declined over the course of 30 years and people expect it to turn around overnight?
Amazing. |
Dalangdon
Member
Username: Dalangdon
Post Number: 76
Registered: 03-2006
| | Posted on Monday, October 02, 2006 - 3:22 pm: | |
An empty hotel can't just be turned around and re-opened, particularly if they want to use it as a commercial hotel. Most old hotel's rooms are way too small for the modern traveler (the exception to this rule is New York, where they can still get away with renting out closets :-).
Also, hotels have a lot more "innards" (wiring, plumbing, etc) than standard buildings, and they have unique life safety requirements.
Here in Seattle, we have many old low-end hotels that are abandoned above the first floor because of the costs to upgrade them. It's a shame, because they would make fine housing for low-income people, but after a truly horrible fire in one of them about 36 years ago, the city decided to make the fire regulations much more stringent, and the building owners couldn't or wouldn't make the upgrades to stay open. |