La mutation de Cass Corridor la délaissée en Cass Corridor l'attractive se poursuit

Un nouvel article en anglais sur l'aménagement des blocs de Cass Corridor. 
Ce secteur était autrefois un des quartiers pauvre de Detroit. Ces temps sont révolus. Shinola y a élu domicile et les magasins récemment ouverts fourmillent. La réhabilitation de ce quartier se poursuit à vitesse accélérée. Nous vous présentons ici un article qui décrit un nouveau projet urbain conséquence du grand projet du quartier : la construction du futur stade. Conséquence car il s'agit de réhabiliter non seulement le quartier mais aussi les ensembles vétustes.   

Ainsi, est-il prévu de réhabiliter le patrimoine immobilier d'un secteur qui avait été laissé à l'abandon afin d'ouvrir le quartier à une multitude d'opportunités. Opportunités de logement, de déplacement, d'activités, d'emplois.

Une étude de l'Université du Michigan prévoit ainsi que les retombées économiques de ce projet seront de l'ordre de 1,8 milliards de dollars. Un chiffre dans la continuité du boom économique qui touche Detroit et qui permet d'affirmer avec des garanties chiffrées que la ville se porte mieux.

The urban planning consultant for the Ilitch family's grand vision of a sprawling mixed-use rehabilitation of 50 blocks around the new Detroit Red Wings arena said people living in the district are the key to making it work.

"What we want is a great walkable, personable neighborhood made of as many people living their lives as possible," said Richard Heapes, co-founder and managing partner of White Plains, N.Y.-based Street-Works.

The company was hired by the Ilitches' Olympia Development of Michigan to be the lead urban planning designer of its The District Detroit plan of residential, retail, bars, restaurants, offices and green spaces around the $532.5 million arena, which is slated to open in 2017.

Street-Works specializes in mixed-use and commercial development, planning and financing, and it's bringing that expertise to bear on Olympia's plans.

"Our key strategy is to have residential almost on every block coordinated with new development," Heapes said. "That's the strategy, there is residential everywhere."

The area immediately around the arena will have around 200 apartments and condos intended to appeal to a range of demographics from single or new-family millennials to empty-nest boomers.

"You can't have a neighborhood without neighbors," Heapes said.

Additionally, Olympia is renovating the historic Hotel Eddystone into residential units, including making 20 percent of it into affordable housing.

Olympia has stressed that the area won't just be a hive of nightlife pegged to hockey games and concerts at the massive arena rising at Woodward Avenue and I-375. It needs places where residents can buy life's necessities and luxuries.

"It has to be a place to get a burrito at Chipotle," Heapes said. "It has to provide the day-to-day stuff. It's the regular stuff of living in the city."

Olympia is in talks with local, regional and national retailers and developers.

By having housing with entertainment, jobs and necessities such as grocery stories nearby, the district will have a residential population that makes for a sustainable neighborhood, Heapes said.

"They will want to live here, to stay and engage the city more," he said.

Heapes also stressed the importance of Wayne State University putting its new business school — thanks to a $40 million donation announced Friday by Red Wings owners Mike and Marian Ilitch — and how the location will affect WSU students.

"By moving closer to downtown they can now engage directly, physically with businesses in terms of mentorships, internships," he said. "When you move to this neighborhood, you're now engaging with Detroit. It's a great way to keep kids in the city. There's more diversity of experiences and people."

Having an academic institution in the district further bolsters its sustainability, he said. It also helps with the goal of avoiding the error that other sports venue projects elsewhere have made by promising that stadiums and convention centers are a cure-all.

"The classic mistake in city planning is people looking for silver bullets," Heapes said. "They would fire off their one silver bullet, and it didn't do anything. It cleaned up a couple of blocks."

The District Detroit plan is to clean up 50 blocks, and either build housing or retail on them or upgrade the infrastructure to lure outside developers.

As part of the public-private financing plan for the arena, Olympia has promised at least $200 million in concurrent development investment around the venue.

If that happens, it could ward off the sort of criticisms seen of projects elsewhere (usually sports arenas built with public money) that promise sweeping economic and job benefits thanks to a boom of additional development, but have failed to deliver.

The Ilitches have made similar pledges: Using a study from a University of Michigan economist, Olympia predicts $1.8 billion in economic impact and thousands of new jobs because of the arena district and its construction. Such economic impact estimates are often criticized by academics for including overly optimistic multiplier estimates.

By creating entirely new neighborhoods from the start, Olympia can avert the sort of stalled ballpark projects that have happened elsewhere, Heapes said.

"What the arena does that's different (is) it's not a hockey venue," he said.

That's because the Red Wings will play there up to 60-some days a year, but the building will be used for many other events.

"This thing is going to be fired up 180 days a year, during the whole breadth of the year," he said.

That's a contrast from the 10 Detroit Lions games at Ford Field from August to January, and 81 regular-season games for the Detroit Tigers at Comerica Park from April through September.

"They have seasons," Heapes said.

Construction of the arena began in September 2014, but it's unclear when work on residential units and other district elements will begin.

"Right now, it's hard for people to believe the Cass Corridor could become the center of Detroit in terms of center of activity," Heapes said, noting the area decades ago had been a hive of bohemian creativity.

Article publié sur le site internet de Crain's Detroit Business le 01.11.2015
Journaliste : Bill Shea

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