Dive Brief:
- Led by a new $733 million Red Wings arena, the city of Detroit is getting ready to reap the benefits of a continued run of construction activity in 2017, according to The Detroit News.
- City officials say projects like the 6.6 mile QLine Street car initiative, the Red Wings project and a massive $70 million housing complex currently underway could reshape downtown Detroit, which reportedly has become a center for artists and young professionals.
- It was only a few years ago that Detroit was a symbol of deterioration of urban areas and a hotbed of crime and blighted neighborhoods, leaving the city in 2014 to deal with almost 80,000 properties in need of either demolition or repair.
Dive Insight:
Downtown Detroit is the focal point for many developers, and the most high-profile projects have been spearheaded by successful local business leaders. For example, Little Caesars owners, the Ilitch family, have sunk a considerable amount of their own money into the Red Wings arena construction, as well as a surrounding entertainment and residential district.
Late last year, Christopher Ilitch announced that the family’s development company had approximately 50 projects planned for the area around the arena. The scale of the new sports venue has also drawn in the NBA’s Detroit Pistons, which will soon call the new facility home as well.
Quicken Loans founder Dan Gilbert, who is the driver behind what some have called one of the biggest residential developments ever in Detroit, is also behind a push to build a $1 billion mixed-use soccer stadium venue on the site of the currently delayed Wayne County jail project. Piston owner Tom Gores is also a part of the campaign to build the new sports stadium, although Wayne County has consistently denied that a sale of the property is in the works.
If Detroit's economic future turns out to be brighter than recent years have shown, potential homebuyers might want to make their move soon. Right now, Detroit, along with cities like Cleveland, Minneapolis and Baltimore, offers some of the country's most affordable home prices when compared to their respective median incomes, according to Builder magazine.
