Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan speaking at the State Fairgrounds site.
The city of Detroit may buy most of the idled former Michigan State Fairgrounds site, where Mayor Mike Duggan wants to build a regional transit center and locate employers that he says are clamoring to come to the city.
The Michigan Land Bank Fast Track Authority approved a deal Wednesday to sell 142 acres of the site, near the corner of Woodward Avenue and Eight Mile Road, to the city for $7 million, pending approval by the City Council. Another 16 acres primarily lining Woodward would sell to Magic Plus LLC, the development group that includes former Michigan State and NBA basketball star Earvin “Magic” Johnson and MSU Trustee Joel Ferguson.
Duggan, speaking at a news conference at the Fairgrounds site, said he’s been talking with several major employers lately who want to bring a “large number of jobs” into the city. It would also serve as a perfect site for a transit hub, he said. We captured audio of him speaking on the Daily Detroit News Byte podcast for which I am now a contributor (have a listen to the full episode above):
“What we learned is that this is the single largest developable site in the city of Detroit,” Duggan said. “For all the vacant land that you have in the city, there are very few parcels that are more than 30 or 40 acres. This is 150 acres. There have been plans over time for townhouses, there have been proposals for strip malls. I did not believe that those proposals made sense.
“A property of this size, this should be a major employment center for Detroiters. Detroiters need jobs. There is no reason we can’t have 1,000, 2,000 people working here. One of the big attractions is that Woodward and Eight Mile are the crossroads of the regional transit system that we do have, that most of the population of the tri-county area can get to this site with no more than one bus transfer.”
His comments come in the same week as news that Ford Motor Co. is exploring purchasing the abandoned and heavily blighted Michigan Central Station in Corktown for office space to help it attract young talent. There is more and more recognition lately by employers that younger workers aren’t attracted by the prospect of working in a suburban office park and crave urban amenities.
It’s not clear what Magic Plus plans to do with their portions of the property, why it no longer is interested in the entire property or why it hasn’t settled on a development plan by now. The group’s original 2013 proposal, which drew criticisms from local community groups, envisioned residential homes, a movie theater and big-box retail development on the site. It submitted renderings for a different mixed-use plan in 2016.
The fairgrounds site closed in 2009 after 104 years hosting the Michigan State Fair. Gov. Rick Snyder signed legislation in 2012 transferring the site to the Michigan Land Bank in an attempt to return it to productive use.
Having Duggan involved suggests the chances of the site actually seeing redevelopment may have improved, given his track record of tenacity and follow-through. The city says it expects to take ownership of the land by summer, pending environmental reviews and City Council approval of the sale. Magic Plus is expected to take ownership of its 16 acres by May.
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