The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) has featured Detroit’s riverfront in a new video released as part of their series featuring flips of “brownfield” areas - “vacant or abandoned properties with known or suspected environmental contamination.”
The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) has featured Detroit’s riverfront in a new video released as part of their series featuring flips of “brownfield” areas - “vacant or abandoned properties with known or suspected environmental contamination.” The video highlights the success of recent improvements completed along the river’s shoreline to improve its public use.
MDEQ, which aims to safeguard our state’s environment while supporting economic growth and development, has helped to support the riverfront clean-up and enhancement efforts. A $6.2 million Clean Michigan Initiative grant from MDEQ was awarded to Detroit to demolish crumbling infrastructure, address storm water contamination and help build the river walk.
This work, together with Michigan philanthropy’s participation has created public-private partnerships that are changing Detroit’s landscape.
“Without the partnerships, this could not have happened. Without people’s love for the city of Detroit, this could not have happened,” Raymond Scott, deputy director, Detroit Department of Buildings, Safety, Engineering & Environment, said.
As reported by the Detroit Free Press, a number of philanthropic partners have contributed to Detroit’s riverfront improvements over the last 30 years and created more inclusive spaces along the shoreline. General Motors, a CMF member, was one such partner, having purchased Detroit’s Renaissance Center in the mid 1990s, at which time they “began to mull how to transform the concrete no-man's-land between the RenCen and the water.” In 2003, GM partnered with the city of Detroit and The Kresge Foundation in launching the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy, a nonprofit entity that has played a critical role in developing the riverfront district and facilitating community access to the waterfront.
In reflecting on work that has been completed in the area, Detroit Riverfront Conservancy president and CEO Mark Wallace remarks in the video: “Going from that industrial heritage to this public space was really one of those projects that taught our community how to work together and how to come back together again.”
Several CMF members, including the McGregor Fund, Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan and many more in the Detroit area have supported work to transform blighted areas, increase public access and spur economic development.
For the conservancy, with the east riverfront transformation roughly 85 percent complete, the next phase of work focuses on West Riverfront Park, a 22-acre area that had been privately owned for nearly 100 years before the conservancy bought it in 2014 and reopened it to the public for concerts and other gatherings. The designer of this $50 million transformation project will be landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates (MVVA), selected from among top international firms that participated in a design competition. The Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Foundation provided a $345,000 grant supporting the competition through the foundation’s "Livable Communities" focus area. The conservancy notes in its press release that riverfront planning is made possible in part through several other CMF members, as well, including Fifth Third Bank, the Fred A. and Barbara M. Erb Family Foundation, Hudson-Webber Foundation, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and The Kresge Foundation.
"This park will have a profound impact on the lives of Detroiters and will be a regional draw for recreation," Wallace said. "The work that has brought us to this moment has been one of the most inclusive and transparent processes that has been undertaken in public space design anywhere." The planning to date has included significant community involvement. Next steps include a series of public engagement opportunities to help refine the design.
It is anticipated that MVAA will begin work on the park in the spring of 2020. In the meantime, the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy will lead a campaign to raise funds for the project and the final 15 percent of work remaining on the east riverfront project will be completed.
Want more?
Watch the MDEQ video series on brownfield flips.
Explore the West Riverfront Park plans created by MVVA.
Learn more about the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy.
