Redevelopment underway in Detroit

The redevelopment of Far Eastside in Detroit, currently under construction, is a case study of new urban infill techniques on a large scale. There’s a pent-up demand for housing in the city of Detroit, which has resulted in significant interest on the part of private developers to build housing in Far Eastside, despite the sector’s many problems. “The supply can’t keep up with demand at this point,” says Mark Nickita of Archive DS, the firm that created the plan. “People want to move into the city. Some who were forced out because they couldn’t find housing want to move back in.” Far Eastside has an average household income of less than $19,000, but is right next to Grosse Pointe, a rich suburb with a large stock of million-dollar homes. The urban fabric of Grosse Pointe is entirely intact. “People look at Grosse Pointe and say ‘what a great area,’ ” Nickita says. “We’re saying Far Eastside can be just as good — at least physically.” An accompanying figure/ground drawing (“black plan”) shows how the once-thriving, 1,200-acre sector in Detroit has fallen apart physically. In the 2000 plan, streets have almost no definition, due the decay and demolition of houses and other buildings over the years. Far Eastside population has dropped from a peak of 24,000 to about 4,000 residents today. The proposed figure/ground drawing for 2015 shows a restored urban fabric, complete with new squares and parks in the heart of neighborhoods and mixed-use avenues traversing the area from east to west. The plan calls for about 10,000 residents at completion. The redevelopment will not be as dense as the original, because many of the narrow lots are being grouped and redrawn into wider lots to meet today’s market demand. For example, two 45-foot-wide lots take the place of three 30-foot-wide lots. Families are significantly smaller these days, as well. The plan calls for most people who are current residents to retain their homes, and this “lack of massive displacement of residents has helped to create a plan that the community can rally around,” Nickita says. In addition to the figure/ground analyses, Archive divided the sector into nine neighborhoods, based on the five-minute walk from center to edge. Each neighborhood has a center, generally a square, and is within a short walk of existing or planned urban retail. Far Eastside won the 2003 city design award from the Michigan chapter of the American Institute of Architects.