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TOM WALSH: Once-dead
Detroit housing plan alive
Jefferson
Village to have homes, stores by spring
November
15, 2002
BY TOM
WALSH
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
Detroit's
biggest single-family housing development in decades
is about to be resurrected.
Mayor Kwame
Kilpatrick will announce today that Jefferson Village,
a $116-million project of 350 houses and a 15-acre
shopping center near the Detroit River, is finally
being launched after six years of false starts, controversy
and litigation.
Home prices
will range from $160,000 up to perhaps $300,000. A
Farmer Jack grocery store, the chain's largest, will
anchor the shopping strip.
The shopping
center will open early next spring, said Charles Allen,
president of Graimark Realty Advisors, the originator
of the project when it was advanced in 1996. The first
homes will go up around the same time, he said.
George Jackson
Jr., president of the Detroit Economic Growth Corp.,
said the addition of Crosswinds Communities of Novi
to the development team was a major factor in jump-starting
the project.
The original
partners were Graimark and Pulte Homes of Bloomfield
Hills, the nation's largest home builder. The partners
got Detroit City Council approval in 1998 to condemn
properties in a blighted 88-acre stretch of the city's
east side that was already three-fourths vacant. But
some residents of the area sued to stay in their homes;
other property owners could not be found and the project
stalled.
Kilpatrick
has repeatedly stressed the need for new housing to
revive the city's residential base, and has been leaning
on Jackson and Walt Watkins, the city's chief development
officer, to either kill or start languishing projects.
"This
mayor has a bias for action," Jackson said. The
city has spent about $25 million, he said, for demolition,
land acquisition and relocation of residents in the
Jefferson Village area.
Pulte, mainly
a builder of large suburban homes across the country,
remains a major investor in Jefferson Village, along
with Graimark and Crosswinds. But Crosswinds, which
is currently building two loft projects near Comerica
Park and in the New Center area, will be the home
builder.
"There
is tremendous demand for single-family homes in the
city," said Ehrlich Crain, Crosswinds vice president.
Allen said he already has a list of 800 potential
buyers and expects to sell all of the initial 350
homes within three years. Sixty more may be built
after that, he said.
"I think
it will sell out quickly," said Jackson, who
expects bigger homes to be built on lots closer to
the river. The smallest homes will be about 1,300
square feet, he said, but he expects most to be 2,000
square feet or larger.
The project
area is bounded by East Jefferson, St. Jean, Freud
and Marquette streets.
About a half-dozen
home owners in the area are negotiating with the city
over terms for departing, but Jackson said the process
is nearly complete.
The 133,000-square-foot
shopping center, where the walls for the Farmer Jack
store are rising, will also include a bank branch,
a AAA Michigan office, a Chinese restaurant, a sandwich
shop and other outlets. The center is 73 percent leased,
Allen said.
For three
decades in Detroit, from around 1960 until 1992, when
the 156-home Victoria Park subdivision took shape,
no new home building of any consequence took place
as the city lost half its population.
If Jefferson
Village, twice the scale of Victoria Park, takes shape
as planned this time, it will be the biggest thing
on the homes front in Detroit since the federal government
dished out mortgage money to GIs after World War II.
Contact TOM
WALSH at twalsh@freepress.com or 313-223-4430. Business
writer JENNIFER DIXON contributed to this report.
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