Downtown Detroit Partnership Updates Plan for I
The Downtown Detroit Partnership (DDP) announced its updated plans for the I-375 Reconnecting Community project that includes improvements for pedestrians, a restored street grid, and provides land parcels more conducive to redevelopment.
The I-375 Peer Review Report, which includes design evaluation and collaboration, construction mitigation, and opportunity assessment sections, was made possible with a grant from the Kresge Foundation and collaboration with the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) and the city of Detroit.
"The I-375 Reconnecting Community project is more than a traditional infrastructure project," says Eric B. Larson, CEO of the DDP. "This is an opportunity to make a serious impact on the greater community. The project can redefine mobility, rooted in a vision that responds to the weight of the past, the push of the present and the pull of the future."
Recommendations to continue to improve the project as the plan evolves include:
"This project has the opportunity to usher in a new era for the city with improvements made to enhance the community," says James Fidler, urban evolution strategist and founder of the DDPâ€TMs City Form. "Detroiters can use the peer review as the city undertakes its framework and land use planning process.
"As Detroit embarks on this endeavor, all project partners must be mindful to not repeat past mistakes but have the chance to rectify past harms and forge a new path that prioritizes community connection, inclusivity, and economic revitalization â€" making downtown Detroit a place for Detroiters and the region to live, work, and play."
DDP assembled a team of consultants including Urban American City (urbanAC), specializing in urban design and planning; Toole Design Group, specializing in mobility and transportation; and HR&A Advisors, specializing in real estate and economic development; to author the peer review.
DDP conducted the peer review analysis of the design and engineering work done to-date in order to propose recommendations for design refinements, reveal opportunities for long-term reconnection and land development, and provide strategies for construction mitigation.
"Kresge supported the Peer Review process because Detroit has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reclaim and rebuild entire neighborhoods that were decimated 60 years ago by urban renewal," says Wendy Lewis Jackson, managing director of Kresgeâ€TMs Detroit Program. "With encouragement to dream big, community members working in partnership with the civic, private and philanthropic sectors can model for the rest of the country a new way to approach major infrastructure projects that prioritize residents, small business and public spaces while acknowledging the history and harms of the past."
