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Surrounded by blight: Keith Noble, 54, with son Keith Leonard Noble, 32, has resided on Erskine Street in Brush Park all his life. The retired autoworker has watched empty properties fall into disrepair for years and has even tried to buy the city-owned lot adjacent to his home, without success.
How Not to Rebuild Detroit
Brush Park redevelopment plan is as neglected as neighborhood
From riches to rags: The spacious home at 104 Edmund that once adorned a vibrant Brush Park in 1885 now sits abandoned and neglected. Owners of some of the vacant eyesores in the neighborhood fail to live up to a primary term of buying the sites: rehabbing them.Previous coverage
Broken Detroit
A Detroit News examination of why Detroit has inadequate services a shrinking population and vast tracts of abandoned or vacant property.
Part 1: Death of a city
Take a guided tour of Detroit's abandoned auto factories, office buildings and hotels
A chronicle of the Motor City's decay and the history of its empty architectural gems
No progress: Owner neglect and lack of city enforcement keeps Silvester Fields' neighborhood dotted with vacant, decrepit buildings.
A sign of hope: An abandoned site at Mack Avenue and Woodward sports a sign announcing the construction of lofts.
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A deeply flawed redevelopment program has allowed Detroit's historic Brush Park neighborhood to fall into seemingly irreparable disrepair.
Once a community of flourishing town houses and mansions, the district today, according to some experts, should be prime territory for revival given its proximity to downtown Detroit, Comerica Park and Ford Field.
There have been a handful of impressive restorations in the district, along with a successful new housing tract being built by Crosswinds Communities. But the city's development plan, drawn up in 1989 and updated twice, remains largely unfulfilled. It initially called for the construction of 1,500 homes and town houses; the condemnation, purchase and demolition of upwards of 100 buildings; and payment of moving and relocation costs for an estimated 500 people.
Experts say the lack of progress casts doubt on the city's overall ability to deal with one of its most pressing problems: blight and abandonment.
A Detroit News review of hundreds of property records, tax bills, deeds, lawsuits and development agreements revealed inadequate planning, the lack of a coherent real estate strategy and poor accountability. Some examples:
• In the 1980s, the city sold off mansions to people who promised to rehab them and live there. Now the city is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy back those properties, even though the structures are seriously dilapidated after previous owners failed to make good on those promises.
• Planning department officials are steering many of the vacant buildings in Detroit's inventory to developers who continue to let them sit empty. Just this summer, three of the houses the city had sold were the subject of nuisance abatement lawsuits because they had become a danger to the community.
• Members of the city's Historic District Commission are exasperated that the city has allowed more than 100 of the mansions to crumble. They complain that Planning and Development officials allow hand-picked developers to skirt historic preservation laws.
• The city gives away so much to developers in tax abatements, state income tax credits and infrastructure improvements that some urban planners believe the city will never see a revenue gain equal to the resources used to spur new construction.
• The most blighted properties are not owned by nameless suburban land speculators, but by individuals and groups considered Motor City boosters. Of 45 vacant properties in the neighborhood, 15 are owned by the city of Detroit; others are owned by the American Red Cross, the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity, a Masonic lodge and the owner of Eastern Market's Rocky Peanut Co.
"You want something done, anything done, but the pace is so slow," said Michael L Sanderson, a landscaper who 20 years ago paid $1,800 for a run-down Erskine Street mansion that, with its intricate, well-manicured garden and blemish-free brick facade, is now a symbol of Brush Park's best. "When one building goes, it's like picking at a thread in a tapestry. Eventually the whole tapestry is gone. That's what has happened here."
"The city created a great plan for Brush Park. It made sense," said George Galster, a Wayne State University professor and expert on urban affairs. "They've sown the seeds but have done nothing else."
The problems span decades, but city Planning and Development Director Walt Watkins said the future can be brighter.
Watkins points to a recently announced deal to turn the long-vacant building at 3112 Woodward, with its broken windows, elaborate concrete trim and boarded-up entranceways, into luxury lofts.
"You wish it could have happened sooner, but it's happening now," Watkins said.
Watkins, a retired president of Bank One Michigan, said developers and property owners have struggled getting financing for their projects because in the past, banks did not have confidence in the neighborhood, and the properties were so run-down, it was hard to borrow against the value of the buildings.
Galster, who has lived in Detroit since 1996, said Brush Park, so close to downtown, should have seen quick development.
"This should have been easy," he said. "You have to wonder if the interest is more in benefiting the few and connected rather than helping the city as a whole."
City's property deals reflect a need for policy
A review of property transactions in Brush Park shows the city lacks a standard policy for acquiring, pricing and disposing of properties in the district.
At the southwest corner of Edmund Place and John R, work crews from Debroe Construction, owned by Conrad G. Sobczynski of Grosse Pointe, are rehabbing one mansion into condos.
They also plan to build new carriage house apartments. The units will sell from $190,000 to $500,000.
"The view from the top is amazing," said Sobczynski, who adds the project will be featured on an episode of an HGTV series this fall.
According to a copy of the development agreement between the city and Debroe, the building company paid $8,764 for the run-down mansion and two adjacent city-owned lots.
That compares with the $12,000 Bill Atwood paid the city for his gutted 7,000-square-foot mansion on Edmund in 1992, or the $65,000 Detroit paid Henrietta Lash in 2001 for an uninhabitable two-flat apartment building on Winder, or the $70,000 that in 2001 Wendy Readous paid The Michael C. Francis Corp. of Detroit for the brick shell at Watson and Brush that Wayne County prosecutors have called a public nuisance.
In August, Harry Hagood, the then-director of development for the city, touted the project at 104 Edmund as proof Brush Park was coming back.
When asked how Debroe acquired the property, Hagood, who signed off on the sale, said: "They wrote us a letter and we put together a deal."
He said the city did not auction the property, make it available to the public or even solicit development proposals.
Hagood abruptly resigned last month after it was discovered he had brokered the sale of several other city-owned homes for less than appraised value. The city auditor general is looking into all of the land deals brokered by the city Planning and Development Department.
Inaction of property owners bolsters rot
The owners of buildings that have been vacant, abandoned and dangerous for years are some of the same people who assert they are Detroit boosters.
Excluding new construction over the past decade, 127 properties lie within Brush Park. Of that tally, 45 buildings are vacant. The city of Detroit remains the owner of 15 of those buildings, more than anyone else inside the historic district.
Detroit's inventory includes decaying mansions, old apartment buildings and a half-block of row houses, one of which is occupied by a squatter.
Bert Dearing, the owner of Detroit jazz clubs Bert's on Broadway and Bert's Marketplace, acquired three of the abandoned structures in Brush Park after purchasing the back taxes from the city and county.
The house he owns at 105 Alfred, a former chalet and stone-style mansion, is considered a nuisance. Earlier this month, Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Mike Sapala called the property "just awful" after Wayne County prosecutors sued Dearing because the homes are dangerous to the neighborhood.
Dearing, a candidate for the Detroit Public Schools board this fall, told the judge he will have sale agreements for all three properties and erect fencing so they don't pose a hazard. Dearing did not return calls seeking comment.
Still, Sapala fined Dearing $1,500 for contempt for failing to rehab and sell the properties as he had promised earlier. Dearing was able to come up with only $500.
Robert Heide, president of the Rocky Peanut Co., owns the abandoned home with falling gutters and boarded-up windows at 284 Erskine.
The city and Wayne County sued Heide's company, Zakopane Development, last summer, asking him to demolish, fix or sell the brick home. In court filings, the company said it would rehab the building, but no work has been done. Meanwhile, Heide is attempting to get city approval to build an artists' market in Eastern Market. He could not be reached for comment.
A former Midas shop along Woodward near Eliot has remained vacant for five years, and nearby a three-story, 10,000-square-foot compound of commercial and residential units has sat empty for more than a decade. It is owned by the American Red Cross. Jim LeBlanc, Red Cross finance director, said the large building was sold last week. It now sports a banner stating it will be converted into condos.
"We sold it very, very fast. This area seems very hot," he said. The former auto repair shop next door will be razed for parking, he said.
Of the seven abandoned properties in the block, one is owned by Heide and the others are owned by either the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity or by the city, which says it is keeping the vacant properties because of a fraternity plan to build in-fill housing.
The homes have been vacant for more than a decade. On some, the concrete porches are falling apart.
"This doesn't make sense to me," said Keith Noble, 53, a retired autoworker who has lived at 233 Erskine his entire life.
Few buyers hold up their end of the transaction
When the Planning and Development Department sells vacant property, the signed development agreements set strict deadlines for the owners to rehab the property and then either move in or rent them out. But the city doesn't enforce those deals, and the properties remain empty and unsafe.
The block of Mack Avenue, directly across from the Detroit Medical Center, contains the headquarters of the Detroit Urban League and the medical offices of urologist George Lightbourn. But the block also has three abandoned homes -- one emblazoned with "DANGER" in yellow paint -- all of which were sold by the city to developers several years ago and that are all the subject of lawsuits filed by Wayne County claiming they are public nuisances.
The Brush Park Development Corp. agreed on Dec. 31, 2002, to pay $3,000 for the vacant houses at 240 Mack, 248 Mack and a vacant lot that had been used for parking, according to the development agreement.
Hagood approved the deal. The development corporation had two years to rehab the homes and build new housing on the vacant lot.
There have been no improvements, according to a survey of the property and city records, and they remain surrounded by a metal fence.
Development corporation Executive Director Elaine Hearns said this is the group's first project and it's had problems getting financing.
"It's been hard, but the city has been working with us," she said.
Still, in April, Wayne County and the city filed a nuisance abatement lawsuit asking for the title to the properties unless they were immediately repaired or razed.
Planning and Development officials did not know about that lawsuit, and say they are being patient while the new owners can get their projects off the ground.
"These things can take time," planning and development director Watkins said.
Blight is too often left to worsen unchecked
Instead of using nuisance abatement laws and other legal tools to fight blight, the city has stood by as speculators snatched up properties, kept the buildings vacant and then done so little maintenance the house are uninhabitable.
Douglas Kuykendall and Ernestine Rooks in 1985 bought the Gillis Mansion at 205 Alfred from the city for $1,500, according to Wayne County court records.
A development agreement required them to make repairs and occupy the property within a year, according to court records. That never happened.
Instead, in 2004, after the mansion had lost its roof and its chimneys had crumbled, Detroit agreed to pay Kuykendall and Rooks $329,659 for the home to settle a lawsuit filed by the city seeking to seize and condemn the property.
Watkins said the city should not be blamed for the condition of the Gillis Mansion because it got title only recently.
Still the development agreement allowed the city to take possession of the Gillis Mansion after Kuykendall and Rooks failed to rehab the property as they had promised.
"That's disgusting," said Sanderson, who bought his home on Erskine at the same time Kuykendall and Rooks purchased theirs.
"This could have been stopped," said Sanderson, flipping through fading color photographs of the mansions that were still standing when he began rehabbing his home in the 1980s. "The city decided it didn't want to do that."
The loss of properties by what has come to be known as "demolition by neglect" is heartbreaking, said Patricia Linklater, chairman of the Detroit Historic District Commission.
If officials had made sure the people acquiring city-owned buildings kept their promises or had them "mothballed" properly so they could be restored once development was on an upswing, Detroit would have one of the greatest downtown historic districts in the nation, she said.
"There is no measuring what has been lost," Linklater said. "What has happened here is a shame, it's an embarrassment,"
Liberal incentives make recouping hard for city
The city may be giving away too much in terms of tax abatements, other incentives and land improvements to attract developers, some experts believe.
In 1999, Crosswinds Communities of Novi began building the first of what is eventually expected to be around 650 lofts and town houses in Brush Park. No one else would take the risk, but the city -- working with Crosswinds owner Bernie Glieberman, who also developed the city's Victoria Park subdivision -- was able to make a deal.
The city would also take on the timely, costly process of eliminating tax, mortgage and other types of liens on the property and make other infrastructure improvements, sell the land cheap to Glieberman and other builders and allow them to use 12-year, 60 percent tax breaks.
"There was a tremendous potential," Glieberman said.
But, he added, the costs of doing business in Detroit, from having material brought here from the suburbs to building on land where property had been demolished, are so much more than the suburbs that it would be impossible without incentives.
But those incentives, said Galster, the WSU urban housing expert, have become a costly way of doing business that could backfire on Detroit.
Planning and Development officials estimate that it would cost financially ailing Detroit $30 million to purchase the land necessary to develop Brush Park in total and complete necessary infrastructure improvements such as lighting, streets and sewer lines.
Galster said the new taxes, primarily from income taxes, that the city generates will never balance out the land acquisition cost and loss in revenue from the property tax abatements.
"The salaries people would have to make are just too high," he said. "It almost makes better financial sense doing nothing with the property."
You can reach David Josar at (313) 222-2073 or djosar@detnews.com.
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