Will the promise of a rare 20-plus-acre contiguous development site in the city be enough to woo developers past challenges that golf courses can often face, including topography, which the RFP describes as “significant”?
We’ll know more in the coming months. RFP responses are due by 3 p.m. June 23, while a final developer selection is expected by Aug. 7 and notices in writing to go out a week later.
“I think the selected developer or developers are going to have to address that in their due diligence and understanding the environmental ramifications of the topography,” Howell said.
There aren’t many contiguous development properties with more than 20 acres in Detroit. Some of the others include the former Packard Plant and the Uniroyal property on the Detroit River near Belle Isle.
The city has invested in the northwest part of town in recent years, including doing a neighborhood framework plan for Grand River/Northwest Detroit, completing it in summer 2018 to outline the economic development vision for the area. There have also been streetscape improvements to Grand River Avenue and Lahser Road.
Howell also said there was substantial community engagement over the years about the broader area, as well as what nearby residents wanted the site to become.
The city sold the golf course — which opened before World War I — to the Greater Grace Temple of the Apostolic Faith for $2.1 million in 2007 in the years leading up to Detroit’s financial collapse.
The sale made it one of the few Black-owned-and-operated golf courses in the country, and the only one in the state at the time, Crain’s reported in 2007. But the church closed it in 2013, and the property became overgrown and blighted.
The city bought the land back from the church in 2018 for $1.94 million and announced plans to build a park on part of the property.
Following some $3.4 million in improvements, the park is expected to be completed by the fall, according to the RFP.
In addition, the DEGC put out an RFP for a 6.1-acre former Department of Public Works site in southwest Detroit on West Vernor Highway. Responses are due May 16.
