Fitzgerald Revitalization Project - Northwest Detroit

[RustTown]

An interesting project is taking place in the Fitzgerald neighborhood in northwest Detroit.  The neighborhood includes Marygrove College and is just west of University of Detroit.

Quote

Tanya Moutzalias

Ambitious project seeks to renovate 92 homes at once in Detroit neighborhood

By Gus Burns, MLive.com

June 28, 2018

Specs:

 

Plans include the renovation of 92 city-owned homes and 233 vacant lots -- some for use as urban farms -- along with the demolition of 24 houses and the creation Ella Fitzgerald Park, an outdoor centerpiece that will join two walking and biking paths leading to nearby Marygrove College and the University of Detroit Mercy.

The park is expected to open in July.

 

[walker]

Investigative report in the Free Press July 8 says the Fitzgerald project is a year behind schedule.  Long article but still sketchy on specific details.  As best as I can figure out the main contractor has been slow and the original timeline appears to have been overly optimistic and probably based on assuming everything was going to go right.  And the neighborhood residents, at least the ones interviewed, are a bit put out about not being in the loop about what's going on.  Not being on the ground, I can't tell if their concerns are legitimate or if these are people who are just generally complainers anyway.   While I don't doubt the project is seriously behind the schedule the politicians promised and it sounds like community relations may not be high on the list of the contractor's skill sets, I don't see much of a story here.  Stuff happens in big projects.

   fitzgerald-neighborhood-remake-full-year-behind

[RustTown]

Yes, it was a very sloppy story in which they created a "problem."  It's crazy to me how detailed the story was, and how little it actually addressed any major problems.  It was this huge investigative story and the conclusion is basically "A complicated project with hundreds of different pieces spread over an entire city neighborhood didn't go exactly as planned."  Well, no sh%t, Sherlock.  That's the story?

[walker]

So today John Gallagher, the business editor of the Free Press,  writes a piece basically saying what we said, stuff happens in big projects  that are not accounted for in timelines.  While not specifically about the FitzGerald project, it's interesting that there is a READ MORE link to the FitzGerald article embedded in the story.  I wonder if there was any internal discussion at the Free Press about how stupid that FitzGerald article was?  I talked briefly with Gallagher once a couple of years ago, seems like a nice guy.  

GALLAGHER - Here's why Detroit development takes so long