Arbor Update

Ann Arbor Area Community News

ULI Task force issues Eastern Market recommendations

13. December 2004 • Murph
Email this article

The Urban Land Institute has issued a set of recommendations for Detroit’s “unpolished gem”, Eastern Market. From the Freep:

Sponsored by the Urban Land Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that is one of the nation’s premier organizations devoted to urban planning and development issues, the nine-member team offered its recommendations Friday. They included the creation of a powerful new public entity to run Eastern Market.
. . .
Like ordinary Detroiters, the panel praised Eastern Market’s lively Saturday morning public market and the funky mix of restaurants, shops and old warehouses that make up the district. But the panelists also said Eastern Market needs a thorough cleaning, and it recommended that parking be improved, the architecture revitalized and the financing strengthened.

The consultants seem to be well-versed in the language of Cool Cities,

Eastern Market should encourage creation of loft housing to meet an off-beat market that wouldn’t mind coexisting with delivery trucks and the public market. “We want to let the technos overlap with the warehouses and see what comes out,” said panelist Sian Llewellyn, a San Francisco-based consultant.

(story c/o George Hotelling)



  1. They could have saved $110,000 by putting the plan from 1999 into action. Or they could have talked to Don Rafal.

    “Rafal said what the area needs is simple: Better security, cleaner streets and speed-limit signs.”

    http://atdetroit.net/forum/messages/5/33620.html?1102311533

    If anything is done at all, the City will waste the money of struggling vendors on landscaping that will rot when there is no money to maintain it.
       —Hillary    Dec. 13 '04 - 02:40PM    #