DETROIT (WWJ) -- An old auto plant in Midtown Detroit will soon transform into an affordable “make/live” artist community.
The team behind Recycle Here and Lincoln Street Art Park is rolling out plans to create a mixed-use development with affordable housing and 38,000 square feet of retail and commercial space known as Dreamtroit. All the while, the development will maintain the site’s eccentricity that has made it a popular destination for artists, creatives and recyclers, according to the brains behind the development, artists Matt Naimi and Oren Goldenberg.
Located on Holden Street, just west of M-10, the John C. Lodge Freeway, and south of W. Grand Boulevard at the former site of the first Lincoln Motor Factory -- and eventually a manufacturing site for Ford’s Model T -- it has been the home to the Lincoln Street Art Park and a recycling center for the last decade.
“The concept is to create a space that is home to cutting-edge art and allows for creatives to gather with a diverse community,” a press release says.
The $20 million project will bring 58 affordable housing units and nearly two dozen more commercial and retail spaces. Officials say 21 percent of the housing units will be at “deeply affordable rates.” Plans are for 17 affordable units to be reserved for households at or below 50 percent area median income, while 41 units will be at 80 percent AMI and the rest below the workforce housing level of 120 percent AMI.
The apartments will feature 13-foot ceilings, huge industrial windows, flex space, an innovative design to maximize floor space and come in a variety of loft units, including one-bedrooms, two-bedrooms, studios and studios with communal kitchens.
Other amenities will include an indoor event space, a workshop and a coffee shop. Plans call for “ample on-site parking.”
The project is expected to be completed by early 2022.
Naimi and Goldenberg say they were driven to take on the project as a way to protect the city’s arts community, which they view as integral to the city’s character. They saw the opportunity as a way to fight back against Detroit’s rising rent rates and that Detroiters should “be able to live affordably in the city of Detroit and be entrenched in the amazing culture” the city holds.
“We believe it is the people and the culture that push our city into the future,” said Naimi, founder of Recycle Here, per a press release. “For the past 12 years, we have been bringing people together through public programming, public space, environmentalism and art. We are ensuring that the working class, artists and innovators will continue to have a home and a platform to build the next generation of Detroit's cultural and technological revolution, while offering affordable housing to those who make Detroit such a unique and creative place.”
The Lincoln Street Art Park, popular among the arts community, will continue to play a key role after the development is completed, hosting art and social events. It’s on the site a formerly unkempt and underutilized area, but since 2011 has become a popular gathering place for the neighborhood and site of frequent bonfires, musical performances and other events.
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