It looks like some buildings are ready to fall on Ypsilanti's Water
Street property to help jump start the redevelopment project.
City officials are considering taking out a $650,000 loan
from Washtenaw County to help tear down some of the
buildings on the 38-acre parcel and start removing some of the pollution.
"The more remediation we can do on the site the more
attractive it is to a developer," says April McGrath, the assistant city
manager for the city of Ypsilanti.
The loan would pay for the razing and cleaning up the
buildings on Michigan Avenue that have the most pollution problems first, such
as the old First Class Cleaners and Huron Trade Center structures. The hope is
that removing them will also make that part of the acreage more attractive to
smaller developers who might only want to redevelop a smaller chunk of the
property.
The loan would come from Environmental Protection Agency
funds funneled through the county. The loan would require no payment and incur
no interest for its first five years.
The City Council will review the proposal on May 8 and could
make a decision on whether to move ahead with the plan later this month.
Water Street is a collection of 42 residential and old
commercial parcels in need of pollution remediation. The city acquired the 38
acres on the Huron
River near downtown and
bundled it together in hopes of attracting a developer that would turn it into
new residential housing and commercial space that stressed a dense, urban
ethic. However, city officials are now open to splitting the parcel to develop
parts of it and will aggressively
market it at the upcoming Brownfields conference
in Detroit this
weekend.
Like so many other plans with the best intentions, the idea
of using new taxes from the development to pay off the bonds used to buy the
property didn't quite work out as planned when the chosen developer, Joseph Freed & Associates, pulled
out. The city has since spent more than a year searching for a new developer
before the first bond payments come due.
Source: April McGrath,
the assistant city manager for the city of Ypsilanti
Writer: Jon Zemke