Ypsilanti to demo Water Street buildings, put best foot forward
Ypsilanti’s leaders want to raze the old so they will have a better shot of building new on the Water Street acreage. City officials are proposing demoing the old buildings on the 38 acres to make the land overlooking the Huron River more appealing to a developer.
It looks like some buildings are ready to fall on
City officials are considering taking out a $650,000 loan from
“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
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
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
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