Brownfield Conference attracts developers to Ypsilanti’s Water Street project

There is hope yet for Ypsilanti‘s Water Street property, the red-headed stepchild of local development.

 

City officials were banking that exposure at the Brownfields conference in Detroit earlier this spring would breath new life into the project. It appears the work may pay off in attracting interest in developing the largely vacant 38-acre parcel.

 

“The presentation at the conference has lead to a great increase in interest in the project,” says Brian Vosburg, director of the Depot Town and Downtown development authorities in Ypsilanti. “We are currently talking to several developers who have serious interest in doing a project on the Water St. site.”

 

Water Street is a collection of 42 residential and old commercial parcels in need of pollution remediation. The city acquired the acreage 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 to get out from under loan payments the city took out to assemble the land. 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: Brian Vosburg, director of the Depot Town and Downtown development authorities in Ypsilanti
Writer: Jon Zemke