CEO Dave Meador said the roughly $5 million park has a dual purpose – to provide a pleasant place for employees and spark new development in the underused district.
The west side of downtown Detroit, mostly surface lots and little-used buildings, will soon see one derelict lot transformed into an oasis of green space aiming to mirror the thriving scene at Campus Martius.
DTE Energy said a $5 million park in the works on a vacant lot it owns will feature food trucks, concerts, a restaurant and open green space. DTE released renderings today of the still-unnamed park.
Dave Meador, DTE Energy’s vice chairman and chief administrative officer, said the roughly $5 million park has a dual purpose – to provide a pleasant place for DTE’s 3,500 downtown employees and others and also to spark new development in the underused district.
Rendering shows image of what the planned DTE Energy park on the west side of downtown Detroit may look like – with a food truck located nearby. (Photo: DTE Energy)
“You see how Campus Martius is that hub for activities,” Meador said last week. “You go there day and night and see people doing something. Our aspiration is that’ll be like that in this area.”
DTE plans to ask the public for suggested names for the park. Groundbreaking is expected later this summer, and the park should be completed by the end of the year.
Development of the vacant 56,000-square-foot fenced-in lot is the latest step in DTE’s decadelong effort to build up its headquarters campus on the west side of downtown, which could use investment and a spark of activity. Earlier work by DTE has included an architecturally significant new entrance to its headquarters tower and extensive landscaping improvements.
Rendering shows another image of what the planned DTE Energy park in downtown Detroit would look like. (Photo: DTE Energy)
The company’s campus is bordered on its south edge by Bagley Avenue and on the west side by Third Street just east of the MGM Grand Detroit. The vacant lot that will become the new park is farther to the east and bordered by Grand River Avenue, First Street and Plaza.
A new park would complement other downtown improvements championed by Quicken Loans founder and chairman Dan Gilbert, who has rehabbed dozens of properties, and the Ilitch family with their $650 million arena and entertainment district project at the north end of downtown.
“With Dan Gilbert doing everything south and the Ilitches everything north, what could we do in this neighborhood that would be really good for our employees but also for good for the community,” Meador said in his office, which overlooks the site.
The vacant wedge shaped parcel is the site where DTE Energy plans to create a new park similar to Campus Martius on the west side of downtown Detroit. Groundbreaking should take place this summer in 2015. The vacant lots to the north are planned to be part of the Ilitch family’s arena district. (Photo: John Gallagher, Detroit Free Press)
Meador said DTE also plans to ask the public for new ideas for developing its idle Conners Creek coal-fired power plant on Detroit’s far east riverfront. There are no plans to fire up the plant again, and rather than demolish it, DTE hopes to convert it and its 40-acre site to some new use.
Meador has traveled to Germany to study how the country deals with decommissioned industrial sites in the Ruhr Valley. He has done this with the help of the German Marshall Fund, a transatlantic nonprofit. Meador visited a former Thyssen steel plant converted to a recreational and cultural site. The outside of the plant is now a climbing wall and an old water vat is used as a scuba instruction school.
The Conners Creek plant drew worldwide publicity a few years ago when DTE workers discovered a new beaver lodge in the canal leading to the Detroit River. Wildlife experts said it appeared to be the first beaver lodge found within the city of Detroit since the 1800s – a sign of the ecological recovery of the Detroit River.
Meador said DTE hopes to begin working with neighborhood residents soon to solicit ideas for the Conners Creek plant.
