Riverfront Property In Detroit To Become A Big Parking Lot Under DTE Land Swap

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Welcome to your Tuesday edition of Daily Detroit, where we deliver two pieces of big news:

  1. Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson says he has stage four pancreatic cancer and won’t seek an eighth term in 2020.
  2. DTE Energy says it expects to sign a deal with the city to swap a decommissioned power plant on the east riverfront so it can be used to store Jeeps built at a new factory being pursued by parent Fiat Chrysler. [Freep]

Why is this sad, you ask? This is the important line.

FCA said it needs DTE’s Conners Creek land for storage of vehicles for the Jeep plant to be built at Mack and St. Jean.

Detroit Free Press

Because it assures that most of a valuable piece of riverfront — reportedly the largest contiguous parcel of riverfront property remaining — will be used to park cars.

Approximate current DTE land – Connors Creek site

In my opinion, this somehow feels quintessentially Detroit, a repeat of what we’ve always done: surrender to the automobile. Weren’t we supposed to be trying to reclaim our riverfront? And wasn’t DTE Energy crowing about redeveloping that parcel? (Why yes. Yes, they were.)

In other news, measles cases are on the rise in Oakland County after being traced to a man who visited the area from Israel, circa New York City. We recently spoke with an infectious disease specialist from Beaumont Health about measles and why it’s coming back.

On the lighter side, both John King Books and Motor City Gas get nods for their excellence from Mentalfloss and Yelp respectively.

And finally, Jer speaks with James Chapman of Rock Ventures about the Quicken Loans Demo Day on June 14 and how you can get involved.

Thanks for listening to Daily Detroit. Find us and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, and consider supporting us as a member.

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