The city of Detroit has announced plans to sell Lee Plaza, the hulking and abandoned former apartment tower on West Grand Boulevard near Linden, to a pair of developers for a cool $350,000. The Roxbury Group and Ethos Development Partners plan to convert it to 180 apartments and retail as part of a $50 million redevelopment. It’s good news for an ailing but iconic building in a part of town that could use some love.
Also on today’s show, we run down the first partisan fight of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s tenure. Republican lawmakers have overridden her executive order restructuring the state’s main environmental department. They objected to her effort to do away with industry-friendly panels overseeing environmental rules and permitting.
Here’s what else you’ll hear:
- An update on the Piet Oudolf garden coming to Belle Isle
- Details on Michigan’s new Move Over Law
- Bob Seger adds a Detroit-area date to his farewell tour, which is currently under way
- A new Meijer is coming to the new shopping center development taking shape at 13 Mile and Woodward in Royal Oak
- Jer and I talk about the news that Amazon is scrapping its plans to build part of its HQ2 campus in New York City amid a wave of local opposition about the incentives on offer and other issues. As a reminder, Detroit offered similar incentives as part of its package to try and woo the e-retail behemoth, and we devoted an entire podcast episode to doing the postmortem on why the Detroit-Windsor bid fell short.
- And finally, an interview with Ryan Landau from the staffing agency Re:Purpose.
Thank you for listening to our show. Happy Valentine’s Day, errybody. We <3 you.