A stable neighborhood across the Detroit River declined dramatically during the past two decades as nearly 200 homes were bought and left to deteriorate.
Now The Windsor Star adds eye-opening details behind what has long been clear: One notorious businessman is behind furtive purchases, often for cash, under at least 17 names.
"A painstaking analysis of property records" by investigative reporter Claire Brownell found extensive land transfers on behalf of 86-year-old Ambassador Bridge owner Matty Moroun of Grosse Pointe.
The analysis identified 182 total real estate transactions involving the bridge company or affiliates, with billionaire bridge owner Matty Moroun spending a total of $52 million on Windsor property. Since the bridge company often registers the ownership with numbered corporations or lawyers, it’s possible it owns even more Windsor real estate than that.
Moroun spent the bulk of that money — $31.9 million – on houses, apartment buildings and residential vacant lots in Sandwich from the mid-‘90s to the present. That’s $2 million more than Moroun spent to purchase the Ambassador Bridge itself in 1979. . . .
A total of 17 different Moroun-affiliated companies – including trucking companies, numbered companies and companies with vague, tough-to-trace names like “Properties Management Inc.” — were listed as owners on the property records. . . . Lawyers, often with the Toronto law firm Himelfarb Proszanski LLP, will also sometimes be listed as trustees in the initial purchase. This is another way of disguising the real owner.
Bridge company-owned homes are "behind chain link fences, with a security company’s logo stamped on the plywood covering the doors and windows, shingles and siding peeling off a little more each day," Brownell reports.
A point-of-view headline is on the Page One portion of The Star's multi-element presentation: "Land Grab: How a bridge baron ruined a neighbourhood." An interactive graphic, photo gallery and list of proxy buyers accompany the main article. "Moroun pays cash most of the time," a sidebar notes.
In her front page expose, Brownell writes:
The bridge company ignored repeated requests for an interview with Moroun. Unable to ask the man himself, the best anyone can do is make an educated guess about his long-term real estate strategy in Windsor and Detroit. . . .
Moroun goes to great lengths to keep the extent of his holdings private. His family’s business interests are made up of a complicated web of companies that change names frequently and are privately held, making them difficult to trace.
In a sidebar, the journalist describes why tracing these ownership records is "a lot more complicated" than usual:
Moroun will frequently combine and divide the registration numbers used to identify and search the properties at the land registry office, making it difficult to figure out whether the record is for one property or many and where it’s located.
At a public meeting two months ago, a bridge company lawyer said it wants to create "a bicycle or a walking path near the bridge, a clean and wonderful amenity for the neighbourhood," if the city could let it demolish the homes, according to The Star.
Mayor Eddie Francis has said that insisting the bridge company follow procedures to the letter is crucial, especially since he believes the company has plans for Indian Road that are different from what its spokespeople say publicly. And to follow procedures to the letter, the bridge company would have to submit a written plan for what it wants to do with the land once the homes are demolished, which it has not done.
