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For years -- for many years -- the divide between affluent Grosse Pointe and struggling Detroit has been evident along its borders. Not just Alter Road, but also Mack Avenue, where on the GP side, tidy small businesses abound, but the Detroit side is pocked by vacancies. (For a while, weed dispensaries thrived there, but most have been shut down.)
Detroit's side of Mack Avenue near Grosse Pointe Park. (Photo: Google Maps)
Now, a concentrated effort to improve the stretch of Mack dividing Grosse Pointe Park from its larger neighbor is taking root.
Driven by the Eastside Community Network in Detroit and the Park city government, design and development firms have been retained to make recommendations on how best to stabilize and encourage development along the corridor.
The Grosse Pointe News reports:
The plan recommends “that ECN raise and use additional funding that could be used for facade and storefront improvements and/or stabilization, technical assistance to help identify what needs to be done to make the storefronts retail-ready, and establish a fund to help property owners and potential tenants pay legal, broker fees to complete real estate transactions that will bring tenants to the area or keep tenants in the area.
Some of the funds raised for facade and storefront improvements could be targeted specifically to assist Mack Avenue property and business owners with preliminary technical support prior to being approved by the programs such as the Motor City Match/Motor City Restore and other programs with larger target areas and potentially longer waitlists.”
To further encourage reinvestment, VENTRA and Hamilton Anderson recommend ECN reconvene a Mack Avenue business association, create a formal marketing and branding strategy and coordinate right-of-way improvements, among others.
“The first phase of the plan,” [ECN President Donna] Givens said, “is really for us to provide a lot of focus in the Grosse Pointe Park, Detroit divide between Alter and Somerset, that we work on creating an identity for that stretch of the border and attracting businesses to the corridor.”
There have been recent signs of life along that stretch. Lost River, a tiki bar, opened in the last year a few doors from Vegginini's, a juice bar.
