Hantz Farms officials acknowledge their self-funded venture would create few new jobs in the short term, and only modest revenue for Detroit.
Hantz is offering only $300 a parcel, one-tenth of what city officials wanted. It has agreed to clear the land and demolish as many as 200 structures—at an estimated cost of more than $2 million, offset in part by tax credits and state assistance—before beginning to pay roughly $60,000 a year in taxes on the land.
Beyond that, the scale of what Mr. Hantz has in mind unnerves even some advocates of urban farming. Kwamena Mensah, who manages the nonprofit D-Town organic farm on seven acres within a West Side park, says the value of Detroit's land lies not in its profit potential, but in "community-building, green spaces and places like this."
To that, Mr. Hantz says Detroit "could do every idea I've ever heard of tomorrow" and still have plenty of empty land left. A former stockbroker who left American Express to found his own financial-services firm, Mr. Hantz, 50 years old, lives in Indian Village, an East Side enclave of turn-of-the-century manors built for the city's elite.
