The Detroit Riverfront Conservancy announced plans for the continued development of the east riverfront today that will further the efforts of making the riverfront one of the top public gathering spaces nationwide. Just think back to the days of the rivertown district being the complete opposite of what it has matured to today. A little over a decade ago, silos used to occupy what we now know as the Riverwalk today. If you were a Detroiter during those times, the only reason you would travel south of Jefferson Avenue was to see a musician performing at Chene Park during the summer.

With the plans the DRC announced today, along with our director of the Planning & Development Department, Maurice D. Cox, I gotta say, they got this one right. Everything that was proposed in the renderings shared with the public today is exactly what the city needs. With much of the development talk centered around real estate dealings throughout downtown and Midtown, there hasn’t been much of an emphasis placed in public spaces with respect to our parks over the years. This is why I’m confident the plans for continuing the development of the riverfront will be a game-changer. The extension of green space, creating new parks, along with the plans to produce greenways and re-purposing the former industrial enclave of Franklin St. into a mixed-use of restaurants and residential development, the riverfront was already an exciting destination, but watch out, once the plans are completed, other cities across the world will look to Detroit for the answer of re-purposing land.