Development can be a tricky thing in Detroit. For years, the city has suffered an exodus of migrated flights of residents and businesses. The exit door of the city’s population made way for abandoned properties, vacant land, and a significant reduction in the city’s tax base over the years.
The value of properties dropped over the decades, and the interest of anyone daring to move into the city to live or do business, let alone develop new buildings or rehab existing ones, made for an extraordinary set of circumstances for a municipality that would eventually drive toward federal bankruptcy in 2013.
One of the people who never left Detroit is Black businessman Herb Strather, President & CEO of Strather Associates, LLC, a real estate and investment firm in Detroit.
“As little kid on Herbert Street, I noticed people moved out of our community and they never would come back,” Strather says. “I remember crying in front of my church and saying to myself that if I ever get out of here, I’m going to come back and redevelop my community.”
Redevelopment has been a focus across downtown over several years and has begun to spread into some pockets of the city’s neighborhoods. Strather, who has over 1,000 residential units and some commercial property mixed with some vacant land property, is leading an effort along with several investors to redevelop the abandoned Mammoth building at the intersection of Grand River and Greenfield.
The Mammoth Building Investors (MBI) proposed “GrandRiverTown” as the name for the project area, which seeks to capture a vision that connects to the neighborhood’s rich history.
“It’s a great time to invest,” Strather says, as it relates to overall investment in Detroit. “If interest were lower, it would be even super. Values have been impacted for sure. It can be hard collecting rent nowadays.”
He refers to the difficulty placed on property owners to collect revenue from renters during pandemic-related rules, which granted tenants exceptions from facing widespread evictions. However, Strather feels optimistic about the judicial system hearing the concern on the right of landlords to make a living as well.
The focal point of Strather’s development is “The Experience!” a mixed-use facility that combines entertainment and education. The Experience! will feature 100 modern apartment units as well as 80,000 square feet of retail space. In a nod to the communal aspect of urban living, the rejuvenated Mammoth building will boast two restaurants that promise to tantalize the taste buds of locals and tourists alike. The proposed inclusion of a Family Entertainment Center and a STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) center underscores MBI’s commitment to nurturing the holistic development of the community.
Chris Jackson, another Black businessman, is finding opportunity in the market.
Jackson has built his career in real estate development in Detroit for nearly 25 years. He was one of the original partners in the Greektown Casino in 2000. After later selling his interest in the gaming entity, he partnered with the late Donald Davis, chairman of First Independent Bank. They later founded Queen Lillian, a development firm focused on creating commercial real estate. Under Jackson’s leadership, the company last year completed its first residential development project, Woodward West.
“We have ventured into multi-family residential space that of the 204 of them, 20 percent are affordable which is 80 percent of the average median income.”
Jackson’s current Woodward West residential building leases 80 percent of its units at market rate, while the rest are affordable. He presses the distinction between affordable housing and low-income housing based on assumptions of others that both terms are identical.
His residential project, which has tapped into a public subsidy, is utilizing the city’s 20 percent rule, something Jackson welcomes for perhaps that entry-level professional or working person at a certain and set income point to be a part of the housing opportunities Detroit is providing thanks to housing efforts like city council president Mary Sheffield.
As a Black developer and native Detroiter, Jackson believes he’s doing his part to ensure Detroiters are a part of the city’s growth while, at the same time, his development projects are good for business.
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