Drive past dilapidated houses and weeds as high as corn in July and you arrive on a scene as unexpected as Dorothy stepping onto a Technicolor landscape.
Here, just east of Woodward Avenue, a Detroit neighborhood that’s gained notoriety as one of the city’s worst is quietly being resurrected. These streets no longer resemble the neighborhood Jenelle Christian moved into six years ago, with hope and fear and desperation mingled.
Now, construction crews man cranes and excavators, clearing land for the next phase of the Penrose development, tucked into a six block area south of the Michigan State Fairgrounds.
This is becoming a traditional Detroit neighborhood reimagined, with freshly-poured concrete sidewalks, front and back porches that promote friendliness, and neighbors waving to each other. There’s an “art house,” where artists teach neighborhood children and adults. Two large gardens are tended full time, with the help of neighborhood volunteers, including one young man heading for Michigan State University’s urban farming program next year. Ken Weikal and Beth Hagenbuch, landscape architects and founders of the nonprofit Growtown, provide gardening and art lessons.
Crews are building 36 new homes, adding to the equal number built in 2006. The houses have granite-look counters, planked floors, basements and at least two baths, yet rent for about $500 a month. Built close to the street and to each other, they’re designed to promote interaction.
“It’s a little part of a big city,” says Weikal. “It’s walkable and livable.”
“I’m excited about what’s going on,” says Christian, the mother of three young children who works as a caregiver. “This is becoming a real neighborhood, not just a place where you stay.”
For Sam Thomas, 72, a former tax lawyer turned Ann Arbor developer, the community is more about his own personal legacy than real estate. A long ago resident of Palmer Woods, the still-exclusive neighborhood just across Woodward Avenue, Thomas has been working on the rescue of Penrose for a decade. As century old-homes crumbled and weeds grew, he’s been patiently rebuilding a neighborhood too far gone to come back on its own.
“It is something very important to me,” he says. “It takes a long time to make something like this happen, but it’s the most satisfying thing that I have done.”
Thomas, and his North Carolina-based partners, Cynthia and Joe Salaka, are like so many entrepreneurs and activists engaged in Detroit: Bankruptcy is a hurdle, perhaps, but not an ending to their work. Penrose is a $40 million public-private collaboration that relies on the cooperation of the city of Detroit, which has been tearing down homes and selling land to the partners.
Even more, it depends on a low-income housing tax credit program devised by the IRS: The development is awarded tax credits, which are then sold to investors.
The low-income housing tax credits require the homes be rented, not sold. Thomas says he can be selective about his tenants —“good, working people. Most of our residents are children” —and encourage home maintenance. The 2006 homes still look largely new. Residents must keep their grass cut and their homes maintained. “If something breaks, they need to call us,” he says.
The Solakas, former Detroiters, were engaged initially by a desire to help the Chaldean community in the area. Ironically, though, most of the Chaldean neighborhood moved elsewhere as economic doom and crime conspired to create hardship on all levels. Back in 2006, as the first phase was built, families moved in with trepidation. Today, there’s a 1,000-person waiting list for the next phase.
With a new shopping center and Meijer store opening nearby, a proposed development for the fairgrounds and a revival in Palmer Park, the neighborhood’s prospects are looking up again.
The next phase, which will be restricted to residents with special needs, includes a farmhouse and plans for a producing farm on the community land. Every yard will have a fruit tree. “There are thousands of people who need this,” says Thomas. “People want a nice, safe place to live.”
Penrose is a work in progress — an uplifting one, with a waiting list a thousand names long.
From The Detroit News: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20130724/METRO01/307240042#ixzz2ZxxkgBsw
