Dozens of bricks and chunks of limestone from the 11th floor of a long-vacant Park Avenue building came crashing onto the street in April. Nobody was hurt by the rubble that covered an area the size of an SUV, but it was an urgent reminder why Detroit officials had long considered the building a safety hazard.
Now, after decades of neglect, the historic structure at at Park Ave. Plans are to transform the ,square-foot former office building into 75 to apartments with 4,, square feet of first-floor retail. The planned revival of the building would mark a stunning turnaround in a city that gave rise to the phrase "ruin porn," referring to the tens of thousands of vacant, blighted properties that still plague Detroit. But in downtown — the blocks bordered by the freeways and the Detroit River — the problem is almost history.
In , the Park Avenue was among the 48 big, empty downtown buildings counted in an analysis by The Detroit News. Since then, billions of dollars have been invested into dozens of properties, reviving the once-bleak city core. The Park Avenue was one of the last buildings in the central business district that sat empty and neglected for years, if not decades, with no working development plan.
No one can recall when the Park Avenue last had a tenant; it's been at least 18, possibly 25 years. The building first opened in and was designed by Albert Kahn, often called the "architect of Detroit," whose work ranged from the Art Deco masterpiece Fisher Building in the city's New Center to the massive Ford Motor Co.
Rouge complex in Dearborn. Getty Images. Entering abandoned buildings is against the law and not sanctioned by the city. It's also dangerous: there are many stories of unaware visitors being robbed of expensive camera equipment. But there are several places to get guided tours of the city's most captivating abandoned buildings, and according to the LA Times, interest in them has only increased.
Tour guide and photographer Jesse Welter told the paper he has had more visitors , who he takes to places like a church, school and ballroom -- all abandoned. Another tour guide told The Huffington Post that he's seen more visitors since Detroit filed for bankruptcy in July.
Surprisingly, they're more likely now to be curious about the city's history, aiming to learn rather than gawk. Some have expressed frustration at the way decline is glamorized or exploited -- it's called ruin porn for a reason -- rather than seen as part of the city's larger ills. While some think iconic buildings should be preserved for their historical significance, others them as eyesores, havens for crime or obstacles to the city's renewal.
Many Detroiters were happy when the Brewster-Douglass projects, where Lily Tomlin and Diana Ross once lived, finally made the demolition list.
In September, Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr declared a "blight emergency" to make it easier to tear down structures. The federally-appointed Detroit Blight Removal Task Force is charged with surveying abandoned structures and finding solutions -- it also counts Dan Gilbert as one of its leaders, the billionaire who has developed extensive portions of downtown Detroit.
Overall, slightly more than 22 percent of residential structures in the city are likely to be abandoned. It seems that population loss should easily explain Detroit's abandonment problem: the city has lost 63 percent of its population since its peak in the s. The population in Detroit has been steadily falling every year since when it hit an all-time high of 1,, residents; it now has , residents according to the US Census.
Why are so many buildings in Detroit abandoned? Category: news and politics disasters. Around 70, buildings , 31, homes, and 90, vacant lots all abandoned in Detroit. Many homes are abandoned in the area because they have been foreclosed due to mortgage defaults or unpaid taxes.
Lamore blames this on the nature of economic transition. Why houses in Detroit are so cheap? Fewer jobs in the City eventually resulted in fewer people able to live there. This means there are now more houses than people who want them, so the law of supply-and-demand drives prices down.
In an area with low demand, the repairs make no economic sense, since they cost more than the house is worth. Who owns the abandoned houses in Detroit? What are the most dangerous areas of Detroit?
To better understand the impact, take a look at this list of the top ten most dangerous neighborhoods in Detroit:. What caused the decline of Detroit?
The city's population fell from 1. Many people often cite political corruption as a major reason for Detroit's decline. Detroit's decline began mainly because structural changes in the auto industry led to the steady loss of manufacturing jobs over several decades.
Who owns most of Detroit? Dan Gilbert moved his mortgage company , Quicken Loans, to downtown Detroit in and founded his real-estate firm Bedrock a year later, when the city was just a few years from bankruptcy.
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