Detroit Riverfront Promenade
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DETROIT RIVERFRONT PROMENADE The Detroit River from Beaubien Street to Grand Boulevard Detroit, Michigan Detroit Riverfront Conservancy website Thanks to the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy for two of our photos below. The Department of Environmental quality (DEQ) collaborated with the city of Detroit and the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to improve public access to the Detroit Riverfront, build Michigan’s first urban state park, connect downtown destinations, and facilitate growing riverfront greenspace and development. SITE CHARACTERISTICS AND HISTORY 3.5 miles, linked it with other non-motorized trails, and The Detroit River has always connected the city to the added greenspace. More expansion is expected (see world by water, first as a trade route and later for links below). The DNR built the state’s first urban state shipping the raw materials and finished products that park on the riverfront, followed by an Outdoor Adventure fueled Detroit industry. Once crowded with factories and Center. Orleans Landing, a residential development, was warehouses, by the early 2000s much of the industrial built on an adjacent brownfield site with the help of a riverfront was abandoned and no longer served either DEQ brownfield grant. industry or downtown businesses. The riverfront sea wall was deteriorating and parking lots blocked the few public FUNDING AND INCENTIVES walkways on the river. Detroit’s renaissance would be $6,200,000 DEQ Waterfront Grant incomplete without improving the downtown riverfront for $1,753,160 DEQ Clean Michigan Initiative funding for cement silo demolition public access and events. $7,845,000 local match REDEVELOPMENT $1,000,000 DEQ grant for storm water runoff Unprecedented state and local collaboration turned the Detroit riverfront into a destination. The city planned to OUTCOMES link popular destinations such as Cobo Center, the DEQ grant for a 3,000-foot river walk was a catalyst for continued public and private riverfront Dequindre Cut Greenway, the Veterans Memorial, and redevelopment Hart Plaza with a 3,000-foot Riverfront Promenade. It 3,000,000 people a year now visit the formerly would need to demolish vacant industrial sites, relocate blighted riverfront cement silos, and redevelop vacant riverfront property. Programming from the Tall Ships Festival to The DEQ awarded the city a Waterfront Redevelopment moonlight yoga make the Riverfront Promenade a Grant to demolish crumbling infrastructure and build a destination for residents, families, visitors, and pedestrian walkway with railings, lighting, landscaping, downtown workers and street furniture. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION The city’s riverfront vision is still growing more than 10 More riverfront development plans years after the DEQ grant. The nonprofit Detroit East Riverfront plans unveiled Riverfront Conservancy has expanded the Promenade to 517-284-5113 www.michigan.gov/deqbrownfields February 2017 #mibrownfields .