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 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 Conservancy has expanded the Promenade to 3.5 miles, The Detroit River has always connected the city to the linked it with other non-motorized trails, and added world by water, first as a trade route and later for shipping greenspace. More expansion is expected (see links the raw materials and finished products that fueled Detroit below). The DNR built the state’s first urban state park on industry. Once crowded with factories and warehouses, by the riverfront, followed by an Outdoor Adventure Center. the early 2000s much of the industrial riverfront was Orleans Landing, a residential development, was built on abandoned and no longer served either industry or an adjacent brownfield site with the help of a DEQ downtown businesses. The riverfront sea wall was brownfield grant. deteriorating and parking lots blocked the few public walkways on the river. Detroit’s renaissance would be FUNDING AND INCENTIVES incomplete without improving the downtown riverfront for • $6,200,000 DEQ Waterfront Grant public access and events. • $1,753,160 DEQ Clean Michigan Initiative funding for cement silo demolition REDEVELOPMENT • $7,845,000 local match Unprecedented state and local collaboration turned the • $1,000,000 DEQ grant for storm water runoff Detroit riverfront into a destination. The city planned to link popular destinations such as Cobo Center, the OUTCOMES Dequindre Cut Greenway, the Veterans Memorial, and • DEQ grant for a 3,000-foot river walk was a catalyst for continued public and private riverfront 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 moonlight The DEQ awarded the city a Waterfront Redevelopment yoga make the Riverfront Promenade a destination for Grant to demolish crumbling infrastructure and build a residents, families, visitors, and downtown workers pedestrian walkway with railings, lighting, landscaping, and street furniture. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION More riverfront development plans The city’s riverfront vision is still growing more than 10 East Riverfront plans unveiled years after the DEQ grant. The nonprofit Detroit Riverfront

517-284-5113 www.michigan.gov/deqbrownfields February 2017 #mibrownfields