COMMERCIAL BLIGHT BLIGHT

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“It has a chilling e ect,” Mogk said. “You can’t redevelop an area unless you eliminate the blight. It’s too risky to invest in an area that’s blighted.” e result, he said, is a “much better strategy” when it comes to determining what should happen to various properties — and better communication, so departments aren’t working at cross purposes. In the past, he said, one department could be moving forward with rehabilitation plans, while another was readying for demolition. e new approach is far less haphazard, said Ray Solomon II, director of Detroit’s Department of Neighborhoods.

One of the main bene ts of the M100’s creation, said Tyrone Clifton, director of the Detroit Building Authority, is the way in which city leaders are now working together across departments for a common purpose in a way that wasn’t happening before when it came to that type of remediation.

“We were reactive,” he said. “Having a list, knowing where it’s at, is being proactive. ... We responded to the re, we responded to the squeaky wheel.” e list is a living document, the administration said, with properties staying on it even after they’ve been rehabbed or torn down and conditions changing as more information becomes available. A version of the list sent earlier this month showed fewer than 10 properties had changed categories since Crain’s reported on an earlier version of the list in March 2022, and 33 properties had been added, many of them schools.

With decades of vacancy, some properties are too far gone to be saved. Just 15 of the properties on the M100 are listed as renovation projects, though some privately owned properties that have violations and are being targeted by the city’s legal department may yet be salvageable. Additionally, Crain’s found several properties that were listed for demolition whose owners said they were doing work on them; some, the city said, had not yet been updated on the M100 list Crain’s received. e city wants to save buildings when it’s possible to do so, Clifton said.

“I wouldn’t say everything has to go,” he said. “Buildings have to be occupied. It’s amazing how much they deteriorate when they’re not.”

Target date: 2025 e city is using American Rescue Plan Act dollars, which have to be spent by 2026, to fund the demoli-

View interactive map of properties labeled commercial blight

In March 2022, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan identi ed about 100 commercial properties that would be targeted for blight remediation, a list known as the M100. Nearly a year later, city o cials have amended, updated and reworked the list, which remains an ever-changing, internal working document. Some property owners say they have found errors in the list, and the city says it will continue to update it as information is veri ed and property statuses change.

tions. But Duggan said his goal is for all the properties to be reused or knocked down by the end of 2025.

How easy that goal is to meet remains to be seen.

Counts, the demolition director, said the federal money has allowed her department to speed up work on a list of some 400 commercial properties she has been tracking and readying for demolition. Properties are often taken down because they are a public safety issue, she said, and her department is prioritizing those near parks, schools or other areas where people walk or congregate, to ensure

The list — which has ballooned to 150 properties — includes major areas of blight, like the Packard Plant, Lee Plaza and Fisher Body No. 21 Plant, all high-pro le buildings in various states of disrepair. But a number of the privately owned properties are neighborhood buildings that include apartments, former schools and churches in disrepair. Take a look at the list and see where the properties are located at crainsdetroit.com/ crains-forum/map-detroitblight.