Results for “gilbert leong”

I feel that the greenway option is gimmicky and is getting a lot of the early votes because it’s grabby. But what does a .5 mile greenway accomplish? Also, that option involves no developable land, and only serves to continue the choppy divide between downtown and eastern market, etc. #4 essentially enlarges the downtown district and, if done right (i.e. in conjunction with Gilbert proposal for Fail Jail), could create a nice new stretch along the eastern edge of downtown which complements Greektown and encourages more density. Or it could just be a place to put a bunch of tall parking garages with easy highway access, and then free up more lots for high rises toward the center of downtown. Either use of the new land would be smart. Or, best of both worlds, parking garages with retail on ground level.

The idea to bring a jail to that area of downtown was not a decision that was made by those "in charge of Detroit". This entire deal involves the county and county owned property because it was to be a county jail. This is why the deal is.taking place between Dan Gilbert and.the county executive Warren Evans. Detroit is involved only because the city has property that would complete the deal to satisfy all parties involved since the city would have to relocate DDOT headquarters and bus yard.
People are very quick to blow up and make statements like they somehow have a clue as to what is going on. Just another troll quick to criticize the city at any turn just so long as it fits some narrative they already have.

There has been a noticeable lack of new development announcements over the past several months, but Corktown, and New Center are both booming with various construction projects. Dan Gilbert is up to his eyeballs with new construction, and with those in the pipeline. The little ceasars HQ should be completed soon, along with the Columbia Street shopping area. There’s also the new Chemical Bank high rise coming downtown. Midtown, not so much, Olympia has announced a new medical/office building between the LCA, and the WSU business school, but the rest of the area is a development desert right now.
So, after all this comes to fruition, we’ll start getting the new project announcements, and start debating the pros & cons.

No, some people want to move on from classifying anything as "Black and beautiful" because it inherently implies that the standard for Blacks is to perform worse than normal or the "baseline". See also: affirmative action.

The sad part too is that is that’s really how we want to go about things – 80% of Detroit is a dump. I mean a literal garbage can. Yeah yeah downtown is great and Dan Gilbert makes it look really good but apart from a few token charms the average neighborhood in Detroit is nightmarish. Take a ride through the East Side sometime. And since we’re talking "truth", aka facts, the dumpiest parts of Detroit are probably 90-95% black. Yeah, if I were to sit here and call Detroit a garbage black town (because it’s mostly a garbage town occupied by mostly black people) you would quickly call me racist. You can’t have it both ways and call it beautiful and black when you want to and disassociate race when it’s actually trash.

So let’s just call it what it is and quit identifying it by race. You can’t have it both ways. A town – perhaps a beautiful town with some incredibly rough edges – period.

It seems that the majority of posters demonize Mike Ilich. He capitalized on an opportunity to receive public funds for the arena project. He is a businessman and the primary focus is profit. More and more, our country is demonizing profit and praising terms like "the common good". When did profiting become evil? The issue that I have with phrases like "the common good" is that it is an arbitrary comment. Everyone has a different opinion of the common good and some people benefit from one idea of the common good and others benefit more from a different idea of the common good. Do I have a problem with Ilich profiting? No. Do I have a problem with the government giving him my money? Yes. The difference is that I put the blame on the government. This is what government does. They benefit the wealthy, they give the wealthy more power. If a small business makes mistakes, it goes out of business. If a large corporation or bank makes mistakes, they are bailed out by the government. Large corporations station their "headquarters" off shore and the wealthy have off shore bank accounts and dont pay taxes. The middle class, the poor, and small business are the ones that are burdened with paying taxes. This is not the fault of Ilich. This is our government.

Ilich employs thousands, if not, hundreds of thousands of people because of his success in business and profiting from his business. When Detroit was at it’s lowest point, he kept his sports venues downtown. People like to praise Dan Gilbert for investing in Detroit but, if Ilich built Comerica Park in a suburb and moved the Red Wings to a suburb when there were not so many investors flooding into Detroit, the current investors may not be here at the moment. It is hard to predict but, it is a possibility. The broderick tower and david whitney are beautiful renovations. I wonder if there would be as much demand for these buildings if Comerica Park was in a suburb or different area of Detroit instead of across the park from these structures. It is not a certainty but, something to think about. I am not under the impression that Ilich is a pilar of integrity but, neither is Gilbert. His company, Quicken Loans, is known for taking advantage of elderly citizens financially. Does the government regulate these actions? No. Gilbert also employs thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people. The issues I see, is that these men should not be forced to do things with their property that they do not want to do and that money should not be taken from me and you and given to these wealthy men. The problem is government.

I always find it interesting that people in the area are so quick to come to someone’s aid who does nothing but benefit himself and his investors. Everyone forgets that Dan Gilbert was the generator of sub prime loans that he neatly packaged and shipped off to Countrywide (you call that washing your hands). Yes, he has taken a lot of his investors (and some of his own) money and bought a lot of real estate. That isnt to say he needs to be put on a pedestal. He has taken the approach of trying to build a new silicon valley in Detroit, with tons of start ups and tech companies…the thing is that market is starting to slow down, and slow down big. Once we grow tired of someone trying to build the next facebook, the tech sector crashed (again), then who will fill these buildings? Who will pay thousands for an apartment that cost a couple hundred bucks a couple years ago.

Dan Gilbert is doing nothing more than creating his own little city. If you search about Detroit redevelopment, most sites are his, and most "city visions" he wrote, and has bought most of the pieces to. Regardless of his involvement with the blight committee, he could care less once you get beyond the core. He could have taken his millions of dollars from one purchase, gone away from downtown and cleared blocks of properties. He didn’t because he really doesn’t believe in the true revitalization of the city unless its close to businesses that he already owns. Chairing the blight committee has gained him more public favor, but it is more to his benefit than the city’s. Once the state and government come in and pay to clean it up (clearing the land for "free" to him) I am sure he will jump in, scooping up lots for nothing just so he can maintain it and wait.

Dan Gilbert isn’t a savior and he isnt a risk taker. He’s showing up at the old millionaires door, looking to get married and reap the benefits when she dies. He isnt using 100% his money, he is using investment money he has raised (and some of his own, but not all of it). If this fails, yes, he would have to sit on some great buildings for a while and wait for another recovery. That said, Detroit is a major city, mainly dragged down by the sheer size. Who is to say the city wont get carved up into several others in the future? If everything breaks back down, Dan can keep writing and servicing mortgages, making money from Lebron (and all his other sports teams) and milking poor Detroiters for all he can through his casino

Until the day he actually moves his family to the city he holds so much power over, I wouldn’t say he is anymore than the monopoly man taking advantage of a golden opportunity in real estate.

Better late than never.

If you have been following the development progress for more than five or ten years, these minor delays seem like nothing compared to what we have had with now completed projects, in the past.

1. Hudsons, Monroe, and Statler Blocks all have a long history with delays and cancellations. But the current projects almost did not happen for each their own reason (counting the first Qucken Loans HQ announcement of 1,700 employees to one of those three sites. Heh, I guess speed is sometimes overrated).
2. Kales Building was excruciatingly slow as it renovated floor by floor, but it was a successful strategy at the time.
3. The Westin Book-Cadillac has a HUGE history of being labeled an impossible project.
4. Michigan Central Station
   has a HUGE history of being labeled an impossible project too.
5. The Element Hotel was said to be an impossible project by all of the experts, even Dan Gilbert (Everyday long-time local Detroiters saved it)
6. All three permanent Detroit casino hotels were long delayed and almost cancelled (public outcry saved them).
7. The Madison Building was stalled and remained a rusty steel skeleton overlooking Grand Circus Park, for a long time.
8. The Griswold was a similarly resurrected project.
9. Those two Ilitch stalled skeleton buildings have been sitting longer than Baltimore II.
10. Etc.

Rise Up!
&
CHEERS!!!

~Sean of Detroit

@guest #94: you do realize i was replying to the people claiming that the two buildings in question could have been redeveloped by someone else right? that if someone wanted to save these two buildings that they could have… which is false because illitch owns them and decided to let them rot. try looking to the topic of the article and whats being said specifically instead of trying to change the argument into how much developable land the city has versus saving specific buildings. nobody is arguing there isnt a lot of land to go around, what the argument is is that this particular area wasnt allowed to be developed because illitch bought everything up and sat on it.

forsight?!? really? we complain about people like ralph sachs who bought buildings 30 years ago and just let them rot, but with illitch its forsight? get off his johnson already. he isnt a developer he is a slumlord. when comerica was being proposed and built he said that the lots on woodward as well as the lot between the fox and state would be part of a greater entertainment district. what did we get? parking. he claimed that the madison lenox had to come down for future development. what did we get? more parking. he promised in 2006 that the detroit life building would be redeveloped and nothing happened. now people are cheering that 7 years later hes promising to redevelop it again.

dont even try to compare gilbert and illitch. gilbert buys a property and within days work is being done. illitch buys property and you are lucky if anything comes of it for 20 years. why does he get a pass other than the fact people love the tigers and wings?

only in this city would idiots defend a guy who bought perfectly fine buildings and let them get to the point where an argument could be made that they are too far gone to be redeveloped. before the recession there were plans to restore these structures, then illitch buys them, lets them deteriorate and now is forgiven by fools like you who say its too costly even though its his fault they are costly.

Season’s greetings,

I keep trying, but I cannot do it. All apologies to those annoyed by things born out of emotional caring for others in debate, you are not the intended audience. This comment will seem like rambling gibberish to all those except for the ones who need to read it.

To those who hold enough wisdom to understand; this charade could not be kept up even if it was desirable to do so. Sigh…. who cares? It is true that the world does not revolve around one person, or people, or group, but we here are not all so involved to where our participation is so greatly mandatory. For if you are balanced between emotion and logic, it is really really hard to think of such things under such duress, as none of this is about developments. Detroit is no mean city, and what is a city for, if not of its people?

Who should care about any of these developments, other than those who are responsible for building and selling them? How about paying some respects to the hard working people of Detroit and the visionaries of which We The People Of The Great Lakes have chosen to embrace? Those are the ones we asked to help lead us here and to float us towards where we hoped to go.

It is hard to be excited about the developments, if said developments are going to make us forget about the people that those previously said developments were supposed to be developed by and for.

We have lost a lot of people, and almost lost many more. How is Dan Gilbert?…. And he is just one. There are others on our minds that we should be asking and writing about too.

That’s what I work for in 2020; clarity of the collective purpose, and for the resurrection of humanity back into our life and times.

What I want in 2020 is for the return of Dan Gilbert and his team, and for that matter, all of those Detroiters of which have been forced out of their homes to return, if they so wish. If that cannot happen, than for 2020 I wish for the abandonment of Hudsons Tower and the rest. We do not leave a man or woman behind. Even Mike Ilitch remembered and followed those most basic ethics.

Rise Up!
&
CHEERS!!!

~Sean of Detroit

@guest #30:

Well AREN’T YOU JUST A F*CKIN’ RAY OF SUNSHINE, YOU AS*HOLE?!?! How about a NANO-SPECK of RESPECT for the ACTUAL POSITIVE THINGS that are happening here?! Been here in St. Clair Shores all my life and I daresay that you haven’t been here in DECADES, let alone recently. YES, the city’s bankrupt and has never been in worse shape, but that DOES not eliminate the FACT that VERY good things are happening in LOTS of places in the city, due to SAVIORS like billionaire Dan Gilbert, the Ilitch family and hundreds of others. if you’re NOT OUTTA’ HERE YET…….GET AND STAY OUT, you VILE, HATEFUL IMBECILE.