Project:

Completed a study in the Cass Corridor area as the first phase of a comprehensive urban design for the area anchored Wayne State and bounded by Woodward Avenue, Lodge Freeway, Warren Avenue and MLK Boulevard for University Cultural Center Association. This report updates the 1998 University Cultural Center Area (UCCA) Reinvestment Strategy study conducted by the Greater Downtown Partnership, which sought to present a vision for the potential economic redevelopment of the entire UCCA. The Design Center reviewed the suggested strategies in that study, as well as those recommended in the 1992 and 2004 Detroit Mater Plan of Policies as well as comments from community stakeholders taken at a 20 February meeting organized by UCCA and assessed the current level of activity toward addressing those recommendations, in addition to our own recommendations for future activities based on the above review.

Background

The North Cass neighborhood is located in what is currently being called Midtown. Loosely defined, Midtown is the area surrounding Wayne State University and running south toward downtown. Specifically, North Cass is bound by Warren to the north, Woodward to the east, Mack/Martin Luther King on the south and the Lodge Freeway on the west. It is one of the few areas in the city that has a history of multi-family living, as evidenced by the number of apartment buildings in the area of the study, in addition to the number of larger homes that have been converted into apartments.

North Cass, referred to in the 1992 City of Detroit Master Plan of Policies as Lower Woodward and in the 1998 UCCA report as University Village, has as its main artery Cass Avenue, which links the Wayne State University campus with downtown. Although directly adjacent to the west of Woodward Avenue, arguably the city’s most important street, Cass has a history in its own right. It has been – and is once again – home to a diverse and vibrant community of artists and entrepreneurs. Unfortunately, it has also been home to the most concentrated poverty in the state, and despite the fact that this is no longer the case – as evidenced in the number of development projects (both new construction and renovations) – in the minds of many the area still holds this dubious distinction.

Currently, North Cass enjoys a healthy mix of educational, commercial, and cultural institutions and organizations. It is through this diversity of uses that the area has been able to avoid the complete collapse of its physical and economic infrastructure that has ensnared so many of Detroit’s neighborhoods. However, this is not to say that the area has not seen its fair share of disinvestment and abandonment. It is simply to say that relatively speaking, unlike so many other Detroit neighborhoods, its level of disinvestment has not been such that it has completely paralyzed the area, and that positive observation serves as the foundation of our study.

.