Mayor Mike Duggan announces $4 million revitalization of Detroit’s Fitzgerald neighborhood

he long-awaited revitalization of Detroit’s Fitzgerald Neighborhood is officially gearing up to get into action. Mayor Mike Duggan announced plans today for a $4 million revitalization in Detroit’s Fitzgerald neighborhood, which will include the rehabilitation of 115 vacant homes over the course of 2 years, in addition to landscaping 192 vacant lots and creating a 2-acre park.

“This whole plan has been designed in partnership with the neighbors; 40 community meetings with the neighbors,” Duggan says at a press conference at the site of the soon-to-be Ella Fitzgerald Park to be completed by December.

The project will also include the construction of a 1/4 mile greenway with bike and walking paths that will run from Marygrove College to University of Detroit Mercy.

“We’re going to have rental properties, we’re going to have homeownership, we’re going to have a mix of affordable and market-rate,” Duggan says. “For first time homebuyers, there are going to be special incentives to get families moved in and be able to own and benefit from the growth of the neighborhood.”

The work will be lead by Fitz Forward LLC, a partnership between local development firms Century Partners and The Platform.

“The Fitz Forward team is going to clear the lots, plant beautiful gardens, have agriculture, they’re going to be responsible for maintaining every vacant lot in the area so the families who move here will be living amid beauty instead of weeds that they have to cut themselves,” Duggan says.

The next step is getting approval of the land transfers by city council. Once approved, the project developers are required to secure the vacant structures and clear the vacant lots within 120 days.