Just read a news article about the old Hudson's site development

I was reading the Detroit Free Press online yesterday and saw they're planning over 700 residential units alongside office space at that block. Reminded me of how that corner was basically a dead zone for 30 years after the store closed. Anyone else remember walking through Hudson's as a kid and now seeing cranes go up there?

3 comments

3 Comments

johnson.faith11d ago

Ha, I remember working at a RadioShack in the suburbs back in the late 90s and we'd get guys coming in who swore they saw the old Hudson's basement being used as a storage vault for the mob! They'd buy batteries and ramble about secret tunnels under the store. Now every time I see those cranes I wonder if they're going to dig up any old hidden rooms or just more broken escalators. Guess we'll find out when they start pouring concrete.

reese12411d ago

Those 700 units are going to sit empty for years. Ngl, Detroit has way too much luxury housing going up and not enough people with the jobs to afford it. The whole plan is built on hype and tax breaks, not actual demand. I'd rather see the city focus on fixing up the neighborhoods people already live in instead of propping up another downtown vanity project. Tbh, letting that lot stay empty might have been better than watching it turn into overpriced lofts with a Starbucks on the ground floor.

the_mila11d ago

Oh boy, @reese124, you're not wrong. That Starbucks on the ground floor will be serving $7 lattes to the same three people who actually live there while the rest of the building is a ghost town. Maybe they can turn the empty units into a museum of failed urban planning. I get that something is better than a vacant lot, but not if that something is just a nicer-looking vacancy. Sort of like putting lipstick on a pig, except the pig is a tax break.