Two years after the city of Detroit sued Perfecting Church over a long-stalled redevelopment project, the church has obtained more property in exchange for land the city needs to build solar energy fields.
The City Council approved the land swap last November during its final session of 2024, giving 64 parcels to Perfecting Church in exchange for 39 church-owned parcels that will be used to house city solar energy fields. The swap came at no cost to Perfecting Church—the land obtained by the church is more valuable than the land it traded, city officials said.
Felecia Studstill, an account executive with the Detroit Building Authority, said it would have cost the city roughly $95,000 to buy the land from Perfecting Church. She said the 64 parcels provided to the church would have sold for $140,000 to $160,000.
“There is a small differential in the value,” Studstill said in November. “However, that is giving us an opportunity to get the properties on track to be developed and allow the solar project to move forward.”
Council President Pro Tem James Tate Jr. was the lone no vote. Tate said the land swap “seems very unbalanced” and cited concerns about Perfecting Church not sharing details of how it will use the land.
“I’m not saying that I personally disagree with the intent, but when we’re at this point, I think it’s imperative to understand what the land will be used for,” Tate said in November.
Perfecting Church Chief Operating Officer Cindy Flowers told BridgeDetroit this month that future development plans include building homes, but declined to speak further. Church representative Damon Tooles, of Tooles Contracting Group, told the council that a market study will be conducted in the first quarter of 2025 to inform housing development plans.
“The plans to revitalize the neighborhood is a part of the overall mission of the church but because we are far from that, we prefer not to be interviewed until there are more concrete plans in place,” Flowers said in an email.
The church is led by Pastor Marvin Winans, a Grammy award-winning gospel singer who performed the eulogy at Whitney Houston’s funeral. Winans has occasionally dipped into political issues, advocating for strip club regulations passed more than a decade ago, opposing marijuana businesses and hosting candidate forums.
Perfecting Church has been planning a new campus near the corner of Woodward and Seven Mile for nearly two decades. Construction delays tied to the economic downturn of 2008 spurred the city to take legal action in early 2023. That summer, the city dropped its lawsuit with assurances that Perfecting Church would obtain city approvals, prove the financing is secured and resume construction.
Flowers said the church is negotiating with contractors to complete the building but described the process as “very tedious process and still underway.” A ceremonial groundbreaking was held on Winans’ birthday last year to “finish the miracle,” and Winans solicited $500 donations from those who wanted to dig into the dirt themselves.
“There is not much of a story right now regarding the church,” Flowers said in an email. “What I can confirm is the church has resumed work on the building. If you were to drive by you would see the massive piles that were on the site are gone.”
The neighborhood, known over the years as State Fair, Seven Mile, Penrose and other names, is adjacent to large developments like the Amazon Fulfillment Center, big box retailers, and the new Jason Hargrove Transit Center.
Longtime residents have watched neighbors leave and amenities vanish over the years. Census data estimates the area lost 245 residents in the last decade, a 22% decline, though it remains majority-Black. The average income is $20,008.
Ray Winbush said those who’ve stayed take care of each other. He was outside on a recent frigid weekday afternoon, shoveling snow off storm drains to prevent blockages. Winbush, a 40-year resident, gestured in different directions to indicate the former presence of a bowling alley, school, butcher shop, auto repair services, laundromats and other businesses.
“I’ve been here since the age of 15 – this neighborhood was beautiful,” Winbush said. “I love this neighborhood. I hate to see how it is now. It’s sometimes kind of depressing, you know. Just see all the houses gone, all the people gone, and then I wonder: Is it going to be better?”
Tooles said Perfecting Church spent the last decade acquiring land to revitalize the neighborhood with infill housing projects. The neighborhood has attracted investors and land speculators who have squabbled over property.
“Some people felt like they were being bullied to sell their property and stuff like that; some people just didn’t care, because they were moving anyway,” Winbush said. “It was a good idea, (Perfecting Church) was saying they were going to build a big church and build up around it. But everything just went the opposite way with the church. They’ve been fined a couple of times and we haven’t seen a (much to) show there. People are up and down about it. There ain’t that many people around here.”
In one case, a parking lot owned by the tax-exempt church was wrongly seized by the county due to delinquent taxes and sold to private developers Michael Kelly and Matthew Tatarian. They offered to sell the lot back, but the church sued instead. It went before the Michigan Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of giving Perfecting Church the property back.
Kelly owns around a dozen properties near land acquired by Perfecting Church in the November swap. City documents show most of the land included in the trade is either vacant or contains unoccupied homes.
Nearly all the property provided to Perfecting Church through the land swap – 61 parcels – was owned by the land bank. Three city-owned parcels were also traded to the church. The land is north of the new Perfecting Church site, concentrated between Carmel and Adeline streets. Blocks in the area have been hollowed out, with a few remaining houses separated by stretches of vacant land.
Under the land deal, the city obtained property directly east of the church site. Old couches, piles of trash and other debris sit abandoned in piles along the street.
Land handed to the city will be used for a solar array in the State Fair neighborhood. Mayor Mike Duggan pitched the Solar Neighborhoods Initiative as a win-win for the city and residents. Solar fields in five neighborhoods will power government buildings with clean energy and put blighted land into productive use, Duggan said.
Detroit is acquiring land in the footprint of project areas through a combination of buyouts, eminent domain and land swaps. The council approved another land swap agreement in November that transferred eight parcels owned by the city and land bank to the Arab-American Chaldean Council in exchange for five parcels.
A member of the State Fair Neighborhood Association voiced concerns to the City Council last November. He said the deal prevents residents from acquiring land bank property, and criticized the Perfecting Church for not maintaining the land it already owns.
David Szpond, a Detroit native and Palmer Park resident, owns the historic Stonehouse Bar located in a 19th century farmhouse on Ralston. His acquisition of the bar started an expansion of land purchases in the neighborhood, first to obtain a parking lot for the bar, then to clean up a nearby “dope house” and continuing with collections of vacant side lots from the land bank.
Szpond now owns more than a dozen parcels north of Perfecting Church. He said the land bank has become harder to deal with over time, refusing to sell him property in between land he owns. Szpond doesn’t consider himself a land speculator, but fears angering land bank officials.
“They want to pick their investors,” Szpond said.
Council Member Angela Whitfield-Calloway, whose district includes the Perfecting Church site, opposed resolutions needed to establish the first and second phases of solar projects. She argued the solar arrays would disrupt neighborhoods and take up land that should be used for affordable housing.
But she voted in favor of the land swap and said she’s seen plans for potential housing projects that could follow. Whitfield-Calloway said she had no concerns about the church’s plans for land it obtained before the New Year.
“We want the (new church) project to happen but it has just taken so long,” Whitfield-Calloway said. “I’m happy for the movement. It’s at a snail’s pace – but it’s still moving.”
Plans for the site have slightly changed. An administrative building and a four-story parking structure are no longer included and the seats in the church assembly were reduced from 4,200 to 3,365.
A 2023 site plan includes finishing the three-story church, a new school, an outdoor amphitheater, and community gardens. A second phase would include townhouses northeast of the church, according to city Planning Commission documents.
The City Council approved a request in June 2024 to rezone 4.51 acres on the future church site. The rezoning came 20 years after another rezoning approval when the proposal was first outlined in 2004.
Council Member Scott Benson, whose district is immediately east of the site, said he’s excited about the prospect of more housing in the neighborhood. Benson said turning “fallow land” that isn’t contributing to the tax base into housing is a “win-win for lots of people.”
“We need more homes to offer an opportunity to people,” Benson said. “Anybody that’s putting more homes into the system – that has to be a good thing. I haven’t seen any renderings. I haven’t seen any sale prices, but bringing homes back into the system cannot be anything but a help.”
Whatever happens, Winbush said he’s content to stay in the neighborhood. He’d like to see more people return, but he also likes the quiet.
“I’ve had chances to move, but I just like it here,” Winbush said. “I got some good memories, I got some real bad memories here too.”
Thank you for this informative update. I’ve wondered about that church.