A pair of Core City buildings destined for demolition might be spared in the wake of resident opposition. 

California-based Designing Justice + Designing Spaces (DJDS) submitted an application Tuesday to defer the demolition of properties it owns that have been on the city’s demolition list for eight years. The move comes after months of tension with Detroit residents over the fate of the buildings that DJDS acquired in 2021. 

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The structures, located at 4600 and 4620 15th street, are among 12 parcels the out-of-state group bought in Core City over the last few years with the aim of creating a “social justice campus” with the potential for an affordable grocery store, worker-owned sewing factory and educational and gathering spaces. The buildings would serve as the headquarters for the Detroit-focused work of the nonprofit, which seeks to end mass incarceration. 

In 2021, DJDS told Outlier Media the project could cost $41 million, but nonprofit leaders told BridgeDetroit this week that they don’t have an estimate now as they’re reworking the design plans to save the buildings.

Deanna Van Buren, executive director of DJDS, said the nonprofit was initially notified by the city’s Buildings, Safety Engineering, and Environmental Department (BSEED) that the buildings couldn’t be saved and was under the impression that it wasn’t an option. She said DJDS operated under that understanding until last year when the community began raising concerns.

The city recently erected a fence around the Core City buildings and posted signage warning neighbors that demolition was imminent.

In an email Wednesday, the nonprofit informed Core City residents that the demolition deferral application had been submitted and said they were communicating with city officials to get the deferral approved as soon as possible.

BSEED spokesperson Georgette Johnson on Wednesday said the DJDS application was received and is “under review.”

Land use debate

Tensions over the buildings have been brewing since last year when some residents took issue with the nonprofit’s plan to have the buildings torn down and to use the space as a parking lot. Some argue the buildings, surrounded by vacant lots, should be granted historic designation and preserved, given the low number of older structures left in Core City. Others claim the nonprofit hasn’t fought to save the buildings and disregarded community feedback about the type of project neighbors need and want. Residents fear demolition would leave more open space in the neighborhood to be sold for profit if project financing doesn’t pan out.

The debate over land use in Core City comes as the area is experiencing a flurry of new development in recent years and after sites with known historic value – a community center in Chinatown, the National Theater, a YMCA, and the United Artists Theater – have been razed.

To reduce future conflicts, District 6 Councilmember Gabriela Santiago-Romero said her team will be working on an ordinance that would standardize historical review of buildings before demolition and afford time to develop a plan to save any properties historically designated.

“These cases – where we see residents and property owners at odds over the future of a building – are far too common,” Santiago-Romero said. “We need a better process that centers both the safety of our residents and preserves our history.”

Chelsea Hyduk and Margot Guicheteau, leaders of the Grand River Block Club, said they are evaluating whether the buildings, built in 1924 as part of a former post office, can be protected with historical status.

“There’s not a lot of existing buildings in our neighborhood that pay homage to the history of what made up Core City before today,” said Hyduk, an architect who moved to the neighborhood approximately two years ago and is also developing properties in the area.

“This building at the corner of 15th and Forest is a link to our past,” said Hyduk, noting that the buildings have a “beautiful” red brick exterior.

But Devan Anderson, president of Preservation Detroit’s board of directors, said to get a historic designation, they would have to show that something very important to Detroit’s history occurred at the building.

“It’s kind of a nondescript, one-story commercial building. Without a story or a reason or something that happened here, it’s just a neighborhood post office,” he said.

Willie Campbell, a neighborhood resident for 70 years, said he doesn’t have a problem with the buildings being torn down if that’s what the owners feel is best. Campbell is also the executive director of the nonprofit Core City Neighborhoods, which built housing for moderate-to low-income residents in the neighborhood.

“I don’t presume that I can control what somebody would do with their own land if they’re not doing something illegal, immoral or destroying a historical building,” he said. “It looks like a basic box, flat-top building to me. I don’t see how anybody can have strong emotional feelings about that.”

Plans for the neighborhood

For longtime resident Eleanor Parnell, the issue is more about the nonprofit’s plans for the site.

Parnell said Core City, which already hosts the Pope Francis Center, which provides bridge housing for homeless people, doesn’t need more bridge services. The neighborhood also hosts a parole office and a Salvation Army substance abuse center.

“My only opposition or concern is the fact of what you’re going to use the building for. We want to have an area for people to be able to rebuild their lives. But how are we going to also rebuild our neighborhood if we don’t have residential housing?”

DJDS says it is focused on poverty, racism, unequal access to resources and the criminal justice system. It seeks to create spaces and buildings for restorative justice, build community and erect housing for people coming out of prison. It is still in the pre-development phase of its Detroit project and has put together a Community Activators Board, which is made up of a handful of Detroiters who are paid to help the project.

But neighborhood group Core City Strong wants DJDS to adjust its advisory board to include a Core City resident who is Black; its current neighborhood resident isn’t a person of color. The surrounding neighborhood is 96.3% Black, according to U.S. Census data.

“DJDS has a great mandate and project plan but, as a fly-in organization from California, they don’t live their values by keeping the Core City community informed of their plans, especially around the demolition of the building on 4600 15th St.,” said Vanessa Serna, Core City Strong co-founder.

“After many requests of clarity over the past eight months they have told us misleading statements about working on a demolition deferral and refuse to put a long-time [Black] Core City resident on their Community Activators Board.”

Jean-Paul Zapata, communications director for DJDS, said, “We’ve heard that request and are taking it under review in plans for this coming year,” with regard to placing a Black Core City resident on the board.

Zapata said a member of the Community Activators Board was unable to comment on the nonprofit’s behalf “at this time” because the board is taking a winter break and is unfamiliar with the latest developments regarding possible demolition.

Nonprofit leaders say the project has taken on many iterations since initial projections that they would complete a three-story building for the campus by 2024 and estimates that the total project would cost $41 million.

“…there is no estimate to share at the moment. In pursuing the demo deferral, the firm has made the decision to redesign the project to accommodate the community’s request to keep the buildings,” Zapata said by email.

If the building is spared, Van Buren said the nonprofit would line up financing and talk to co-developers to plan reconstruction on the building for late 2025.

According to DJDS, the project came out of five years of engaging local justice-based organizations around local infrastructure needs, including helping build Allied Media Project’s adjacent LOVE Building, which hosts six Detroit-based social justice organizations.

Jeneatte Lee, interim director of the LOVE Building, said Allied Media Projects has not had any involvement with the DJDS project in Core City and hasn’t had a partnership with the nonprofit in several years.

“We would love to see these parcels, including the building on [15th], developed thoughtfully, in alignment with the needs and aspirations of long term Core City residents,” Lee said in a statement.

To date, no construction or development has been done on the 12 parcels DJDS owns.

“It would just be such a shame to see that space be demolished only to be replaced with a vacant lot given that there is so little built fabric in our neighborhood,” said Hyduk.