A long-contemplated industrial facility on Detroit’s west side is advancing after developers secured approvals for zoning changes and remediation plans for the 400,000-square-foot project.
The Detroit City Council authorized a proposal to rezone a large portion of the site for industrial use as well as a brownfield redevelopment plan for the $62 million “Junction McGraw” project.
The warehouse will be the centerpiece of the project on a 30-acre site between McGraw Avenue, Warren Avenue, I-94 and 35th Street. The development team has made significant revisions to the proposal since last fall – adding more green amenities, walkways and a smaller facility footprint – following more than a dozen engagement meetings with the surrounding community.
The Detroit-based venture behind the project is known as the Latimer Ashley Development Group LLC. It brings together the industrial development firm Ashley Capital and the Latimer Group, composed of some big-name Detroiters.
Latimer Group Managing Member is Real Times Media CEO Hiram Jackson. Other members include Carla Walker-Miller, founder & CEO of Walker-Miller Energy Services, Dennis Archer Jr., chairman & CEO of sixteen42 ventures, and Sonya Mays, founding CEO of Develop Detroit.
Since last September, the team conducted 15 community engagement meetings, refining its vision based on feedback, Kyle Morton, vice president of development for Ashley Capital, said during a May 21 meeting of the council’s Planning and Economic Development subcommittee.
Morton said the promises to the community have been added to the development team’s “letter of intent” for the site, which will be formalized in the project development agreement.
“Understanding that trust only goes so far, we wanted to make sure that it’s in writing,” he told the council committee.
Based on community input, the developers reduced the facility’s proposed square footage by 20%, expanded vegetative buffers and added landscaping and berms to the design, according to city documents and Morton.
The development, at Junction and McGraw, will feature a pedestrian walkway honoring the former site of the Kronk Gym along the west side of the site to support children walking to school. There will also be sidewalks and crosswalks to further enhance pedestrian safety.
Other key changes to the broader project area based on community input include a new route connecting Warren Avenue to the north side of I-94, a traffic signal at Warren and 31st Street and reconnection of the Junction Avenue Bridge to Warren Avenue, which is currently closed.
There will also be a three-acre site dedicated for future neighborhood-informed commercial or residential development – ideally retail or grocery offerings – rather than light industrial, as first contemplated in the rezoning plan. Developers will rehabilitate and use an old pharmacy building at 4765 W. Warren Avenue during the construction of the warehouse. Once the project is completed, they will donate the building to a designated nonprofit group.
The facility is expected to generate approximately 400 jobs, and hiring will prioritize residents.
“Initially, those hires will be Detroiters,” Derrick Headd, president of public policy and operations for the DEGC, told BridgeDetroit Friday. Headd said the jobs are expected to pay a union wage, which would be around $58,000 per year.
Residents in the neighborhood, he said, “Will be able to walk to their jobs and have a living wage, be trained to do the work and Detroiters will have the opportunity to get the jobs first.”
The development team has not yet identified a tenant. Construction is expected to begin in spring 2027 and is projected for completion in early 2028, Morton said during the May 21 meeting. Jackson and Morton could not be immediately reached by BridgeDetroit for comment.
District 6 Council Member Gabriela Santiago-Romero noted ahead of last week’s formal session votes that although the project doesn’t trigger formal commitments under Detroit’s Community Benefits Ordinance, she believes that the “majority of residents are comfortable” that enough voluntary agreements were made with the community by the development team.
“We do have a lot of concessions, commitments being made to the community that I’m really grateful for,” said Santiago-Romero, noting the anticipated living-wage jobs. “I would encourage residents to continue to fight for these benefits.”
Santiago-Romero, who grew up in the neighborhood, said she is typically “not a fan” of rezoning plans that favor industrial land over residential. The council member pushed for more extensive community engagement and told the developers that if the majority of residents supported the plans, she would too, and ‘I think that we’re at that place.”
Some residents shared concerns during public comment at the May 21 meeting about the potential handling of contaminated soil at the site amid heightened tensions tied to unrelated soil contamination at hundreds of Detroit demolition sites across the city. Others shared worries about whether the facility could be used for ICE detention or to house a data center. Among them was former Detroit Police Commissioner William M. Davis, who encouraged city leaders to include “strong language” to ensure that future uses couldn’t fall into those categories.
“Sometimes some of the stuff they (ICE) use are like factory facilities,” he said.
Project representatives have committed to residents and council members that those considerations won’t come into play.
“Our development agreement will not allow for either one of those uses,” Headd told BridgeDetroit on Friday. “The community will be protected from that.”
Types of future uses for the facility could align with Ford or General Motors Co. DTE Energy, FedEx, Lowes and the like, according to Morton.
The DEGC and project developers have also addressed questions about how potentially contaminated dirt during remediation would be handled and disposed of.
Brian Vosburg, senior director of brownfield redevelopment for the DEGC, said soil hauled from brownfield sites is carefully reviewed to ensure quantities match truck load tickets and that soil, if contaminated, is discarded at proper landfill locations. DEGC also ensures that environmental reporting is done as required under city, state and federal laws, he said.
Morton said there aren’t great records of all the homes that had been on the property over the past half-century, and when construction begins, the team will know more.
“We will make sure whatever we find is handled appropriately from the contamination or structural perspective,” he said. “Right now, it’s a lot of hard guess and see what we find. That’s why the brownfield plan is so important.”
Supported by the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation, the project will use Act 381 Brownfield incentives. The act allows for properties owned by the land bank and the city via tax foreclosure or other actions, like blight tickets, to be qualified as blighted.
The Tax Increment Financing (TIF), dedicated tax increments within a certain defined district to finance the debt that is issued to pay for the project, will apply for 145 parcels. Of those, 103 are currently owned by the Detroit Land Bank Authority and qualify as blighted by the City Planning Commission. Others are owned by the DEGC, City of Detroit, and an affiliate of the developer. Properties owned by public entities will be transferred to the Detroit Brownfield Redevelopment Authority, which will enter into the agreement with the development team for the purchase and development of the property.
Remediation costs are estimated at $22.7 million, which will be paid up front by the developer. The TIF will allow $18.5 million to be recouped over 30 years. The developer is not seeking any incentives at this time beyond the tax increment financing, according to city documents.
When asked by Santiago-Romero why the area was selected for the project, Morton noted that it had already been targeted by the DEGC for development and had funding granted in 2023 by the State Land Bank Authority to clean and prepare it.
“This was not the development team coming in, buying up land and trying to convince the city to do a project there,” said Morton of Detroit. “It was targeted by the city. We were willing to be proactive and work with the city to make sure that we delivered the project they were looking for.”
Headd said Friday that the next step is to finalize the development agreement to memorialize promises with the community. Once that’s complete, there will be a sale and transfer of certain parcels in the footprint, he said.
