(rshsdepot) Detroit, MI

["James Dent" <james.dent_@_itochu.com>]

-From the Detroit News...

Council wants concrete plans for making depot into trade hub
By Darren A. Nichols / The Detroit News

  DETROIT -- Representatives of Detroit entrepreneur Manuel Moron presented
the City Council on Thursday with his redevelopment plan for the Michigan
Central Depot, in what could be the last effort to save the derelict old
train station.
   Moroun's group shared with the council its vision of turning the gutted,
18-story building into an International Trade Processing Center, which the
group hopes would allow Detroit to become a North American hub for trade
transactions.
   The center, which would also include a cultural arts center, would be the
focus of an area of residential housing and shopping. The site and nearby
area currently are badly blighted.
   The City Council, though, is not ready to support such a move because of
an indefinite timetable and unfirm cost estimates for the project.
   Council members urged the group to report back in six months with a
progress report, which should include structural and cost analyses. A market
analysis has not been completed.
   "I have a mixed reaction to this," Councilman Kenneth Cockrel Jr. said.
"There's a side of me that wonders whether or not this isn't all being done
because the council has recently been considering demolishing the building."
   Built in 1913, the station was designed by the same architects who built
New York's Grand Central Terminal. With the decline of Corktown and its
distance from downtown, the station fell into disuse. Amtrak made its last
stop there in January 1988.
   Thursday's hearing came about when the council considered demolishing the
city's most glaring example of abandonment last year. They gave Moron, who
owns the Ambassador Bridge, a six-month reprieve to report his concrete
plans for the depot.
   "This is a dream. We need to have a reality in terms of what it is going
to take for you to do what you need to do or whether or not you can do it,"
Councilwoman Kay Everett said. "We need to have business in the area."

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