Happy 313 Day! Here are a few of the stories we've been following.

Development on tap at Eastern Market

Dietrich Knoer formed the Platform with Peter Cummings nearly eight years ago, and in that time, they worked on new builds and rehabs mainly around New Center. Knoer left the Platform in 2019 and is now leading Eastern Market Development Corp. Good timing, since there are a lot of development projects planned for the district. While the EMDC has worked a lot on acquiring land over the last several years, they're ready to build. Expect a large food distribution center and workforce housing first, followed by new affordable housing. Crain's Detroit Business 

New bus to Toronto

Megabus announced a new service to Toronto from Detroit. The service has a few stops along the way and takes about five hours. “We are pleased to be able to leverage our partnership with Trailways of New York to expand our service,” said Colin Emberson, VP Commercial for Megabus.  “Offering cross-border service between Detroit and Toronto is a new and exciting opportunity for Megabus that will allow for several new travel options for our customers this spring.” The service starts on April 5th and tickets run about $45 each way. Megabus

District Detroit recap

Lots of District Detroit news lately as we head to a City Council vote this month on the transformational tax plan. Here are a few stories to catch up on:

  • Our friends at Daily Detroit talked with Keith Bradford, president of Olympia Development, about the plans, tax incentives, and more.
  • Mike Duggan explained the tax incentive system for large developments like this one in his State of the City address, saying that incentives are imperative for businesses to do work here and for developments to happen. But critics argue that this shouldn't always be expected in Detroit, and the revenue the developments create doesn't always benefit the neighborhoods. If we don't have incentives in place, will businesses look to the suburbs instead? Bridge Detroit
  • More details are coming out about the development, including a forgivable loan based on the affordable housing component for Detroit residents of three years (not 10 like it could be, as noted by some); the demo of two potential buildings dependent on where new builds will go - the Hockeytown Cafe building and the seven-story Film Exchange Building could be up for demo; and the incentives are performance-based, which means the developers would only receive incentives for what's built and if they're leased. Detroit Free Press (paywall)