When all is said and done, the site clean up at the former Uniroyal Tire Plant on Detroit's waterfront is supposed to take 18 months, so get used to this scenery! It's great that development is now underway at an important waterfront site for the city, but to recap, this has been a super duper long time coming! It's taken many years to decide who would pay for the $15-20 million clean-up which will now be divided between Detroit-based DTE Energy Co.; Wilmington, Del.-based E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co.; and Greenville, S.C.-based Michelin USA Inc. Here are the highlight's from last year's timeline of development (or lack thereof) from Crain's:
1981: The city of Detroit bought the recently closed tire factory.
1986: Donald Trump toured the site with Mayor Coleman Young to consider development possibilities.
2004: Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick chose a plan by NFL star Jerome Bettis and Pittsburgh developer C.J. Betters for a mixed-use project with 2,000 residential units along with stores and restaurants.
2006: The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality assigned the cost of the cleanup to DTE, Michelin, DuPont and Enodis.
2010: After years of delays over questions about which companies will pay for the cleanup, a plan is approved by the City Council for the western half of the site with work to start in early 2011. Cleanup of the eastern half is still being negotiated.
Crain's reported at the time that work would begin in March 2011, but as we all know now that did not happen. So the signs of progress we told you about in late January 2012 are a very big long-awaited deal! Expect modifications to the 2004 plan thanks to changes in the economy although Bettis did not release updated details at last September's announcement that the project would move forward.
· Uniroyal site cleanup in sight: Cost-sharing plan in place for major portion [Crain's]