Curbed Cup 1st round: (8) New Center vs. (9) Midtown

The Curbed Cup is our annual award for the neighborhood of the year. We’re starting with 16 neighborhoods (with some close ones combined), and we’ll vote over the next few weeks until we’re down to one. Polls are open for 24 hours. Let the voting commence!

New Center

Anchored by the Fisher Building, which has added much-needed retail to the neighborhood this year, development in New Center continues to take off. The Pistons training facility broke ground recently, Third & Grand is rising, and more residential is in the pipeline for the neighborhood at the end of the QLine. In the coming years, we’ll see more storefronts renovated along Woodward, plus residential at Baltimore Station. Single-family homes and condos are selling quickly in the neighborhood, and we’re starting to see more real estate selling in La Salle Gardens to the west and in the North End to the east. Will it spread further north down Woodward next?

Midtown

Photo by Michelle & Chris Gerard

This year, Midtown saw the opening of the Plaza, offering luxury apartments with views along Woodward. The Selden will open soon with a modern condo complex right in the middle of Midtown and the James Scott Mansion rehab is nearing completion. We also saw the announcement of the Selden Corridor Initiative, bringing a brewery, barcode, and single-family homes to the area. In Brush Park (which we’re including in Midtown this year), City Modern started to take shape, and the first townhouses should open to new residents soon. As the QLine and Little Caesars Arena both opened, housing prices continued to rise in the area. We should see more apartments rehabbed and built in the “District Detroit,” along with the opening of the Mike Ilitch School of Business. Two historic homes snagged big money in Midtown this year. Should the neighborhood move on to the next round?