Curbed Cup Final Four: (4) Downtown vs. (8) New Center

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. Voting is open for 24 hours. Let the eliminations commence!

Downtown

If you’re looking at development in Detroit, downtown is where you’ll find most of it. While it’s still more of a place to rent instead of own (hopefully more condos will become available in the coming years), residents watch their streets change daily. Three new hotels will open in the next year. Ground just broke on the biggest construction project on an iconic block in the heart of it all. And more buildings are being renovated, bringing more offices, retail, and apartments online every day. Should it be considered as the neighborhood of the year?

New Center

Photo by Michelle & Chris Gerard

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?