Coming to the Commons
HomeBase Becomes a Community Hub in Northwest Detroit
Now that 2018 is in full swing, we’re taking a peek at the five Reimagining the Civic Common’s demonstration cities to highlight one thing in each city to keep your eye on in the year ahead. We’ve already made stops in Akron and Memphis. Check back over the next few weeks as we visit Chicago and Philadelphia.
HomeBase: Detroit, Michigan
The line stretched out the door and spilled onto the sidewalk. The patrons exuded excitement. This was the long-anticipated November morning that Detroit Sip, a coffee shop and community hangout, was opening its doors along W. McNichols Road (a.k.a., Six Mile Road) in Detroit’s Livernois-McNichols area. Worn and unoccupied shopfronts provided evidence that commercial development had once thrived around here, but, aside from a few businesses like a liquor store and an auto repair shop and a McDonald’s, the economy along this strip had been stalled for decades. The arrival of Detroit Sip seemed to indicate that things might be changing.
“I think people are really excited to see activity coming back to the corridor,” says Alexa Bush, a senior city planner with the City of Detroit who spends much of her time working with community members and strategic partners to reimagine the possibilities for Livernois-McNichols’ civic and commercial assets. “A lot of [neighborhood residents] can tell you which place used to be the candy store, the clothing store. And then they saw them go dark.”
Now, she says, the community is working with the Detroit Civic Commons team and plethora of other organizations — from emerging community development corporations to private developers — to realize the “reactivation” of their neighborhood.
In 2018, evidence of this reactivation will be apparent right next door to Detroit Sip, as HomeBase opens its doors in late spring or early summer. HomeBase, a new community center, will serve as the headquarters for the Live6 Alliance, a planning and development organization focused on Northwest Detroit, as well as the Detroit Collaborative Design Center (DCDC), a University of Detroit Mercy initiative aimed at strengthening communities through collaboration, design and the creation of sustainable spaces. It’ll house a range of Detroit city employees and community groups. And importantly, it’ll also be a space where community members can swing by, sit down, host meetings, launch projects, enjoy art exhibits and more.
When visitors arrive at HomeBase later this year, they’ll enter into a central space that’s open, welcoming and adaptable. In middle of the building, they’ll discover essentials like a kitchen and a bathroom. The back of the building will host offices for the various organizations that will call HomeBase home. As long as the door is unlocked, community members are encouraged to swing by any time, whether to attend a formal event or simply to kick back and talk shop.
Dan Pitera, executive director of DCDC, believes that HomeBase is charting a unique course. “It is truly unprecedented in Detroit and in most cities to have one storefront space where city planning officials, community development people and designers are all located together, sharing knowledge and collaborating with surrounding communities on work that will affect their day-to-day lives,” he says. “At the same time, over half the space is dedicated for use by the community.”
The arrival of HomeBase coincides with a number of other strategic development projects in the neighborhood, including the overhaul of nearby vacant lots to create Ella Fitzgerald Park and a half-mile-long greenway that connects historically disconnected city blocks and provides a non-motorized walking and biking corridor that lets people move through the neighborhood with ease — and with each other.
Combined, these initiatives send a powerful message: Livernois-McNichols is on the rise.
“Seeing the lights come back on and seeing activity back on the street tends to draw more activity,” says Bush. “People tend to be attracted to places where there are people.” And as 2018 forges ahead, she anticipates that Livernois-McNichols will see a steady increase of people investing in — and reimagining their relationship with — the neighborhood that they know as home.
Reimagining the Civic Commons is a collaboration between The JPB Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, The Kresge Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation and local partners.
