Islandview Greater Villages
While Detroit’s recovery has become a globally recognized phenomenon, its story is more nuanced in its neighborhoods than in the narratives that tend to define the city at-large. The Islandview Greater Villages district within Detroit’s lower eastside is a collection of diverse neighborhoods exhibiting the height of Detroit’s early 20th century majesty, and its most profound challenges. The City of Detroit Planning and Development Department sought to create a clear, coordinated, and inclusive vision for a part of the city that integrates neighborhoods exhibiting expansive land vacancy, renewed on-street retail, and a resurgent multifamily housing market.
Client
City of Detroit
Location
Detroit, Michigan
Markets/Services
Architecture, Community & Regional Plans, Landscape Architecture, Urban Design, Urban Environments, Urban Planning
Size
2 square miles
It’s within these complex and divergent conditions that SmithGroup forged a multifaceted framework plan for the 2 square mile area encompassed by Islandview Greater Villages. The process was shaped through innovative and comprehensive engagement initiatives to ensure the resulting direction cultivated shared authorship in the outcomes. This allowed community insight regarding key amenities, mobility, housing, open space, and civic identity to be woven into the planning process and the resulting directions.
Near term implementation projects emerged at the close of the planning process, weaving together public space, streetscape, and multi-family mixed-use projects along with more comprehensive industrial adaptive reuse. By leveraging emerging development initiatives, and over a decade of strategic investment, the resulting urban design direction is now driving important strategic development initiatives that demonstrate market viability, improve public space, and ensure residents, business owners, and civic leaders recognize the powerful potential for the area.
At the center of this potential are innovative concepts for creating living communities in which residents of all generations can find the housing they need over time in one community. This helps ensure affordability, better utilization, and long-term community stability. This strategy is uniquely linked to the diverse housing offerings in the area, providing important open space improvements in adjacent parcels, as well as increased walkability, and local access to employment opportunities, amenities, and services.
