It’s clear if you just spend a few minutes downtown there have been a lot of changes in the last few years in downtown Detroit. A video that originally showed at the Downtown Detroit Partnership Annual Meeting, funnily enough clocking in at 3 minutes and 13 seconds long and narrated by WDIV anchor Devin Scillian, was posted online.
The piece features lots of beautiful shots and time lapse segments as well as outlines their belief that “this is our moment” when it comes to making things happen downtown. If you want some pretty city shots, check it out.
For background, the Downtown Detroit Partnership is one of the engines behind the scenes around a lot of the things talked about in downtown. Although there’s a lot of buzzwords in this piece, there’s some meat on the bone of what the DDP does.
They’re the non-profit that is an umbrella organization that takes care of the maintenance and programming for Campus Martius and other parks downtown, taking that burden off of the city coffers, the BUILD Institute entrepreneurial classes, Detroit Experience Factory, the upcoming Detroit Bike Share, the LIVE Detroit program helping people find places to move into the city, Project Lighthouse for coordinating security and help for guests downtown, as well as holiday lighting and landscaping in the central business district.
The DDP is in funded in part through their members, grants, and in part through a “Business Improvement Zone” paid by property owners over and above city taxes in the Central Business District.