The State Fairgrounds in Detroit have sat still for a decade. Today, news comes that is a good indicator things are about to happen.
According to a press statement, a group with backing by former NBA legend Magic Johnson and led by Joel Ferguson called Magic Plus LLC has closed on 16 acres of the Fairgrounds site at 8 Mile and Woodward.
The group paid $472,000 for two separate pieces of land book-ending the transit center along Woodward for a mixed-use development.
The city of Detroit is expected to close on its 142 acres of the deal in the next several weeks.
The property was transferred to the Michigan Land Bank in 2012.
The city of Detroit will pay $7 million for the remaining acreage.
BE SMART: Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan has said many times the city is looking for large, contiguous tracts of land to bring companies to Detroit. This definitely qualifies as that. In a previous press announcement on the Fairgrounds site that I attended, the mayor also stressed the importance of the site as a mass transit hub for the city and the suburbs.
I wonder if a properly upgraded State Fair Transit Center could be in the cards as part of any development deal — anyone who’s used it knows it needs it.