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Grand River @ 14th
Project Information
- Project Location:
- Detroit, MI
- Status:
- Completed
- Structure Type:
- Mixed Use
Scope Of Work
Grand River @ 14th is a community-driven development led by DJDS, located in Detroit at West Grand River Avenue and 14th Street. At its center is the Love Building, a nonprofit hub that will also contain low-cost studio space, gallery space, health and wellness tenants, and a food hub. During the community engagement process for the adaptive reuse of the Love Building, which was led by DJDS, participants surfaced a variety of infrastructure that is needed in the area in order to support formerly incarcerated people as well as the organizations that serve the community. To meet those community needs, DJDS identified eight parcels adjacent to the Love Building to purchase and transform into the Grand River @ 14th campus.
Grand River @ 14th, catalyzed by the new Love Building, will form a new urban landscape in the Core City neighborhood of Detroit. The proposed campus may include: peace and justice spaces for restorative justice and deescalation, nonprofit offices and meeting spaces, multipurpose community gathering spaces, and a theater. To meet the various housing needs, AirBnB-style housing is being proposed for formerly-incarcerated people, tenant staff, and disabled community members and visitors at every level. Daily-needs retail and a food incubator will anchor the ground floor. The campus will also include arts and fabrication maker spaces, which will support the extension of the West End Gallery District being developed blocks away while also supporting workforce development and arts programming in the county jails and prisons. The campus will be a true hub for social impact.
This development represents DJDS’s commitment to build the infrastructure to end mass incarceration by creating reinvestments that can divert funding from criminal justice into restorative community assets. Grand River @ 14th is intended to be a national model for what to build instead of prisons, by creating an economic, environmental, and socially sustainable oasis for this beloved community and providing access to resources communities need to thrive.
During the summer of 2021, DJDS closed on the purchase of the eight parcels of land that the project will be built on. At the same time, we have been proceeding with community engagement, tenant/partnership cultivation, space programming, and financial modeling, including investigation of community ownership opportunities and master-planning.
