Core city project, DETROIT

2012 - ongoing

Depopulated Urbanism.

A different way.

PREPARED AND PRESENTED BY Philip Kafka

What should a real estate project be? Many would say a ten, fifteen percent return, or better.

“It’s a smart place to allocate capital. Take on debt. Leverage. Borrow! Raise equity! Buy and build!”

“Your project? It must service demand. FAR, ROI - MAX them all out! Density. You need density. Parking. You need parking. Incentives. You need incentives. Studio apartments. Micro. Smaller apartments, more of them, better returns!”

“What about co-working?” and “How about Housing? What’s the market like? How many units of housing are being built right now? Who’s your target? What’s the demand? An asset, a solid asset!”

~~~

How about a more exciting goal: a real estate project should be an idea.
Strong returns don’t make a place, big ideas do; and exceptional places produce returns.

A city is a place before it’s a market; a neighborhood is a place before it’s an investment

Great ideas create demand, they don’t service it.
Great ideas offer value, they don’t extract it.

This is a document about Core City, Detroit. A place, not a market. A neighborhood, not an investment.
Core City, a place to create demand and mutually prosper with it.

Core City: an opportunity

to go a different way.

OUTLINE

1. INTRODUCTION

2. BACKGROUND

3. GENERAL OPPORTUNITY, DETROIT

4. SPECIFIC OPPORTUNITY, CORE CITY

5. CALL TO ACTION

6. THE FUTURE & CONCLUSION

7. EXHIBITS

a. PROGRAM MAP

b. MAP KEY

c. NEIGHBORHOOD ZONE OVERLAY

d. COMPLETED WORK

e. GENESIS PHOTO SERIES

f. CORE CITY LIFE GALLERY

g. INSPIRATION

h. REFERENCES

1. INTRODUCTION

This document presents the opportunity to own and develop 3,000 to 30,000 square feet of land in Core City, Detroit.

We are engaging a diverse group to create small to medium scale projects, for-profit developments, public art pieces, and other idea-based land projects.

We are seeking to sell and co-develop property, and steward small scale developments for others in Core City. We are interested in working with people motivated by ideas who seek to create demand and make a place.

Your track record of thinking, doing, and finding the immense opportunities in intelligently going against the current have led me to believe you will be interested in one (or many) of the following: living, designing, investing, building, developing, creating, growing, planting, thinking, sharing, or being in Core City.

All deal conditions will be discussed on a case by case basis depending on who, where, and what is proposed.

For example, this document might be of interest to some of the following types of people:

A large or small scale developer looking to invest in an idea and build it.
A sculptor looking for a place to build a studio and showcase a public sculpture garden.
An educator looking to build a school or business owner looking to do something thoughtful and context specific.
An architect looking to develop a small to medium scale project or build a house or duplex.
A foundation or non-profit looking to design and build a focused community center or museum.
An investor looking to support the creative and productive work of any of the above mentioned types of people, or looking to purchase the land, permits, and a design from Prince Concepts that can then be developed.
A landscape architect looking to create or preserve unique urban habitats; or a gardener looking for a plot of land to harvest vegetables or flowers.
A couple or individual looking to purchase a plot of land and design and develop a home, duplex, or urban ranch.
Any individual who invests in ideas, not trends, either their own or those of others.

If you are seeking any of the following, this document is not for you:

An opportunity to speculate on the land in Core City. Most project sites will require being developed within the next three - five years.
A site where you can plant an idea that has no relevance or context within Core City or Detroit.
A place where your dreams, not founded in any real experience, wherewithal, or credibility can magically come to life.

Core City is seeking a handful of ideas, grounded in reality, to create a thoughtful, respectful, and relevant place - in the heart of Detroit. This is a challenged but very real and vibrant city. All the work we do will honor the history, people, and space that give Detroit its unique character.

The idea is to develop as little real estate as possible, while enhancing and preserving the environment that surrounds the development.

Each project might have totally different intentions, but they will all be working towards a uniform goal: a new, radical, depopulated urbanism offering nature and culture, city and country, trees and entertainment, access and isolation. Only in Detroit, and for now, only in Core City.

This will be the next phase of work we have already been doing in Core City. Our goal: to make a novel place, very unfamiliar, but also completely comfortable.

2.BACKGROUND

Prince Concepts is a real estate development and property management company located in Core City, Detroit.

Since 2012, Prince Concepts has acquired and owns seventeen acres of land, renovated 62,000 square feet of formerly blighted industrial property, imagined and built 20,000 SF of new housing, created 15,000 SF of thoughtful public space, planted over 300 trees, and won nine national and international awards for it’s completed projects. All of this has been accomplished while being respectful of, and connected to, the environment that surrounds the work.

The vast majority of this development has taken place, and will continue to be, in Core City. We believe that consistent, dedicated, and focused work within a specific area is how the unique character and value within the Detroit neighborhoods comes to life.

The Old Testament says it best, “God gives understanding to people who work the land” (Isaiah 28:26). Core City is the land we work, and with every passing day of moving Earth, we begin to understand how Core City of the 21st century will look. Thankfully, it isn’t looking like anywhere else.

For the past eight years we have been navigating the work in Core City with a small group of dedicated pioneers:

The residents at our first development, True North, which was the first bit of broken ground in Core City since the 1960s.

The artisans roasting coffee, baking bread, and cooking original recipes.

The businesses who asked their clients to venture through construction sites, unfinished walkways, and vacant space to arrive at their oasis offices.

Most importantly, the few residents that have remained in the neighborhood, the true settlers, always reminding us that we’re in Detroit and how great it is. Their faith in our work has inspired and motivated us. Our common goal - to help shift the tides of neglect that had become all too familiar to them over the past fifty years. Jeanne Woods, a Core City homeowner since 1968, put it best, “It’s about time you got over here. This is Grand River and Warren! This is the best intersection in Detroit. You should have seen this place! What’s taken you so long?! Keep it up!”

The common thread, a group of people who care about the work they do, and the place they do it. These are people who not only look to enrich themselves, but also the environment that enables their existence and production.

With this document we will selectively expand our list of Core City pioneers by introducing an opportunity to collaborate. We are eager to work with people who seek the enrichment of: a personal vision, the place that enables it, the community that surrounds it, and the business objectives embedded within it. Comprehensive enrichment. Core City is the ideal place to produce work that inspires, matters, and performs.

3.GENERAL OPPORTUNITY:

DETROIT

Detroit has a history of ideas: Augustus Woodward and the radial plan, Henry Ford and the Model T, Albert Kahn and reinforced concrete, Berry Gordy and Motown, Mies Van Der Rohe and Lafayette Park, Detroit and its belief in Equality of Opportunity.

Ideas have always driven growth in Detroit. Financial gain was the result of big ideas, not the original objective. Detroit’s greatness, the consequence of vision; its fall, in part, came when it became more motivated by dollars and demand than by beliefs, ideas, and design.

Today, the Detroit Metro area has a population of approximately 4.5 million people, the tenth largest international airport in the country, and has the 14th largest GDP in the country.

The recent investment in Detroit and all of its problems have been well documented. I see something different, something that really makes working in Detroit exciting and productive.

Detroit housed 2 Million people in 1950. The infrastructure that supported that population still exists, but today, the population is just 700,000. Roads, electric, water and sewer services, highways, an international airport with direct flights all over the World, professional sports teams, entertainment venues, hospitals, universities and international relevance. Detroit is a place, and relative to its capacity, a spacious place ready for more action. The result is singular: a real city with culture, diversity, people, and history, connected by robust infrastructure, mixed with land and space.

There are few places that have the relevance, landscape and history to inspire, but that also have the space to provide room for big thinking. Every city in America offers an adept investor a financial return; Detroit isn't for that, alone; Detroit is ripe for big ideas, whose consequence – if the work is strong - is financial return.

What doesn’t exist in most Detroit neighborhoods are the things investors typically bank on: stability, consistent growth, security, well-funded schools, the list continues. The landscape in Detroit, and in particular its neighborhoods, isn’t appealing for investment; in fact, on paper, it’s the opposite. There isn’t demand to live in the neighborhoods, there is space, there are historic social issues, there are vacant unmowed lots, overgrown trees, abandoned houses, there isn’t what we’re taught to look for. However, this is exactly where the immense opportunity in the Detroit neighborhoods exists, what they lack in their ability to inspire traditional investment, they gain in their ability to allow for non-traditional and successful investment. Enter Core City.

4. SPECIFIC OPPORTUNITY:

CORE CITY

Our work has been focused around the intersection of Grand River and Warren, Core City, exactly two miles from Downtown Detroit. We currently own and operate over 17 acres around this intersection and are looking to collaborate to ensure that Core City emerges and fulfills its unique potential.

So far, we have successfully developed 2.5 of the 17 acres and have renovated and activated over 50,000 SF of formerly blighted property in Core City.

The neighborhood is not in an opportunity zone, has no investment beyond the work we’ve helped support, and has far more vacant lots and empty houses than occupied homes. Regardless, the alternative investments we’ve made have paid off - culturally and otherwise; we have received numerous international awards, involved and inspired the local community, attracted top quality collaborators, and created value by developing projects motivated by ideas, not demand.

Our work getting to know the neighborhood and community before we ever broke ground has guided us, and helped us realize that if the projects only appeal to the international community but alienate the local community - failure; on the flip side, if they don’t engage a larger audience than the neighborhood, we didn’t truly seize a Detroit opportunity - to invest in an idea and create real value.

The idea in Core City is simple: a minimal amount of development to subsidize big ideas which, in turn, create a spectacular place. Our completed projects have been an exercise in using commercial development to subsidize the planting of trees, the development of public spaces, and to appropriately scale a project - not only for financial success - but for holistic success. A land acquisition cost that is lower than it should be considering the population, industry, infrastructure, production, and relevance of the Detroit Metro area is what allows for this idea to actually work.

The ability to be in the middle of a city, but under-develop property, is a uniquely Detroit opportunity. The result will be a place that offers a depopulated urbanism that very few, if any, other places offer.

The opportunity in Core City offers individuals the chance to develop their own idea within the place that Prince Concepts and the original group of Core City pioneers has established and will continue to.

In Core City, commerce isn’t the goal; space, trees, and big ideas are. Special and high quality commerce will be a consequence, and it will subsidize a neighborhood that celebrates public spaces as much as private ones.

If the development in Core City continues to be motivated by ideas, sensitive to context, and not built to simply service demand, success; if the untrained eye can’t tell if Core City is ruled by humans or nature, success; if our work continues to excite the locals and World, alike, success. If our work continues to celebrate public space as much as private space, success. If Core City doesn’t change, but just quietly enters the next phase of what it has always been, success. If our work continues to respect the people, history, and space of Detroit, success.

With this success in Core City, a place will emerge, a bonafide, one-of-a-kind place; and it will provide all sorts of value.

Please see EXHIBIT D for more details and links to our completed work in Core City.

5. CALL TO ACTION

Our strategy is as follows: we are interested in preserving space. We will develop as little as possible, while still creating value and viability. Development will subsidize public space, the planting of trees, preservation of the existing landscape (people and space), and public art. Our belief is that this is the most relevant strategy to preserve the unique character of Core City, and that this is also the best way to create a democratic place with persistent value. Trees, diversity, and moments where these things can intersect - public spaces.

A different way that doesn’t emphasize density, maximized development projects, and parking; a path that offers a new way to look and think about a city; a depopulated urbanism giving people access to the culture of Detroit and the serenity of the wilderness.

How do we do this?

Only about 18 - 25 percent of the acreage we own and operate in Core City will actually be developed - by us, and the select group of others who submit compelling proposals to develop, co-develop, build, grow, plant, or invest in Core City.

With the remaining land, Prince Concepts will deftly and quietly build public spaces, in the form of gardens, parks and the preservation of natural neighborhood habitats. We will be successful when an immense amount of value is created, but the landscape maintains the character that is unique to Core City, and preserves the people, history, and space.

The public spaces will connect and give people the opportunity to freely explore Core City, enjoy the green infrastructure, and give you the chance to build homes, projects, studios, etc. along the green spaces we develop. We will build the “parks” and give you all the chance to develop “park front” properties. Prince Concepts will create the place, and give others the opportunity to develop their own ideas within it. Such ideas can be private houses, duplexes, museums, work studios, small scale apartment or condo buildings, botanical gardens, farms, sculpture gardens, schools. We are open to all proposals so long as such proposals are idea driven and sensitive to the context of Detroit and scale of Core City.

We have worked with celebrated designers: Landscape Architect, Julie Bargmann and Architects Edwin Chan and Ishtiaq Rafiuddin to devise a rough neighborhood plan that designates green spaces and development sites.

Exhibit “A” (attached herewith) is a numbered map that shows the development sites and Prince developed green spaces. We are open to proposals for all numbered parcels, we are also open to proposals for Prince Owned properties that are not numbered, but the numbered parcels will be developed first.

Exhibit “B” has a key for each numbered parcel and shows what can be built, by right.

Exhibit “C” is an aerial map that overlays the four development zones in this project.

Here is how you can be part of the action in Core City:

Propose an idea for a project, purchase a piece of land and develop it.
Purchase a piece of land with a design and permits (led and obtained by Prince Concepts), and develop it.
Find a project to invest in and be part of in Core City.
Co-develop a project with Prince concepts or another developer/artist/etc. in Core City.

In any of these scenarios, Prince Concepts will be providing the leg work for the permitting and community engagement aspects of all projects. Prince Concepts can also collaborate on the programmatic, design, and construction aspects of your project (this is not an included service).

Purchase price for each project will be decided on a case - by - case basis depending on the size, program, and location of the project. In no case will the cost of land prohibit an interesting, sensible and appropriately scaled project from happening.

The purchase price for the land will support the construction of the public spaces that all developments will benefit from in Core City. For example, the price per square foot of land for a public sculpture garden proposal will differ from the price per square foot for the land of a 10 unit development project. The idea being that the public sculpture garden is something that will make living in the 10 unit building more appealing, and help establish this neighborhood as a place. The purchase price for both of these projects will then be reinvested by Prince Concepts into the public green spaces in the neighborhood. Again, just enough private development to subsidize public spaces and the beautification of the neighborhood. That’s the idea.

Collaborate by composing a simple, focused and compelling e-mail to pk@princeconcepts.com.

Such e-mail should introduce your desires. Once we receive this information, we will selectively meet to discuss your idea, find the right site, establish a price for the land, and outline a timeline and responsibilities.

Prince Concepts will selectively co-develop projects with other parties, and might also be willing to act as a steward / manager for other developments in Core City.

6. THE FUTURE & CONCLUSION

Core City is a place, not a market, composed of projects, driven by ideas that enrich person, place, and purse. Core City has, and will continue to, take a different path; one that aims to develop as little as possible in an effort to make a place by preserving its people, history, and space.

We will go a different way, one that isn’t motivated by maximizing the amount of space for Lease, but is focused on the quality of the few spaces that will be for sale or lease. Our focus is in creating a place.

Our emphasis on preserving space, instead of developing it, in the heart of Detroit is a new way to create a place. It’s the future; a depopulated urbanism that hasn’t ever been intentionally designed.

The work that this document spurs will be the fourth phase of sensitive development in Core City, we are looking for a small, but varied, group of people to be part of it.

Thank you.