The University of Michigan has bought land in downtown Detroit containing an urban garden that it plans to build a parking structure on for the university’s future center for innovation.
The university announced Monday that it paid $9.5 million for the nearly 2.3-acre parcel at 2201 W. Grand River Ave. The site is cater-corner to the forthcoming University of Michigan Center for Innovation, an academic campus that is under construction and on pace to open by summer 2027.
The property also is across from the MGM Grand Detroit casino, and had been owned by MGM Grand since December 2007, when it bought it from an affiliate of DTE Energy for an undisclosed amount, according to deed recordings.
MGM Grand developed the land in the early 2010s as an urban garden, initially in a partnership with the nonprofit Keep Growing Detroit, which managed the garden. Two heated greenhouses were built and 20 different crops were grown and sold at Eastern Market and to local restaurants.
In more recent years, the site has operated as Featherstone Garden, which has grown produce for residents and restaurants and also hosted community open mic performances during warmer weather.
Annie Hakim, co-owner of Featherstone Garden, said in a phone interview Monday that MGM Grand recently terminated early a three-year lease that the garden had for the site, after just two years.
U-M has agreed to give Featherstone until mid-June to move their belongings off the site. Featherstone Garden has its “home base garden” on the east side of Detroit at 4178 Lakepointe St.
Featherstone’s lease payments to MGM Grand were in the form of fresh produce for the casino’s restaurants, she said, and they also gave discounts to MGM employees at their farm stand.
“I think that we’ve done a good job maintaining a green space, that prior to us moving in, have fallen into disuse for about three years,” Hakim said. “We work with about 10 farm-to-table restaurants in the city, and in addition to that, have the farm stand and we do a lot of free community programing to get people into this really beautiful green space oasis that’s in the middle of our concrete jungle.”
An MGM Grand Detroit spokesman referred all comment to U-M.
A university spokesperson said they will accommodate Featherstone’s request to extend its lease until June 20 to maximize the growing season at the site prior to the relocation.
More:New details, renderings out for University of Michigan Center for Innovation in Detroit
The $250 million University of Michigan Center for Innovation broke ground in December 2023 and will offer graduate degree classes in areas such as robotics, computer engineering, entrepreneurship and sustainability. It also will house job training and certificate programs for the metro Detroit workforce and local students.
The university has said it anticipates 500 to 1,000 U-M graduate students enrolled at the UMCI by its third year of operation.
Some of those UMCI students would live at a future 18-story, 261-unit residential building to be built near the innovation center at 2205 Cass. That project is being codeveloped by New York-based The Related Cos. and the Ilitch organization’s Olympia Development of Michigan.
Rackham building update
Monday also marked the third anniversary of U-M’s announcement in December 2021 that it intends to spend $40 million to renovate the 121,000-square-foot Horace H. Rackham Educational Memorial building in Detroit, which is located along Woodward and across from the Detroit Institute of Arts.
Renovation plans for the 1942 building include updated classroom space, multipurpose rooms and new “maker spaces” for nearly 500 students.
A university spokesperson recently told the Free Press that the Rackham renovation plans haven’t changed and the money is still allotted, but working out the specifics will take more time.
U-M also owns a parking garage next to the Rackham building that is managed by Wayne State University and used by Wayne State students.
More:New timeline emerges for delayed $1.5 billion District Detroit megadevelopment
This story was updated because an earlier version included an inaccuracy.
Contact JC Reindl: 313-378-5460 or jcreindl@freepress.com. Follow him on X @jcreindl