Detroit City Chatter: Drag racing and a dangerous building
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Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
Welcome back to our regular city policy roundup.
🚧 Building woes: Council member Scott Benson is calling for immediate action to fix up the vacant former Stevens T. Mason Elementary School, which neighbors say is dangerous.
- "Residents report that the building is open and unsecured, illegal dumping is occurring on the property, and trash has accumulated throughout the site," Benson wrote in a recent memo.
- Benson told Axios in a statement he is in talks with city officials to resolve the issue.
Flashback: The Art Deco-style Mason school at 19635 Mitchell St. was constructed in the 1930s and closed in 2013, per the city's 2020 study that assessed vacant schools' viability for future reuse.
- The city found that the building, in "excellent condition," would take $12.3 million to redevelop. But there are no publicly known plans to do so.
Zoom out: It's rare to see successful redevelopment of cost-prohibitive vacant Detroit schools. But some have included the Jefferson Hub, Durfee Innovation Society and the planned Higginbotham Art Residences.
🏎️ What a drag: Residents complained about drag racing in their neighborhoods at City Council on Tuesday — in response, several council members asked if the city is pursuing any avenues for safe, legal drag racing.
- The Detroit Police Department (DPD) explored that idea a couple of years ago, deputy police chief Franklin Hayes told them, but it didn't pan out and there's no interest in it going forward.
Yes, but: Council members also requested an enforcement update, and Hayes detailed DPD's ramped-up campaign against illegal drag racing and related street gatherings.
- The efforts include spotter vehicles, searching social media for meetup locations, identifying problem cars using helicopters and ticketing both drivers and spectators.
- Hayes says residents can call 911 to report drag racing parties.