Detroit Stone Pool Midtown.JPG

Stone Pool Park in Detroit is in the process of being sold to a developer with plans of building a new Midtown apartment building on the 1.94-acre property. The pool was shut down years ago, but families still use the playground on the site at the corner of John C. Lodge Freeway and Forest Avenue. Developer Liberty Stone LLC has agreed to build a new playscape on the property along with the six-story building.

(Khalil AlHajal | MLive.com)

Stone Pool Park 9 Gallery: Stone Pool Park

DETROIT, MI -- A park with a defunct, graffiti-covered pool and a still-active playground is being sold to a developer with plans for a six-story apartment building.

Neighbors initially voiced some concerns over the project, and some still wish it could go back to being a public pool, but after the developer made a few promises to residents and a nearby church, City Council on Tuesday voted to move the sale process forward.

The 1.94-acre property at the corner John C. Lodge and West Forest Avenue is being sold under a development agreement to Bingham Farms-based developer Liberty Stone LLC.

Once known as Louis Stone Pool and Playground, the park was decommissioned about a decade ago and the Detroit Recreation Department earlier this year declared it a surplus property.

It was turned over to the Planning and Development Department, which requested development proposals and chose the Liberty Stone plan out of four responses, according to James Marusich, a city manager of real estate.

The building plan includes 103 apartments in a 88,000-square-foot structure, with retail space on the first floor.

The units will range from 500 to 1,100 square feet, with rent starting in the $650-$700 range, architects told City Council in a public hearing earlier this month.

Resident Joyce Coleman, who lives three blocks from the site, raised concerns over eliminating the playground and blocking the view of Greater King Solomon Baptist Church.

Liberty Stone in response adjusted plans to build a new children's playscape on the property and to set the building further from the road to keep it from dwarfing the church.

"They addressed my concerns," Coleman said Tuesday. "I was pleased that they listened."

She said the pool, now partially filled with dirty rain water and covered on all edges with graffiti, was once a vibrant recreational facility for neighborhood children.

"Since it was closed, it just went from bad to worse," Coleman said. "For someone else to purchase it and do something positive with it, that helps us."

Gary Spears, who lives in an apartment complex next to the park, wasn't as happy to hear of the development Tuesday.

"Why take away the pool? I would rather they reopen the pool so the kids would have someplace to swim," said Spears, 60. "But I understand what's going on. You want to make more room for people. You want to bring more people downtown."

Karen Gage, economic development manager for Midtown Detroit, Inc. told City Council in the public hearing on the plan that the neighborhood is indeed desperate for more housing.

"We're operating at 98-99 percent occupancy for residential housing in the Midtown district," she said. "... The development project fits within the context of the community and it's sensitive to the surrounding structures and will provide much needed housing within Midtown."

She said that while the plans will eliminate a large playground, Midtown Detroit Inc. is adopting another neighborhood at 2nd Avenue and Seldon Street, with plans to renovate it within the next year.

"It's a smaller park than Stone Pool, but it is located in the community and it's about a half-mile away," she said.

Follow Khalil AlHajal on Twitter @DetroitKhalil or on Facebook at Detroit Khalil. He can be reached at kalhajal@mlive.com or 313-643-0527.