A previous private developer wanted to turn Lee Plaza into 200 upscale, market-rate apartments.

A long-delayed, ill-fated effort to revamp a vacant high-rise luxury hotel on Detroit's west side could be revived under a city proposal to buy the historic property from the Detroit Housing Commission.

It's part of a broader plan to be unveiled Monday proposing the transfer of nearly 400 vacant public housing units from the Detroit Housing Commission to direct city control, officials announced Sunday. Officials said the move will boost redevelopment opportunities and strengthen several neighborhoods,

The deal could bring more housing and rental assistance for lower-income residents if the sale and redevelopment of several apartment buildings are successful, according to city officials. It would encompass 385 units including Lee Plaza, Woodland Apartments and more than 100 single-family homes owned by the Detroit Housing Commission.

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City officials promoted the deal to offload vacant units as a way to put the Detroit Housing Commission on stronger footing by next year, according to a news release Sunday. That's because the Housing Commission could benefit in the eyes of the government funders when it has fewer unoccupied units in the city, making it eligible for more dollars for rental assistance.

When the sale of the units to the city is complete, the houses and apartments are expected to be put into the city's land bank and rehabbed for sale or demolished if the structures cannot be saved, a city official said.

Current plans call for Lee Plaza to be marketed for resale and not torn down by the city, a Detroit official said Sunday.

City and Detroit Housing Commission officials did not immediately release full details of the plan. They are expected to discuss their proposed redevelopment with the news media inside Lee Plaza apartment building at 2240 W Grand Blvd. on Monday morning. Arthur Jemison, the city's housing and revitalization director, is among those expected to attend.

The deal is expected to go before City Council for approval later this week.

Other efforts in recent years to restore the massive and empty Lee Plaza to its former glory have struggled.

Last year, a daring $51-million plan to redevelop Lee Plaza into upscale housing was beset by delays and financing troubles.

The would-be developer, Detroit native Craig Sasser, told the Free Press in a July 2016 article that several local investors had exited the project and he was trying to find replacements. The historic plaza is about a mile west of New Center, which has seen signs of redevelopment recently.

Sasser's plans unveiled in 2015 called for redeveloping the Lee Plaza into 200 upscale, market-rate apartments and constructing a new 300-space parking garage at the tower's rear, as well as a small side-lot park. He estimated at the time that renovating the tower would have cost $34 million and building the garage and park would be $17 million.

The tower opened in 1929 as a luxury residential hotel and closed in the 1990s as low-income senior housing. It is located in a part of Detroit that has seen minimal redevelopment activity.

Sasser's company, Moneta Energy, reached a tentative deal with the housing commission to buy the properties. But the sale's closing date, originally anticipated for December 2015, was pushed back several times amid delays in obtaining various local, state and federal approvals for the redevelopment.

He could not be reached for comment Sunday.

It was unclear whether the city's new plan has support in the surrounding neighborhood.

Mildred Hunt Robbins, president and cofounder of the West Grand Boulevard Collaborative who had praised Sasser's plan in 2015, said in an interview Sunday she heard about the city's proposal through a councilwoman at a neighborhood meeting last month, but had not been briefed in detail.

"We are concerned that this process has not been a transparent process," Robbins said, adding she remains hopeful that the site will be brought back into use soon.

Contact Matthew Dolan: 313-223-4743 or msdolan@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @matthewsdolan. Staff writer J.C. Reindl contributed to this report.