John Gallagher

Detroit Free Press

Whenever I get discouraged about Detroit’s redevelopment efforts I think about all the projects we once thought utterly impossible that eventually opened and thrived.

That list is long. The old Book-Cadillac Hotel stood as a vacant ruin for a quarter-century before reopening as the elegant new Westin in 2008. And cement silos on the east riverfront seemed a permanent fixture once, but the RiverWalk that replaced them now ranks among the best waterfront recreation venues in the nation.

Now another one of these “impossible” projects looks like it has a reasonable chance to succeed. Plans are in the works to renovate the long-shuttered Vanity Ballroom in Detroit’s Jefferson-Chalmers district as the centerpiece of a neighborhood revival.

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The name Vanity Ballroom echoes down the generations of Detroit music lovers. Designed in an exuberant Art Deco style by architect Charles Agree in the late 1920s, for years it hosted jazz greats including Duke Ellington, Tommy Dorsey, Dizzy Gillespie and Ella Fitzgerald. Rock groups including MC5 and The Stooges took over later, but the ballroom has stood empty for the better part of 30 years.

It’s in rough shape. Josh Elling, director of the nonprofit civic group Jefferson East Inc. who is leading the renovation effort, showed me around the other day. Scrappers have been working, the ceiling is open to the sky, debris litters the floor everywhere. But it’s still possible to glimpse the former glory in the remains of Aztec decorations.

“Structurally the building is still sound but we’ve got to put a roof on it,” Elling said. “All told to bring that building back is about an $8 -million project.”

Before trying to raise that cash, Elling is figuring out what to do with the building, which the city has agreed to turn over to the civic group. He’s working with community partners to help him envision what it might become. The ground floor is likely to be mixed retail, but he’s open for ideas on the legendary second-floor ballroom space.

“We’re very cognizant of the deep historical significance,” he said. “We’ve had a lot of ideas come into play that would say, could it be some sort of restaurant, could be it some sort of brewery, but I think the consensus is given the history of this building, we need to somehow maintain the integrity of that ballroom, to have it come back as sort of a community performance space in some way.”

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Raising the money will be the tough part, although philanthropic foundations have been willing to help Jefferson East in other projects. But should it happen, a restored Vanity Ballroom would anchor what is shaping up as a revival of the entire Jefferson-Chalmers district that borders Grosse Pointe Park. Elling’s group already is coordinating several other projects on that stretch of Jefferson, including a variety of renovations of empty apartment buildings that will add perhaps 200 more units over the next two to three years.

Jefferson East Inc. is also incubating a variety of retail shops in the empty storefronts along that stretch. The group's headquarters, a former bank branch, will soon become a Caribbean-themed restaurant called Norma G’s, which received a Motor City Match grant from the city recently.

Norma G’s owner, Lester Gouvia, said he chose Jefferson-Chalmers for his restaurant to get in early on a district with so much potential.

“What I’m really trying to do is create a destination there,” Gouvia said. “If we can create a destination, if people want to come to that part of the city and just share that experience, walk around, and other businesses start to realize ‘Wait, I need to be there,’ we can take that community and help grow it.”

Elling’s civic group will move its headquarters into a former Kresge five-and-dime store nearby once renovations finish there.

In all, the projects, which total about $30 million, aim to create one of the walkable urban districts that are so popular now.

Kathy Makino-Leipsitz, a developer with Detroit-based Shelborne Development, has already renovated older apartments near Jefferson and Chalmers into 49 units and plans to begin work in October on two more vacant buildings totaling 20 more units.

She plans to rent about 40% of the new one, two, and three-bedroom units to lower income residents, with rents ranging from about $460 to $1,100 per month for the larger market rate units. And she has plans down the line for two more renovation projects totaling more than 150 apartments.

“That area itself I’ve always thought is incredible, but it’s been neglected for too long,” she said. She likens it to the Walkerville district in Windsor, “that little historic few blocks, just thriving with restaurants and shops. That to me is how that East Jefferson area should be.”

And others see a revival of Jefferson-Chalmers as a template for other redevelopment efforts far from trendy downtown and Midtown.

Maggie DeSantis, a longtime community activist on the east side,

“Seeing the Vanity Ballroom actually restored, assuming all of its amazing architectural amenities would be restored, would be icing on the cake.”

Thanks to these recent efforts, Detroiters may one day get to enjoy the icing and the cake, too.

Contact John Gallagher: 313-222-5173 or gallagher@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @jgallagherfreep.