Greg Tremonti and his mother, who is nearly 90, own a printing business in Toledo, Ohio, and live nearby. The family also happens to own a half-dozen small parcels in downtown Detroit, including a 60-space surface parking lot at Gratiot and Brush that brings them a nice monthly income and that they resolutely refuse to sell despite offers from suitors hoping to cash in on the downtown boom.

Downtown Detroit today has several major property owners — Dan Gilbert's Bedrock real estate arm, the Ilitch family's network of companies, and more — but it also has many owners like Greg Tremonti and his mother — families who have controlled surface parking lots for decades, dating to when parking represented one of the few ways to make money in a depressed and largely abandoned downtown.

And these surface parking lots are seemingly everywhere. Of more than 800 individual parcels listed in city records for the central downtown, the area between the expressways and the Detroit River, roughly half have no buildings on them. Nearly all of those vacant sites operate as surface parking lots today.

Now, as downtown’s property market heats up, owners like Tremonti are flooded with calls to sell their surface lots. So far, he has turned them all down.

"I get a million calls a day," Greg said recently. "Everybody’s been chasing it. My mother’s very happy and the property value just keep going up and up. Just not interested. At this point, it don’t hurt nothing. Beats the stock market.”

Monroe Blocks across Monroe Street from One Campus Martius and One Campus Martius Parking Garage, Friday, August 18, 2017 in downtown Detroit. Junfu Han, Detroit Free Press

But he acknowledged that his family's ownership is an anomaly in a rapidly changing downtown.

"I grew up with Bugs Bunny. We’re the rabbit hole that the city’s grown up around," he said.

The Tremonti holdings are a tiny part of the answer to an increasingly important question: Who owns downtown? The answer will help define public policy for years to come, and it will shed light on who benefits and who doesn't from today's downtown revitalization.

Broadly speaking, downtown ownership is spread among hundreds of people and entities large and small, who collectively hold many different attitudes and approaches.

"In the past there was a perspective that the highest and best use of land in downtown was surface parking lots," said Eric Larson, CEO of the civic group Downtown Detroit Partnership. "However, as the overall market conditions and demand improves, lot owners are motivated to become more progressive and proactive. But there are some owners who have been around for a long time, who have followed the same operating formula and have been slow to adjust requiring more direct encouragement."



Select or hover over shaded areas to see data:

What the map means This map highlights the extent of both surface and garage parking in downtown Detroit. It is based on the City of Detroit's database of property ownership as modified by updates provided by Downtown Detroit Partnership and may not be exhaustive. Because of the way the city data classifies property, some parcels include parking and other facilities. Note that property frequently changes hands and that this map may not reflect the latest sales.

Hidden ownership

Even when land ownership remains a matter of public record, it's hard to fully answer the question of who owns what.

For one thing, the City of Detroit's property index database shows that a vast number of parcels are held in the name of business partnerships that often hide the identity of the actual owners. The Tremonti parking lot at 401 Gratiot, for example, is listed under MHT Family Properties IV LLC, the initials MHT coming from Greg's mother's name — Melanie Helen Tremonti.

Then, too, parcels have been changing hands downtown at a rapid pace in the past few years. Official records sometimes take awhile to catch up.

Sam Salloum, 82, of Bloomfield Hills, and his family owned several surface parking lots downtown for decades. His father had started the family's parking lot business in the 1930s. But Salloum sold his Fox Parking operation recently, a sale yet to be reflected in the city's property records.

Nor does Salloum know who the buyer was. A real estate firm acted as intermediary and did not disclose the name of its client. "They don’t tell you. I really don’t know," Salloum said recently. "Probably Gilbert, that’s my guess, but I don’t know for sure.”

Parking here, there, everywhere

Yet if anything remains clear from city property records — or even from a simple stroll around the downtown streets — parking, both surface lots and parking garages, occupies a huge footprint in downtown Detroit.

Indeed, downtown sports more than 150 surface parking lots and dozens of multistory parking decks. It's a much higher percentage of land devoted to parking, especially to surface lots, than in cities with good public transit that cuts down the need for personal vehicles.

In New York City, more than 30 percent of workers commute to work using public transit or something other than a private vehicle. About 20 percent of workers in Chicago do without a private car for their commutes, as do about 25 percent of workers in Boston. All three cities sport robust public transit options, unlike Detroit, where fewer than 5 percent of workers use public transit for their commute.

All that parking generates a lot of revenue for the owners. Downtown Detroit Partnership estimates that the immediate downtown area has about 67,000 parking spaces. Parking rates vary considerably, from a low of about $4 a day to about $25 a day, with rates for special events like Lions and Tigers games often going for $50 per space.

Using a rough average of $10 a day per space five days a week, parking would generate at least $175 million a year, plus revenue from higher rates for weekend or special events.

Beyond the lots, parking is a profit center for the City of Detroit, which operates metered on-street parking as well as some garages. The city’s Municipal Parking department budgeted for $14.6 million in operating expenses for fiscal 2018-19 but expected revenues from parking of more than $21.7 million — a profit of roughly $7 million and return of nearly 50 percent.

Some of the $21.7 million will come from from meters and municipal garages. But the larger share — fines, forfeits, and penalties — is expected to generate $13.5 million, according to city budget documents.

That means that not just parking itself but the penalties and fines that stem from parking play an important role in the city's budget. Parking is less a convenience for visitors and commuters and more of a profit center for a city that needs the money.

Parking dominates decisions

The need for parking and the money it brings to owners dominates everyday life downtown in many ways.

Central United Methodist Church at 23 E. Adams operates a small surface lot near the church just steps away from Comerica Park and Ford Field. The Rev. Jill Hardt Zundel, senior pastor, said the church uses the lot for its own congregation but also rents spots for Tigers and Lions games. Like other parking lots, it charges as much as $50 per space for some of those events.

Parking revenue brings the church between $500,000 and $600,000 a year, its biggest source of revenue.

But it comes at a price. The church constantly juggles its ministry with demand for parking by Lions tailgaters or baseball fans.

Central United Methodist Church senior pastor Jill Hardt Zundel talks with Reginald Alan, right, who manages the church's parking lot in Detroit, Thursday, Nov. 29, 2018. Junfu Han, Detroit Free Press

"How do we schedule around events that are happening downtown, how do we have church meetings, when do we determine we can’t have a meeting because we’ll schedule around Tiger games and football games?" Those discussions happen all the time, she said.

Founded more than 150 years ago, United Central Methodist remains the oldest Protestant congregation in Michigan. New residents and workers downtown have swelled the ranks of church members. But parking plays an uncomfortably big role in church decisions.

"It's a nightmare down here, absolutely," Zundel said. "Right now, we’re kind of in that phase of, 'what’s the priority — is it church or is it making money?' "

Central United Methodist Church senior pastor talks about parking lot Central United Methodist Church senior pastor talks about parking lot Junfu Han, Detroit Free Press

Talking about parking matters

For civic leaders, the presence of so many surface parking lots and garages downtown increasingly presents a problem in the rapidly revitalizing central city.

Everyone agrees that in a city with limited public transit, commuters need a place to park. But so much parking in the immediate downtown detracts from the street life that groups like the Downtown Detroit Partnership and the City of Detroit's planning department are trying to create.

The Z Garage is a Bedrock Real Estate owned parking lot located at 1331 Broadway St. in Detroit. It boasts having artwork throughout the lot. Regina H. Boone, Detroit Free Press

Some newer parking decks, like Gilbert's Z Garage, feature retail or restaurants on the street level and murals and other artwork on the walls. But downtown's surface parking lots tend to be expanses of asphalt with few if any features to liven them up. That detracts from the look of downtown and the possibilities for street life.

The Ilitch family, to cite the most prominent example, has been criticized for its many surface parking lots along Cass Avenue behind the family's Fox Theatre and Little Caesars Arena. In a controversial move first reported by the Free Press earlier this year, the Ilitches won the city's approval to build their lots without the interior landscaping generally required so as to maximize the number of spaces.

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Often, less well-known parking lot operators don't even add the fencing, lighting, and other amenities found at the Ilitch surface lots. Many surface lots in downtown Detroit are little more than vacant lots with a tiny shack for an attendant.

Urban planners say such surface lots create visual dead zones that detract from the street life that brings visitors downtown and makes for a memorable urban experience.

Aesthetics aren't the only drawback to so much surface parking. Surface lots by and large are assessed at lower values than parcels with buildings on them. That lowers the potential tax revenue available to the city.

This surface lot is owned by Olympia Entertainment at 2130 Cass avenue in Detroit. Kimberly P. Mitchell, Detroit Free Press

How much parking?

Gilbert's Bedrock real estate arm is a major owner of parking garages. Bedrock accounts for nearly 12,000 spaces in the immediate downtown, almost all of them in multistory parking decks rather than surface lots, with thousands more spaces elsewhere.

The Ilitch family also owns multiple sites, mostly along Cass near the family's Fox Theatre and LIttle Caesars Arena, featuring thousands of spaces in total.

One big difference between the Gilbert and Ilitch parking holdings is that Gilbert owns mostly multistory parking decks that are filled during the workweek. The Ilitches own mostly surface lots that often sit empty except for special events at night and on weekends.

Despite the importance of parking revenue, the City of Detroit is a relatively minor player, with a few thousand spaces at parking meters or municipal garages.

The downtown map is dotted with multiple other owners, often listed in city property records simply by the business partnership or LLC that conceals the name of the owners. Trying to track the ownership of these partnerships often leads no further than to a business agent or lawyer who declines to name the actual owners.

Parking and the 'last mile'

With downtown redeveloping so quickly, it's likely that the legacy of surface parking and small family ownership may give way to something new.

All sorts of new mobility options are coming: Not just the shared bicycles and scooters already here, but more autonomous vehicles, self-driving shuttles and delivery trucks, and perhaps — if regional voters agree — more public transit.

The design of parking garages is changing, too. New garages today are being designed for conversion to retail and housing once demand for parking wanes. Instead of interior ramps and low ceilings, new garages feature flat floors, taller ceilings, and exterior spiral ramps that can be removed one day. There will be interior courtyards in such garages to provide windows and views once the structure is converted to residential use.

And even today's operators like Bedrock have an extensive shuttle service for Gilbert's employees who park farther from their offices.

Bedrock also runs a pilot program now with Ford's Chariot shuttle service that picks up workers at suburban sites and takes them downtown, much like a dedicated express bus.

Larson, of the Downtown Detroit Partnership, said his group is working with major property owners to shift parking to the outskirts of downtown and rely on "last mile" solutions — such as shuttles to bring commuters in from remote lots or the new scooters turning up on city streets.

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Those solutions would lessen the reliance on surface parking lots and free up some of those sites for redevelopment or beautification projects, like more landscaping or perhaps pop-up retail shops. But Larson conceded that longtime owners often don't see the need yet to give up on a business that has done well for them over the years.

But change is definitely coming, and it's coming faster than many people expect, said Kevin Bopp, who heads Bedrock's parking and mobility arm.

"What’s always been a challenge here is going from A to B and B to C. It felt like you needed to drive and figure out parking," Bopp said recently. "And the more we can change that dynamic, the more inviting Detroit will be as a city, and the more we’ll see everything, including the neighborhoods, be successful."

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