Detroit to show off progress to nation's city builders at annual meeting

Detroiters debate the status of the city's comeback so often that we forget that the outside world sees something remarkable in Detroit's recent progress.

Beginning Tuesday, the Urban Land Institute, the national nonprofit association of city builders and real estate developers, brings its spring meeting to Detroit for the first time in 40 years — drawn by the story of Detroit's recent advances.

This marks the first time that ULI has held a major conference in Detroit since the Renaissance Center first opened in the late '70s — and a lot has changed since then, for better or worse. But for professionals looking to reinvent their own post-industrial cities, Detroit today has a lot to offer.

"Our members want to go to cities that have lessons that they can learn and take back to their cities, and Detroit's a natural," said Trish Healy, ULI Americas Chairman.

"We're in the business of city building and making our cities better, so I think the lessons we can learn in terms of disruption, solutions, regeneration, that's what Detroit has to give."

At least 3,500 ULI members from around the country will spend three days here next week, an attendance well above average for ULI. The conference sessions are based at Cobo Center, but the heart of the three-day event is a set of tours around the city.

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The visitors will see everything from Detroit's urban farms and other new uses of vacant urban land to the RiverWalk and the latest downtown projects.

Business leaders Dan Gilbert and Christopher Ilitch will appear together at 1 p.m. Wednesday before the conference at Cobo for a conversation moderated by mall developer Robert Taubman.

Other speakers during the event will include Detroit Institute of Arts Board Chairman Gene Gargaro and retired U.S. District Judge Gerald Rosen on the "grand bargain" — the innovative deal that saved the artwork of the DIA during Detroit's municipal bankruptcy.

The agenda includes visits to some of Detroit's best-known landmarks — Lafayette Park, Belle Isle and architect Minoru Yamasaki's great McGregor Memorial Conference Center at Wayne State University. And visitors will see lots of the more recent additions, too, including Little Caesars Arena, Shinola and Third Man Records.

But the focus won't be all downtown and Midtown. Visitors will tour three Detroit districts — Livernois/McNichols, Southwest Detroit and The Villages — to see how a mix of small-scale and large-scale development, parks and greenways, streetscape improvements, and small-business incentives have turned around those neighborhoods.

For local ULI leaders, holding the national conference here represents a confirmation of the city's redevelopment strategy.

“The programming we plan to deliver to attendees will highlight Detroit’s culture of innovation and creativity that ties into the city’s extraordinary revival,” said Taubman, who is chairman, president and CEO of The Taubman Company.

Others echoed that.

“There is so much energy within the city today, thanks to renovations and remodeling that have given rise to so many possibilities,” said Robert Schostak, CEO of Schostak Brothers & Company. “We’ve worked hard to get ULI to host their spring meeting in Detroit, but it’s no coincidence they are coming now in the midst of this remarkable shift.”

Of course, a few thousand visitors coming to town for a few days in May won't still the debate in Detroit over who's benefiting from the recent progress. And it won't resolve our often fractious squabbles over everything from regional transit to school performance.

But for a few days at least, Detroit will put its best foot forward as it showcases the undoubted improvements of recent years. The job of revitalizing the city is by no means finished. But the progress is real, and so is the world's interest.

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