An overturned, decomposing piano, a discarded wooden pallet and black bags of trash serve as streetside reminders of the repercussions of years of broken development promises in Detroit.

In 2004, a group of investors made what was to be a reported $258 million bet on the city's lower east side, and the Kilpatrick administration and City Council spent millions priming the area for redevelopment.

More than a decade later, and with New Far East Side Development Co. LLC still controlling at least 45 acres of the area abutting Grosse Pointe Park, the city has few options for getting back the property it sold to the investment group the Duggan administration says broke its promises of redevelopment. Today it still sits largely fallow, with nary a sign of the roughly 3,000 homes that were proposed for the area.

It's one of untold numbers of grandiose redevelopment visions that never got off the ground, for a host of reasons. But it was also one of the largest and most ambitious in recent memory and, to this day, the neighborhood struggles with blight, disinvestment and decay, with nearly 150 violations by New Far East Side Development totaling $41,000 accrued.

The city is still owed $19,300, the city says.

The total project area envisioned nearly 15 years ago was bounded by Jefferson Avenue to the south, Alter Road to the east, Warren Avenue to the north and Conner Street to the west.

It was anticipated to be done in phases, with the first Fox Creek phase consisting of properties totaling about 140 acres generally bounded by East Vernor Highway, Alter, East Jefferson and Eastlawn Street. It's Eastlawn where the piano and trash have accumulated, one of the few signs of activity on a largely vacant street.