Louis Aguilar

The Detroit News

Peter Cummings is already a legendary Detroit developer and philanthropist — and the best is yet to come, he said Monday.

On Monday night, a diverse, new music and performance venue that Cummings and his wife gave millions to create was unveiled at the Max M. and Marjorie J. Fisher Music Center. That’s the Midtown facility he played a key role in developing in the 1990s.

“It was hard back in the ’90s to imagine what is happening in Detroit now,” Cummings said. Still, he developed projects in the city, things like The Ellington Lofts on Woodward, and turning part of the Riverfront Towers downtown into condominiums. He managed the real estate portfolio of the Max M. Fisher family (he’s the late Max Fisher’s son-in-law).

But his most significant projects are happening now, he said.

Within the next 60 days, there will likely be more details on a plan by Cummings and a partner to create 1,000-plus new residences in Detroit’s New Center, Tech Town and Midtown neighborhoods. That will include a groundbreaking of the estimated $50 million development called Third and Grand in New Center, which will add up to 250 residences to the area. He will also release more information of what he and his partners have in mind for two architectural gems in New Center — the Fisher Building and Albert Kahn Building — that were bought at auction last year for $12.2 million.

“Peter Cummings is a major force. He has been for a lot of years,” said George Jackson, the former head of the city agency that promoted development and investment. “He’s one of those persons every city needs to get things done. He’s patient and professional and he cares about the city.”

On another front, Cummings is collaborating with the city and the Brightmoor community — a neighborhood well outside the current booming parts of the city — to figure out what to do with the five buildings his development group bought there in the tax foreclosure auction last year.

And he’s working with the upscale grocer Whole Foods to locate a second Detroit spot for a new store. Whole Foods opened its first Motor City market in 2013 on a Cummings property.

There are so many Detroit projects in the works, he couldn’t put a price tag on the potential investment. It will be well beyond $250 million, he said. “The Fisher and Albert Kahn work — that could be a pretty high number alone.”

The 2013 opening day of the Midtown Whole Foods was a “really transformative experience” for Cummings. “I saw 600 or 700 people at the opening of a grocery store. A senator, the mayor, a marching band were there. I saw young and old, rich and poor,” he said. For decades, major grocery chains and other major retailers had fled Detroit for the suburbs.

“It had such a profound effect, I decided I really wanted to dedicate the next chapter of my professional career to the building of Detroit,” Cummings said.

One of those accomplishments is the Peter D. and Julie F. Cummings Cube, which debuted Monday inside the Fisher center, commonly called “The Max.” The Max is a Midtown music and performance venue that Cummings played a key role in developing. It was part of a $250 million project that began in the late 1990s.

“The Max” was an addition to Orchestra Hall, home to the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. The Max also holds two other smaller venues. The Cube is the renaming of one of those venues, a 475-seat recital hall which was previously called the Music Box. The Cube will be dedicated to diverse musical and performances from international and local talent.

“It’s really what we had in mind for that space 20 years ago,” Cummings said.

The Cube will have its own staff person dedicated to its programing. All of this is possible due to the millions contributed to the Detroit Symphony Orchestra by Cummings and his wife. The couple have given more than $10 million through the years to the organization, including $3 million in the past several years.

The debut of the Cube on Monday came just before a performance of an eight-piece party band called Red Baraat. The group fuses such music genres as Indian Bhangra, which derives from Punjabi folk music, and go-go, which originates from Washington, D.C.’s African-American community.

“We need a vehicle to promote inclusiveness,” at the Max, Cummings said.

“Even a national or global economic slowdown would not stop a Detroit recovery, it would change the pace of it but not the direction. The main challenge, frankly, is inclusiveness,” he said.

“For this recovery to be sustainable, we need to reach out to the neighborhoods.”

laguilar@detroitnews.com

Twitter@LouisAguilar_DN