Detroit’s City Council made the right move this week when it voted, however narrowly, to make Spirit Plaza at Woodward and Jefferson permanent. But that’s only half the job.

Now council and Mayor Mike Duggan’s administration need to finish the task by connecting Spirit Plaza to the riverfront with a thorough remake of Hart Plaza and a redesign of Jefferson Avenue.

The next obvious move is to bury Jefferson below grade from where it tunnels under Cobo Center to beyond Woodward. Then the city could extend the vehicle-free Spirit Plaza across what is now the roadway and into Hart Plaza.

If done right, pedestrians would then be able to walk from Campus Martius in the heart of downtown to the RiverWalk with nary a worry about crossing busy streets, but for a couple of narrow ones at Larned and Congress.

Now, I’m not so naïve as to think this will be easy. Challenges include finding the money (certainly many millions of dollars), overcoming the engineering obstacles in burying a roadway, and rethinking traffic flows around downtown, especially for emergency vehicles.

Moreover, the recently announced departure of Detroit’s influential planning director Maurice Cox means the city needs to find someone else to champion such a dramatic remake.

Prioritizing pedestrians

Yet the hardest tasks will be political — persuading not only council but the public that it’s all worthwhile, despite the howls from motorists who already despise Spirit Plaza for shutting down traffic at Woodward and Jefferson. Opposition will be fierce from those who don’t see the benefit in a walkable streetscape.

But it’s important for council and Duggan’s team to remember that Spirit Plaza by itself is no more than a pleasant little gathering spot outside the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center. Seen properly, Spirit Plaza can and should be part of a broader streetscape design that prioritizes pedestrians over motor vehicles.

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Councilmember Raquel Castañeda-López, who voted in favor of the permanent park along with James Tate, Gabe Leland, Andre Spivey and Scott Benson, put it this way: "I urge my colleagues to move beyond a scarcity mindset and fear to envision a city we’d like to see."

Taking the long view

It helps to remember that cities take a long time, often decades, to get their urban design right.

Detroiters were talking about remaking the waterfront from industry to public uses fully a century ago. Yet Detroit didn’t get around to building Hart Plaza until the 1970s, and didn’t start the RiverWalk, one of Detroit’s best features, until another quarter-century had gone by. And the RiverWalk is still under construction some 17 years on.

So it helps to take the long view on these matters. What sort of streetscape do we want and need in the heart of downtown Detroit? Do we desire a busy motorized roadway clogged with traffic?

Or would Detroit be better served with its vital center redesigned as a place for people to stroll, shop, eat lunch, take the sun, listen to music, meet their friends, and otherwise enjoy their city free of the stress of crossing car-filled streets?

Hart Plaza upgrade overdue

Hart Plaza, by the way, has been overdue for a major redesign. Some physical deterioration of its structures is only part of the problem.

When it was created in the 1970s, Detroit tried to establish one of the grand plazas like St. Mark’s Square in Venice where multitudes gather. But the rather grim hardscape of Hart Plaza, the lack of seating and other amenities, and changing tastes mean Hart Plaza is busy during special events but otherwise awesomely empty.

So making Spirit Plaza permanent and finding a way for it to cross Jefferson should be part of an overall plan to reprogram and redesign Hart Plaza itself.

There is already progress

Mind, now, this work needn't resemble the more dramatic examples found in the annals of urban design, as when Paris created its grand boulevards by destroying many neighborhoods. It doesn’t even have to repeat the trauma of Detroit’s urban renewal days, when the city bulldozed Black Bottom, most of Corktown, and areas to the north of downtown to create expressways, the Detroit Medical Center campus and more.

By contrast, the path ahead to a more walkable downtown involves a more modest set of tasks, most of which are already done. Detroit has already created much of its RiverWalk, its large if inadequate Hart Plaza, Campus Martius and the esplanade running south from there, and now Spirit Plaza itself.

There’s a lot of work ahead, but it’s hardly insurmountable, at least from a technical viewpoint.

I suppose the narrow 5-4 vote by council to make Spirit Plaza permanent doesn’t bode well for an even more ambitious project to bury Jefferson and make the other changes. But it’s better to take the long view and the optimistic view.

Detroit, having celebrated its 318th birthday this month, remains a work in progress. Spirit Plaza, despite its controversies, marked a step ahead. Now the city needs to open its eyes to the possibilities of an even greater downtown ahead.

Contact John Gallagher at313-222-5173 or gallagher@freepress.com.Follow him on Twitter@jgallagherfreep. Read more on business and sign up for our business newsletter.