A good question from a reader on Twitter last week prompts the following update: The previously planned second phase of the Orleans Landing apartment project on the east Detroit riverfront has been scrapped.

That development, which was planned to go on land immediately south of the vacant Stone Soap Building on Franklin Street, was to have 208 apartments and townhouses developed by St. Louis-based McCormack Baron Salazar Development Inc.

Richard Baron, a Detroit native who co-founded the company, told me Wednesday morning that financing for the first phase of the project immediately to the east was tricky and it would have been a big headache to go through with the second phase. So instead of exercising an option he had to build on the publicly owned property, he took a pass.

That decision was "made months ago," he said.

"We just decided that it was a very difficult first phase in terms of putting the financing together and we needed to let the market settle," he told me Wednesday.

The Detroit Economic Growth Corp., which contributed financing and property to the first phase of the project, confirmed that it received a request to reassign the development option but declined to provide additional details until it evaluates the request and presents it to the board for action.