DTE Energy Co. plans to issue a request for proposals for the development community by the end of the year for its sprawling Conners Creek site on the east Detroit riverfront.

Dave Meador, vice chairman and chief administrative officer for DTE, said the Detroit-based company has held informal discussions with Mayor Mike Duggan's office, the surrounding community and developers like Dan Gilbert's Bedrock LLC about the site south of Freud Street between Lycaste and Canal streets.

How the process moves forward will be determined by what the response from the development community is, Meador said. If there is significant interest in the RFP and the proposed uses are in line with DTE's vision, the company will move forward.

DTE ultimately envisions a mixed-use development with residential and retail space connecting to greenways.

"This is one of the largest developable sites on the river, if not the largest," Meador said Friday. "A good portion of that could be developed."

One issue is what happens with the 400,000-square-foot decommissioned power plant that remains on the site. It featured seven 350-foot exhaust stacks (sometimes called the "Seven Sisters"); a portion of it was imploded in 1996 after being closed in 1983.

The remaining portion of the plant, built in 1951, has the "Two Brothers" exhaust stacks.

Although asbestos remains inside, Meador said it's a candidate to be redeveloped. Whether a developer proposes adaptive reuse or tearing it down won't affect DTE's selection process.

"But people have taken former steel plants and manufacturing facilities and turned them into destination centers," he said.

The company has been trying to determine what to do with the property for several years. Most recently in November, it hosted a group of experts from the Washington, D.C.-based German Marshall Fund who explored different ideas for the site.

"Beyond new residential and commercial use, the GMF team suggested possibilities including locating a museum of 20th-century energy production, technology, and industry on the site, along with incubator space for entrepreneurs and artists, as well as facilities for conducting biological and environmental research," the company says on its website, adding that wildlife returned to the property in 2009 when a beaver was spotted there.

The site dwarfs the city-owned former Uniroyal Tire Co. factory site on the east riverfront. Crain's reported in September that Gilbert has eyed the 43-acre site for redevelopment; Gilbert told Crain's Wednesday that no deal for the property has yet been struck.

Meador also said the information discussions have left DTE optimistic about the site’s redevelopment potential in the near-term future.

“It’s been very positive,” he said. “That’s just more recently. We have been talking to folks for years now and it wasn’t that long ago, about 3-4 years ago, the reaction was that it’s way too early. More recently, it’s been very, very positive, with them saying that as you look at everything that’s happening in Jefferson Chalmers all the way to Belle Isle and other complimenting things like greenway initiatives and the riverfront west, people are now thinking that it’s time for us all to collaborate together on this and move forward.”