Leonard N. Fleming

The Detroit News

Detroit — The rent, quality and restoration was so stunning that Antonio McClure couldn’t pass it up.

That’s the lure for McClure, 25, and others who will be moving into a newly renovated 28-unit affordable housing building in the city’s Midtown neighborhood once known for its urban decay but now sprouts fruits of revitalization.

The ribbon cutting for the low and moderate income dwelling brought the likes of Mayor Mike Duggan and others to tout the progress city officials, developers and investors are making in a city once known for broken-down and abandoned but still-stately buildings like The Treymore.

“I see the city is getting better and things are coming back. And I definitely want my kids to be a part of it,” said McClure, as he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the mayor and held tight to his two young children. He’s moving soon from Warren back to the city he lived in until his family left when he was a fourth-grader. “As soon as I seen this...and I called them...I immediately wanted it. It’s perfect.”

The Treymore, which had been vacant and abandoned for more than 20 years, is a four-story, 30,000 square foot building on Brainard that received a $7 million renovation. The apartments, with exposed brick in some of the rooms and hallways, will go from $551 to $575 a month for a one-bedroom, to $655 to $750 for a two-bedroom unit.

Instead of being used by his son as a backdrop for a zombie movie, Robin Scovill, the president and CEO of Paradise Valley Investment Group which gutted and rehabbed the building, it’s being touted as a “epic occasion.”

“My son, when he was 14, he shot a zombie film inside this building and I can tell you with the peeling paint, the exposed bones, it was a wicked location for a zombie film,” Scovill said. “With the help of a lot of people, we hit a lot of bullseyes with this project.”

Scovill said it was an arduous process to deal with a myriad of problems including the sinking foundation but with help from various grants and tax credits, the development became a reality. Although he owns other properties in the city, this was his first major renovation project, he said.

Duggan said there are several more renovations like this in the “pipeline” to help transform the city. At least 8 or 10 projects, he said, have been approved in the past month.

“This is the city we’re trying to build,” Duggan said. “You got a couple blocks north of here, we’ve got the Strathmore, an eight-story apartment building that was vacant for a long time that is now affordable housing. Then today the Treymore, 28 units, an apartment building that has been vacant for 20 years. We’re making a real commitment whether it’s downtown, Midtown, Palmer Woods, wherever, that every neighborhood in this city is going to have a place for everybody.”

Sen. Coleman Young II, D-Detroit, said Detroiters once saw areas with decay and “basically see an area that’s dying.” But with the Treymore and other renovations, there’s a rebirth.

Of Scovill, Young said “he saw life and he saw opportunity.”

“He saw opportunity for people who needed to have apartments and look at places who were never able to afford it,” Young said. “He saw people who were struggling in the city of Detroit and be able to have part of the American dream is a place and a home, a place to lay their head, a place to have with their families.”

And that’s how McClure, who will be renting a one-bedroom apartment, sees it. And he couldn’t stop smiling.

“Everything is newly remodeled inside, everything is brand new,” McClure said. “This is beautiful.”

lfleming@detroitnews.com

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Twitter: @leonardnfleming