The District Detroit Five Years Later

from Kirk Pinho and Bill Shea of Crain's Detroit Business,

In May 2017, six men took turns speaking before a wide patchwork of building renderings.

The key speaker, Christopher Ilitch, boasted of a half-dozen new and rehabilitated buildings intended to bring nearly 700 apartments to downtown Detroit in coming years.

Ilitch was speaking at a press conference about the residential launch of his family’s District Detroit project, the sprawling sports and entertainment development unveiled in July 2014 and anchored by a new hockey arena that would be surrounded by what were branded as five distinct new neighborhoods to be created concurrently. They would be robust new residential, retail and…