Parking lot owners get an upgrade courtesy of the Downtown Development Authority

The City of Detroit and the Downtown Development Authority (DDA) are working to do some last-minute sprucing-up downtown before the city is expected to welcome around 300,000 guests for the NFL Draft from April 25-27. There are plans to replace paving bricks, paint Detroit People Mover stations and repair roughly 1,000 light poles.

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The city also asked the DDA to pay for “beautifying” privately owned parking lots . Eligible lots must be located in an area that covers most of downtown or an area around Little Caesars Arena and be considered compliant by Detroit’s Buildings, Safety Engineering, and Environment Department.

The DDA Board of Directors approved a budget of $900,000 for the beautification program but expects to spend less, up to about $828,000.

A spokesperson for the Detroit Economic Growth Corp. (DEGC), responsible for the parking lot improvement program, said in an email: “The City is not able to require a parking lot owner to implement improvements other than those required for code compliance. This program offers a way to incentivize additional beautification measures for compliant lots.”

Parking lot owners that follow a site plan developed by the city and the DEGC can be entirely reimbursed for the cost of some improvements, like planters, and up to 75% of the cost of other improvements. Owners who want to make improvements on the list approved by the DDA but don’t want to follow all of its suggestions can still get 50% of their costs covered, up to $15,000 per lot.

Plastic bollards included in a request for proposal solicitation for contractors for the parking lot beautification program. | The parking lots eligible for the beautification program must be located within the DDA Development Area No. 1, depicted here by the orange dashed line. | A request for proposal shows the planters for the parking lot beautification program.

The money to pay for the improvements is coming from a revenue stream called tax increment financing (TIF) , funded by a portion of property taxes paid by downtown residents and businesses.

“TIF is one of the few tools that local governments can turn to to spur projects. But there are institutional issues,” says Andrew Guinn, an assistant professor at Wayne State University’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning. The revenue is overseen by a board not elected by residents and therefore not held publicly accountable.

This kind of spending can also concentrate planning resources and tax revenues that otherwise could be spent citywide.

Parking lots included in beautification plan . Locations retrieved from Detroit Documenter Perry Sylvester’s capture from the meeting presentation, which includes costs . Credit: Outlier Media

Do these lot owners need renovations at a discount?

Many of the parking lots the DDA wants to pay to improve are held under the names of shell limited liability companies, making it difficult to know the financial resources that owners have to make their own improvements.

Dimitrios “Jim” Papas, the owner of The Atheneum Suite Hotel and a founder of Greektown Casino-Hotel (now Hollywood Casino at Greektown) owns at least two of the lots. At least one lot is owned by Richard Karp, the principal of RKP Group , the company that developed the Capital Park Lofts for $28.3 million and several other buildings in Detroit, Lansing, Flint and Toledo, Ohio.

Papas and RKP Group did not respond to requests for comment.

“Just because you can subsidize projects doesn’t always mean that you should,” said Guinn who said this program seems to be a way to subsidize private parking lot owners. “It doesn’t sound like a great use of TIF funds.”

Detroit Documenters Kristin Fehrman and Perry Sylvester and Outlier’s Kate Abbey-Lambertz contributed to this story.

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