Local historians call for national honor for GR’s Auburn Hills neighborhood

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — A unique West Michigan neighborhood is one step closer to national recognition.

A representative from the Auburn Hills Historic Recognition Committee tells News 8 it is in the process of filing a formal nomination to be added to the National Register of Historic Places .

The Auburn Hills neighborhood on Grand Rapids’ northeast side dates back to the 1960s, but its roots go back decades further. Like many big cities across the country, Grand Rapids’ housing market was leveraged against minorities by a practice known as redlining , effectively limiting ownership opportunities to the city’s least-desirable neighborhoods — ones with the least amount of investment, closest to industrial zones and filled with aging buildings.

In Grand Rapids, that redlined area was unceremoniously known as the “Black Belt,” bordered by Wealthy Street to the north, Franklin Street to the south, Fuller Avenue to the east and the Grand River to the west.

By the start of the 1960s, a handful of families were able to break through and establish lives outside of the Black Belt, but the boundaries otherwise still stood. Thanks to the hard work of four Black investors, the Auburn Hills neighborhood sped up that progress.

The idea came from four local professionals: J.E. Adams, Dr. Julius Franks, Joseph Lee and Samuel Triplett. Adams and Triplett were both educators, Lee was a social worker and Franks, who played football at the University of Michigan, was a dentist. Together, they launched the Auburn Hills Land Developing Company, using their own money to invest in a new neighborhood, one where Black and white families could live side-by-side and thrive together.

The group homed in on a 20-acre plot of land on the city’s northeast side that was put up for sale. The “Fuller-Sweet” site sat between Fuller and Ball Avenues between Knapp Street and Sweet Street. The developers surmised a plan that they could plat the neighborhood into 65 properties where reasonable homes could be built for about $17,000 to $20,000.

According to a Grand Rapids Press report from Oct. 1962, a $20,000 bid from the Auburn Hills Land Developing Co. was the only “bona fide bid” that was submitted. Claiming they weren’t satisfied with the amount, city trustees instead decided to have the property appraised again. This time, the minimum bid was set at $54,250.

The investor group felt jilted by the city’s rejection and believed the city jacked up the price to try and scare them away and find a different buyer. So they doubled down. When the new sales window closed, the Auburn Hills investor group was the only bid, this time offering up $60,000 — well above the asking price.

With no other bids submitted, the sale was approved by the trustees and sparked an uproar in the nearby, almost exclusively white community. Several families rushed to put their homes up for sale, believing that a nearby neighborhood with Black residents would hurt their property values.

Final approval from the city commission was held up for months while it dealt with the backlash. The following January, the opposition — called the White Citizens Committee — played what they thought were the winning cards. They filed a lawsuit and submitted records that said the property was supposed to be set aside as a new park and therefore should never have been put up for sale.

The lawsuit didn’t hold up. The claims were littered with questionable evidence. The city’s parks superintendent, planning director and assistant planning director all testified that the property was only briefly discussed and was never formally a part of the city’s master plan. The documents that were submitted as part of the lawsuit also may have been tampered with. According to the secretary of the city’s Planning Commission, the signature on the paperwork appeared to have been clipped from an old document. After two days of testimony, the judge made a quick ruling to throw out the lawsuit and pave the way for final approval.

A grant from the National Park Service will help cover the costs for the historic place nomination. The nomination is expected to be reviewed later this month at the State Historic Preservation Office. The nomination is expected to be submitted early next year.

Jennifer Metz, a historic preservation consultant who is working with the Auburn Hills Historic Recognition Committee, told News 8 in 2023 that the group was also working on getting signage and state markers installed and looking into a possible middle school or high school curriculum to teach that chapter of local history and “keep telling that story.”

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