ANN ARBOR, MI — The fact that a $20 million earmark for a riverfront redevelopment in Ann Arbor was quietly added to the state’s budget in July came as news to many this week.
Ann Arbor lawmakers said they didn’t make the funding request and it remains a mystery who sponsored it or how it got in a budget bill approved by the Michigan Legislature and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer two months ago.
“Nobody ever approached me about this at all and I didn’t know about it,” said state Rep. Yousef Rabhi, D-Ann Arbor.
Rabhi said the language was so vague he didn’t realize the Ann Arbor project was in the budget — among earmarks for other projects across the state — and he calls it “shady as hell.”
A look at the redevelopment plan known as Broadway Park West for an old industrial property off Broadway Street along the Huron River in Ann Arbor, as presented to city officials in 2020. Detroit-based Roxbury Group has had plans for years to redevelop the 14-acre DTE Energy site with four six-story buildings with 96 condos, a nine-story hotel with 148 rooms, a riverfront restaurant, commercial spaces, public green space, walking trails, an event pavilion and more.SmithGroup
The $20 million is for a private development just across the border from Rabhi’s district in part of Ann Arbor represented by state Rep. Felicia Brabec, D-Pittsfield Township.
“Frankly, I didn’t realize it was in the budget,” Brabec said, echoing Rabhi in calling it a surprise.
So far, no lawmakers have taken credit for sponsoring or requesting the earmark. No one ever touted it or celebrated it when it was approved, and not even the developer mentioned it when asked in July for an update on the project.
The $20 million became public knowledge after being highlighted in a Detroit News investigative report this week.
Big redevelopment of Ann Arbor’s riverfront getting $20M from state
The money is slated to help fund the public infrastructure and public space components of a major transformation of an old industrial site along the Huron River north of downtown Ann Arbor, a project by the Detroit-based Roxbury Group.
The developer has formed a nonprofit called the Lower Town Riverfront Conservancy that will receive the funds and oversee public space components of the project known as Broadway Park West. The project also includes new riverfront condos, a hotel, restaurant, commercial space and more, with total development costs now estimated at $160 million.
Roxbury, which lobbied various legislators for funding, maintains the earmark went through the normal appropriations process.
“There was a wide range of support for this legislation across a lot of legislators,” said Roxbury principal David Di Rita, adding there’s been support on both sides of the aisle.
Broadway Street bridge and the Broadway Park West redevelopment of the old DTE Energy property at 841 Broadway St. in Ann Arbor on Wednesday, June 22, 2022.Jacob Hamilton | The Ann Arbor News
In addition to the $20 million, $17.3 million in tax incentives and a $500,000 state grant were previously approved for the project. The conservancy also is seeking private donations and has gotten $2 million from the DTE Energy Foundation.
The blighted Broadway Street site where the project is expected to start taking shape in the near future is a DTE property left polluted by a former coal gasification plant.
The fenced-off land has sat vacant and closed to the public for decades and its redevelopment promises to enhance public access to Ann Arbor’s scenic riverfront with new green space, walking trails, an event pavilion, a new pedestrian bridge to the Argo Cascades and accommodations for kayakers who will be able to pull up to a riverside restaurant.
State lawmakers representing Ann Arbor said they like the sound of some of that, particularly cleaning up the site and creating new public access to the riverfront, but the budget process to put state funds toward it could have been more transparent.
The process is severely flawed, not giving the public a chance to weigh in on what’s proposed, Rabhi said.
“And it’s the people that are well connected, that have the resources, that are the wealthiest among us, that are able to get appropriations for themselves in the budget, but the rest of us don’t have that kind of voice,” he said.
While Rabhi said the developer never lobbied him for funding and he was never notified of the earmark request, Brabec said she had one meeting with Roxbury to learn about the project back in March and, while she liked aspects of it, she never pursued getting a budget earmark for it.
“I was focusing on a different community enhancement grant, one that I did advocate for,” she said, referring to $650,000 in state funding now going to a $15 million project to redesign the Ann Arbor-based Nonprofit Enterprise at Work’s center along the Huron River and expand programming.
State Sen. Jeff Irwin, D-Ann Arbor, said Roxbury also approached him earlier in the year to pitch the project and he knew about the earmark request before it was in the budget but he still doesn’t know who ultimately put it forward.
“That was a question that we’d asked,” he said, adding there seems to be no paper trail.
Understanding it’s a long-polluted site, he knows it needs to be redeveloped, he said, but he didn’t pursue a budget earmark for it because he was more focused on putting resources toward youth groups, community centers and affordable housing. Among the other earmarks in the budget is $500,000 for the Ann Arbor Housing Commission and $3.5 million for Avalon Housing, an Ann Arbor-based affordable housing provider.
A look at the redevelopment plan known as Broadway Park West for an old industrial property off Broadway Street along the Huron River in Ann Arbor, as presented to city officials in 2020. Detroit-based Roxbury Group has had plans for years to redevelop the 14-acre DTE Energy site with four six-story buildings with 96 condos, a nine-story hotel with 148 rooms, a riverfront restaurant, commercial spaces, public green space, walking trails, an event pavilion and more.SmithGroup
The nearly 1,000-page state budget bill approved in July described the $20 million allocation as going to a nonprofit “that is a nature conservancy” in a city with a population greater than 600,000 “for restoration of river front land in a county with a population between 300,000 and 400,000.” The unnamed city is Detroit and the county is Washtenaw.
The way the budget process works, the House and Senate both pass their versions of the budget and vote each other’s budgets down, then it goes to conference committee where lawmakers hash things out behind closed doors, Rabhi said. They then come to an open meeting the public can attend, but there’s no discussion and they just vote, he said.
“We have the opportunity to either vote yes or vote no,” he said. “You cannot make amendments.”
The budget was approved at about 2 a.m. July 1 following a marathon session that began at 10 a.m. the previous day.
Rabhi said he and other lawmakers who weren’t included in the conference committee negotiations, which are mainly between the governor and the House and Senate Republican leadership, were sitting around most of the day, waiting for negotiations to conclude, and they only got a budget summary about an hour and a half before the vote, then the actual full budget language about 10-15 minutes before the vote.
“So, we were not able to review this in any type of detail,” he said, noting the budget summary did identify the $20 million going to the Lower Town Riverfront Conservancy, but it wasn’t clear it was for an Ann Arbor project.
When he more recently looked up the budget summary, he noticed the letters “AA” in parentheses, but he doesn’t remember seeing that the first time around, he said.
While he isn’t taking a position for or against the development, Rabhi said he can see benefits to it.
“It’s a vacant, contaminated site and it would be nice to see something happen there,” he said. “Of all the places development could happen, this is one that makes sense.”
Irwin said he doesn’t consider the $20 million a bad appropriation. What really stuck out to him as bad, he said, are the millions going to help a private “McMansion development” with ties to former Michigan GOP Chairman Robert Schostak in Washtenaw County’s Salem Township.
A look at the redevelopment plan known as Broadway Park West for an old industrial property off Broadway Street along the Huron River in Ann Arbor, as presented to city officials in 2020. Detroit-based Roxbury Group has had plans for years to redevelop the 14-acre DTE Energy site with four six-story buildings with 96 condos, a nine-story hotel with 148 rooms, a riverfront restaurant, commercial spaces, public green space, walking trails, an event pavilion and more.SmithGroup and Hamilton Anderson Associates
Irwin agreed with Rabhi the budget process should be more transparent, including making earmark descriptions less vague.
“They all read in that same way where you need to do some additional investigation to find out if the public investment is justified,” Irwin said.
For the Roxbury development, Brabec, a psychologist, said she’s thinking about the community mental health impacts of being more connected to natural resources and she also likes that the project includes space for outdoor music events and artists.
Brabec and Rabhi still have questions about who will make up the governing board for the conservancy, in terms of management of the outdoor space that’s to be open to the public. Since it’s going to stay private land, it’s not a true public space, Rabhi argued, questioning putting public funds toward it.
“As a general principle, I do not support public appropriations for private purposes,” he said. “These are taxpayer dollars. We paid for this out of our pockets, this $20 million.”
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