DETROIT
When people around here talk about “Midtown,” the discussion generally concerns new condos, small businesses and lifestyle. Not long ago, the neighborhood separating Wayne State University’s campus from downtown mostly contained ramshackle buildings and rat-infested alleys and was notorious for its drug houses and prostitutes.
“We use the euphemism today and call it Midtown, but it was the Cass Corridor and everyone knew what the Cass Corridor was,” Wayne State President Irvin Reid says.
When Reid arrived in 1997, he set about transforming the reputation of the faded community bordering the 200-acre urban campus, with Cass Avenue as its main thoroughfare.
As developers added upscale condos and townhouses costing up to $600,000 per unit, the university also went to work.
Wayne State has spent more than $1 billion in the past decade for on- and off-campus housing and building projects.
