Detroit Set To Expand Riverwalk

Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick struck a symbolic blow Tuesday to begin demolition of the first of three cement silo sites on the east riverfront. In place of the silos will blossom part of the new RiverWalk, the city's anticipated waterfront promenade and parkland that eventually will stretch from the Ambassador Bridge to east of the MacArthur Bridge that leads to Belle Isle. The first pieces of the RiverWalk are already in place near Joe Louis Arena and the Renaissance Center, and more will be built during the next two years to complete the eastern half.

"I think it's huge," said Faye Alexander Nelson, president and chief executive of the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy, the nonprofit agency constructing the RiverWalk. "Bringing these silos down opens up the riverfront and provides us with the space, the footprint, to allow us to continue our plans to construct an uninterrupted RiverWalk."