New Bridge and Park Reconnects Detroit Neighborhood

"When plans for reconfiguring the knot of highways and surface streets began in the 1980s, community leaders in Mexicantown realized the three-year construction-Michigan's biggest-ever transportation project-would have dire consequences for business owners. They fought to offset the impact with a pedestrian bridge to reunify Bagley Avenue, split in the early 1970s by the I-75 interstate freeway.

"We were able to make an infrastructure project a part of a larger vision of economic development for the neighborhood and southwest Detroit," said Margaret Garry, former vice president of real estate and development for the Mexicantown Community Development Corporation (MCDC) and managing partner at Detroit Geothermal."

The project was more than 25 years in the making, but is finally complete.