Urban Renewal
Harriet Saperstein's HP Devco
is creating a new future for Highland Park.
KERI GUTEN COHEN
Special to The Jewish News
11
arriet B. Saperstein knows
how to drive a point
home. On a guided tour
of Highland Park, a pocket
community surrounded by Detroit
and bisected by Woodward Avenue,
she doesn't skip the crumbling aban-
doned homes, the boarded-up stores,
the weedy vacant lots that have char-
acterized this blighted city for so long.
These are rock-bottom reference
points in a once-prosperous communi-
ty that had been bolstered by Ford
and Chrysler manufacturing plants.
Remember how bad it is, she says,
because now you're going to see how
good it can get.
Saperstein drives slowly through the
parking lot of Manchester Place, a
well-kept complex of 114 market-rate
garden apartments
and town houses;
then she pulls into
the lot of Oakland
Park, a 145-acre
light manufacturing
and distribution
industrial park
developing on the
former Chrysler
World Headquarters
site; then she swings
into Highland Park
Place, a 21-store
shopping center that
has created 200 new
jobs. Finally she
parks and shows off
the state-of-the art
Farmer Jack food
store in a new strip
shopping center
called Model T
Manchester
Plaza. Inside, it's
Place has creat-
ed new housing.
immaculate.
"People are proud
of this store in their
. neighborhood; they want it to keep
looking good," an assistant manager
says.
That attitude is beginning to take
hold as Highland Park struggles to
make a comeback. Saperstein, as presi-
dent of HP Devco Inc., a nonprofit
economic development agency serving
Highland Park, has been instrumental
in salvaging a future for this city that
seemed to be sinking deeper into
despair.
There are signs of what the com-
munity once was. Beautiful art deco
homes with manicured lawns can be
found in the city's historic districts, for
example. And the old Ford manufac-
turing buildings harken to the heydays
when Henry Ford erected his first
assembly plant and rolled out Model
Ts.
In those days, Highland Park was
prosperous. Workers living on Ford's
15-a-day" wages were doing well. At
its peak in 1927, the city's population
was around 65,000. Some 60,000
auto workers built the Model T.
Today, with that automotive economic
base gone, Highland Park is strug-
gling.
Now the city's population is down
to 22,000; 95 percent are African-
American, according to the latest cen-
sus figures supplied by the mayor's
office. Unemployment is high. Crime
is high, too, though Saperstein attrib-
utes much of that to the city's proxim-
ity to Detroit.
Yet evidence of urban renewal is
more noticeable, from
the vital Highland
Park Place retail com-
plex to the dilapidated
homes being gutted
and refurbished by
development compa-
nies who are joining in
the revitalization.
Still, the biggest
challenge for Highland
Park, Saperstein says,
is whether develop-
ment can keep pace
with abandonment.
HP Devco certainly has acted as a
catalyst for growth and change. The
agency provides interim financing for
some projects, helps in grant writing,
works with developers and the city in
streamlining the
development
„, process and-cre-
atively expands
opportunities for
T the city and its
citizens.
This year
marks the agency's
10th anniversary.
For eight of those
years; Saperstein
has served as HP
Devco president.
HP Devco was
created after
Chrysler Corp.
announced it
would move its
headquarters to
Oakland County.
Company execu-
tives and city officials met to brain-
storm a plan that would ease the eco-
nomic impact.
What evolved was HP Devco Inc.,
which stands for Highland Park
Development Corp. Chrysler kicked
in $5 million in start-up funding and
retains two seats on the 10-member
board of directors. The other seats are
Profile
Harriet B. Saperstein, 61
Position: president, HP Devco
(nonprofit economic development
agency serving Highland Park).
Achievements: helped generate
more than $56 million of new
investments in the city, including
Highland Park Town Center, a
$25 million commercial/residen-
tial development.
Current Highland
Park
challenges: shep-
herding construc-
tion of 56 housing
units at
Manchester Place
(part of Town
Center); develop-
ing the eight-acre
site of the former
Sears store adjacent
to the Town
Center; coordinat-
Harriet
ing a housing sum-
Saperstein
mit for groups
has a vision
for Highland redeveloping neigh-
borhoods; continu-
Park.
ing to support
growth of Oakland
Park, a 145-acre light manufactur-
ing/distribution industrial park on
the site of the former Chrysler
World Headquarters.
Honors: 1995 Moguls of the Year
(Commercial Inc. magazine), 1996
Sojourner Foundation's "Women
Helping Women" award, 1996
Silver Award for public-private
partnership for Highland Park
Place from the National Council
of Urban Economic
Development.
Personal: married to Alvin
Saperstein, a Wayne State
University physics professor; two
grown daughters; six former for-
eign exchange students who lived
with them and remain "family."
Hobbies: travel, long-distance
bike treks, cultural arts events.
Motto: Tikun Olarn: a commit-
ment to make the world a better
place.
7/10
1998