January 31 • 2019 31
jn

NEW CENTER IS BACK
Was it, therefore, a gamble to open a
clothing store in New Center? Lutz
responds with a vehement no. What
she realized, sitting in the Fisher
Building lobby with Rosenzweig, is
that a huge population of office work-
ers and diverse residential neighbors
have been dramatically underserved
for years. “The building and the neigh-
borhood were bustling, but the busi-
ness community missed the memo.
”
Rosenzweig says 35,000 daily
employees can be found in New
Center. “Right now, Corktown is the
big deal because of Ford. After Ford
moves in, there will be 6,000 daily
employees in Corktown. New Center
has five, six times more than that
already.
”
Those populations are growing daily
— literally hundreds of new people
will be moving into residential devel-
opments opening in the next five years.
“If you’
re looking to open a business
today, you should be looking at New
Center,
” Rosenzweig insists.
The way Lutz sees it, those still-emp-
ty storefronts are a tremendous
business, economic development
and urban planning opportunity. “If
nobody occupies these storefronts,
” she
reasons, “then nothing in these neigh-
borhoods will change.
”
That said, she pays tremendous
respect to her retail neighbors, like the
Fashion Place and Russel’
s Pharmacy,
that held down the fort for the neigh-
borhood and its underserved foot traf-
fic for so many years.
She also credits the Platform for
its thoughtful, local business-forward
redevelopment strategy, and for being

wonderful partners in recreating the
building’
s image and occupancy inclu-
sively and compassionately.
The retail corridor emerging with-
in the Fisher and New Center more
broadly is much loved and lauded by
thousands of neighborhood residents
and workforce members, and Lutz
wants to make sure the broader Metro
Detroit business community knows
there’
s more demand to meet.
Retail can thrive in Detroit and
engage in a meaningful conversation
about neighborhood development
and urban planning at the same time.
Every new business makes a measur-
able profit and difference. Lutz is hum-
ble, but Rosenzweig sings her praises,
sharing anecdotes of an elderly couple
who drove from Armada to Detroit to
see the store, their first time in the city
since 1994, and of the other businesses
that the Peacock Room has helped
to attract and support (“The tailor
downstairs, William & Bonnie, is going
gangbusters”).
“Rachel delivered exactly what we
were hoping, which is that new ener-
gy,
” he says.
One hundred years ago, we built
beautiful public spaces in which to
work, play and live. We then spent
a decade slowly abandoning them,
replacing them with surface lots, and
plastering them over with drywall and
drop ceilings. But good bones, good
buildings last, standing in wait for
imaginative people to fill them with
new community assets. Rachel Lutz
and the Peacock Room set a standard
for just how thoughtfully and success-
fully we can do the work of honoring
and refilling those spaces. ■

The photos on the far

left from the Detroit

Historical Society show

the room’
s original look.

Today, the space

contains vintage

clothing, including

tophats and bejeweled

purses, embossed

stationery full of swear

words and devotional

candles featuring

illustrations of James

Baldwin and Ruth Bader

Ginsburg.

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