More updates on the Detroit RiverWalk

Last week we mentioned that the Detroit RiverWalk, Dequindre Cut, and Milliken State Park were recommended for $34.4 million grant funding. While it would be nearly impossible to top that news, there are other RiverWalk updates since then.

To begin with, the following was posted on the Detroit Riverfront page on Facebook (which has 12,929 likes!):

News Flash: The construction project on the Dequindre Cut is complete and the entire 1.35 mile greenway is open. Also, the parking lot at Rivard Plaza is now open!

While we have not been there yet to confirm, this rebuilt segment of Atwater is to have bike lanes.

More on the Uniroyal site

Today’s Crain’s Detroit Business includes an article on the Uniroyal site cleanup.

This site is the abandoned river property which sits between the MacArthur Bridge (to Belle Isle) and Mt Elliot Park. This is a major missing segment of the RiverWalk. It could also be the terminus for the Gleaner’s Greenway currently being studied.

But it’s not just development plans riding on the cleanup of the Uniroyal site.

Its access to the Detroit River makes it among the last unfinished sections of the 3.5-mile RiverWalk path, said Faye Nelson, CEO of the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy.

She said the funds have been secured to build the RiverWalk on the Uniroyal site once the cleanup is finished.

“Once this site is made available to us, we can make a critical connection to make up the majority of the remaining construction,” she said. “We’re eagerly looking forward to beginning work there.”

If the cleanup begins next March and lasts 18 months as stated then the RiverWalk construction could begin as early as 2013.

A perfect Holiday gift

Want to give something that will last forever? The Detroit Riverfront Conservancy is selling bricks on the RiverWalk.

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