DETROIT -- Time Inc. is in the middle of a unique journalistic project in Detroit.

The company has bought a house in Indian Village, where major national magazines like Time and Fortune and the company’s TV outlets CNN and CNNMoney.com will use as a home base for the next year to cover Detroit issues.

The company also rolled out a Web site Monday, “Assignment Detroit,” to correspond with the coverage.

New Yorker Steven Gray is Time’s house manager and correspondent. He will live in the house for the duration of the project.

“Sort of got dropped here, had to buy a washer, dryer, fridge, fans,” Gray said.

Gray said he knows journalists make the mistake of staying in Detroit for only a day or a two and thinking they’ve gotten the true flavor of the city.

“This house gives us a great platform to getting a strong on-the-ground sense of what life is like in Detroit and the region,” Gray said.

Poppy Harlow is a Minnesota native who comes in and out of Detroit from New York regularly to do short pieces about the Motor City.

She said she’s already turned out more than a dozen stories, and that “Assignment Detroit” is instructive to the entire nation.

“This to me, personally, is like ground zero in the recession,” Harlow said. “Whether you talk about the woes of the auto industry or the foreclosure crisis at its peak in this city.”

Follow the coverage: Assignment Detroit.