DETROIT – Look beyond the graffiti-filled, windowless landmark that sits vacant along West Grand Boulevard and imagine grand pianos, Spanish tile and copper décor that once filled the Lee Plaza.
It's something Nicole Harris of the West Grand Boulevard Collaborative has only heard about while living in the community.
"It's sad. I've had to use my imagination to picture how grand this building once was," said Harris.
In the 1920s, the 16-story luxury residential hotel was a towering symbol of wealth in Detroit. Through the years its owners have gone bankrupt and the building itself transitioned into low-income senior citizen housing before going vacant in the mid-90s.
Today, a man by the name of Craig Sasser announced his plan to the bring Lee Plaza's luxurious history back to West Grand Boulevard.
"Our motto is, 'We will arise from the ashes,' and I believe that," said Sasser, managing member of Moneta Energy LLC Community Stakeholders.
Sasser bought the Lee for $258,000 from the Detroit Housing Commission. He said he already has a $200 million investment commitment from a major energy corporation. That money would not only go toward renovating the building but also the land around it.
"We had an engineering inspector look at it and he said the building is structurally sound because the best steel in the world was used to build it, so we don't have to start from the ground up,"
aid Sasser. "Thirty-four million dollars will go into the plaza's renovations, the rest of the money will go toward a park, parking lots and new low income housing around it."
Sasser's goal is an ambitious one. He hopes to have the 200-unit building open by fall of 2017.
Harris said new life for the Lee is just what the community ordered.
"I believe this is going to bring West Grand Boulevard back to what it once was. This is a historic area, we need this," she said.
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