Through Midtown's
Green Garage – a space used for brainstorming green enterprise and building green collar jobs – the alley off Second Avenue, between Canfield and Prentis is getting a green makeover. Owners Peggy and Tom Brennan kicked of the
Green Alley project Saturday afternoon from inside Detroit's
Motor City Brewing Works. Their hope is to turn a damp, trash-filled alley into a pedestrian and bicycle friendly, multiuse greenway.
"Right now that alley has two specifies, concrete and asphalt," Tom Brennan says. "But our priority will be to bikes and pedestrians, not vehicles."
The construction of the alley could begin as soon as June. The plan includes pulling up the concrete in the alley and replacing it with permeable pavement to absorb the ground water, bringing in native plants and garden patches, connecting it to Midtown's Green Way, and creating a recycling drop off point for the alley connected businesses. Alley construction will also utilize 850 historic bricks reclaimed from Detroit buildings, purchased from Detroit's Historic Brick Company.
Additionally, Brennan says that two businesses will have entrances from the alley. The Green Garage, which is on Second Avenue, and Motor City Brewing Works, off of Canfield, are expected to have their main entrances coming from the alley.
Most of the funding -- about $200 per square foot of alley -- for the project came from Midtown's
University Cultural Center Association. DTE is expected to fund the dark sky alley lighting.
"The hope of our Green Alley is that it will spread," Brennan says. "This is just the first phase of it. Wayne State has contacted us about some alleys, too. And we want them all to connect to Midtown's Greenway. Imaging that loop with all these green fingers coming off of it. That's what we want."
Source: Tom Brennan, Green Garage
Writer: Terry Parris Jr.
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