Argonaut renovation could be catalyst for redevelopment

The renovation of New Center's Argonaut building by CCS could lead to further redevelopment of the area.

Excerpt:

From an idea floated in a November 2006 dinner conversation, the CCS-Argonaut renovation began last year and is to culminate Sept. 8 when fall-term classes begin for CCS and the charter school.

Detroit boosters, always scanning for a savior to ignite revival, tout the project as a catalyst for a creative corridor of galleries, schools, museums and cutting-edge businesses in the arts, design and media along Woodward from the New Center to the Detroit River. If that's an exaggerated expectation for one fix-up of an old building in these dreary economic times, CCS President Rick Rogers doesn't shrink from it.

"We see it as an economic-development engine," Rogers told me before I toured the building where legendary General Motors designer Harley Earl gave us concept cars and tail fins from his studio on the 11-story Argonaut's top floor in the mid-1900s.

"It will create 200 new jobs," Rogers said, "and bring 2,000 people to" the New Center area each day.

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