Thursday, May 1, 2008

Aerotropolis Getting Off the Ground


Amidst the relentless barrage of negative news surrounding the real estate market, both nationally and locally, there is reason for optimism. There is a project in the works for the southeast Michigan area called: Aerotropolis. This is an incredible vision, and would be an unbelievable boost to the local area economy.

The vision of the project is to create a business development hub between and around Detroit Metro and Willow Run airports.

The project involves development of over 25,000 acres in seven communities would become home to logistics companies, international headquarters, mixed-use developments and spin-off services.

This article in today's Ann Arbor News elaborates on the project, which has had a few starts and stops, but the most encouraging quote from the article states:
"These ideas of aerotropolis in other parts of the country are nonsense except in Detroit," said Mike Boyd, president of The Boyd Group, a Colorado-based aviation forecasting and strategic solutions company. "You can literally draw a line from Windsor (Canada) to Jackson (Michigan) that's going to be the growth corridor, and the aerotropolis is right in the middle. ... You have a skills base, an industrial base, jobs base and resource base - it does work."

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