Led by believers in city's future, Detroit is on rebound

On a sunny Friday morning last month, Mike Duggan, the mayor of Detroit, got behind the wheel of his black Jeep Grand Cherokee to give a tour of the city he has led for 10 years.

- NEAL E. BOUDETTE

Not far from Michigan Central Station, the former hulking ruin that was recently transformed into a gleaming office complex, he slowed to point to a construction site of vertical steel girders and yellow earth-moving machines. It will become a 600-room JW Marriott hotel, linked to the city's convention centre and scheduled to open by 2027, when college basketball's Final Four will be played in Detroit.

Farther west, more earth movers were crawling along a mile-long stretch of riverfront land, adding contours that will soon be a spacious, green recreation area, with elaborate play structures, a water park, basketball courts and outdoor workout equipment. It will be one of the final links in a 3.5-mile chain of parks, open spaces and bike paths that have replaced the warehouses and industrial yards that previously lined the Detroit River.

Just beyond the park stood a vestige of Detroit's troubled past - a crumbling, boarded-up building that was once the Southwest Detroit Hospital, which closed 18 years ago. Detroit City FC, a professional soccer club, hopes to raze it and build a new stadium.