First Unreal Estate has been identified

12536 Moran Street, Detroit
$500.00

You are thinking of getting into urban farming? Build your own little Detroit Datcha? Start an archeological dig or an urban campsite?

Now on offer, a beautifully cleared plot in one of the densest neighborhoods of Detroit, just on the edge of vibrant Banglatown.

250 square meters of sheer opportunity.


(12536 Moran Street, Detroit)

Unrealtors Eric Deuweke, Mitch Cope, Gina Reichert, Andrew Hersher, Femke Lutgerink, Christian Ernsten and Joost Janmaat today engaged in their first unreal estate survey in Mitch’s and Gina’s neighborhood.

We found a number of properties that solicit ideas and project that can put them into alternative use. Along the short stretch of Klinger and Moran streets we surveyed there were a number of vacant lots (either owned by the Michigan Land Bank, the county or the city), some five burned down properties, and a number of houses that were boarded up and/or into foreclosure.

Design 99 prepared a nice map of their neighborhood that gives a clear overview of the real estate situation.

Just off the map, to the south on Moran Street, we found a 30 meters stretch of street that accommodated the various typologies of Detroit’s real estate market come together: an empty lot, a burned out house (occupied by a young stray pit bull terrier) and a foreclosed house crammed in between two occupied houses.


(12548, 12542 and 12536 Moran Street, Detroit)

This seems to us a perfect start of the Detroit Unreal Estate portfolio. What new opportunities and prospects can be developed onto these properties? What new ways of forward thinking, value attribution and new usage can it provoke?

Our ambition over the next few months is to have our graduate students from the Dutch Art Institute, Michigan University architectural students, local and international artists, neighbors and others develop ideas, plans and projects on these different sites.


(12548 Moran Street, Detroit)

These and some of the other 90.000 vacant plots and thousands of foreclosed homes will be on Public Auction next January.


(Public Auction register October 2008, listing the Moran Street entries)