What to do with a Campau lot? The mind reels with ideas
It’s rare that an empty lot is up for sale on Jos. Campau. You can probably pick this one up for fairly cheap through the Wayne County Treasurer’s auction going on now.
By Charles Sercombe
Yearning for a piece of the action in Hamtramck’s main business district?
If so, there is still plenty of time to bid on an empty lot at 11431 Jos. Campau, just north of Caniff and next to Club Aces.
The lot is up for auction through the Wayne County Treasurer’s Office. As of Wednesday, the bid was at $4,100. Bidding started out at $500, and will end on Oct. 28 at 10:15 a.m.
While the lot is only about 30 feet wide, it goes back about 100 feet.
The building that had been there was destroyed in a gas explosion and later demolished. The property was forfeited to the county because of unpaid taxes.
While it’s not common these days to build a stand-alone building with those dimensions, there is certainly no shortage of creative ideas on what could be built here, or done with the property without building anything.
Currently in housing circles, smaller is better. There is a growing movement to build dwellings no more than 400-square-feet. Why not run with that idea and string together a series of small office spaces – fashioned from shipping containers? — and rent them out to start-up companies, or pop-up retail outlets who only want to stay for a month or so?
With Hamtramck taking off as a culinary destination, how about allowing food trucks to line up on one side and turn it into a food court?
During the summer, wouldn’t it be nice if this could be turned into a tiny festival ground featuring bands and DJ’s?
You’ve heard of Shakespeare in the Park, why not Shakespeare in a Lot?
Or, in keeping with the micro idea, this could be a great spot for rotating neighborhood festivals during warm weather.
Skateboarding is also extremely popular, and we could imagine a skateboard park being installed.
Come on you creative types, let’s hear what you would do with this lot. Email your suggestions to us at news@thehamtramckreview.com.
One Response to What to do with a Campau lot? The mind reels with ideas
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Katja Foreman-Braunschweig
October 29, 2014 at 2:23 pm
Many years ago, my family converted the double lot behind our house into a large community garden. We grew food on it, my mom made mulberry jam from the tree on it. My friends and I made a club called The Green Team, and we met on that field, under the mulberry tree, to make up ideas about how to make the world better. We called that bare spot under the mulberry tree our clubhouse, and we spent many summers under it. We played ball on the field and made igloos in the winter. My parents wanted to buy it so that it could stay an open field but the lawsuit had to take priority, and today there are bulldozers putting in the sewer lines. It’s a really really sad time for me and my family and the Green Team.
I’m homeschooled, and I recently created a poem about our lost field. It’s titled Elegy for a Lost Clubhouse. I think that people should think about this when they think of new ideas for lots, and I hope that all developers read this poem and know how we feel. The Green Team respectfully asks that this poem be published. Thank you.
Katja Foreman-Braunschweig
—————–
Elegy for a Lost Clubhouse
Devoured by a dusty machine
Sucking the essence away
The shell is there still
A mere memory
Ghosts of laughter remain
but all is silent and bare
Dry twigs lay dead on the ground
A blanket of shredded tree there
Leaves have scudded across
this clubhouse, once great
Frozen by snow, blasted
By the blizzards that gave the snow weight
Mulberries stained the dirt floor
And spring rain drenched again
Secret, official plans, whispered
Concocted inside this clubhouse when
Uproarious meetings, laughter and words
Populated the summer air
Serious confidings in the privacy
of a clubhouse warm and shaded there
Ernest words to another listener
Friendships made and broken
Conversations, perched in the heights
There were great times here
It had its beginnings in times long past
Long grass under a young mulberry tree
The grass was trampled again and again
Until there was no more to see
The clubhouse was our sanctuary
A place for debates and rest
The tree a building inspiration
Or just a comforting presence
Those who were there from the beginning
Knew the clubhouse exactly by heart
They knew where the dips were, the roots and lumps
And to them every branch held history
The clubhouse is gone in sight
But to some it will never be gone
Not as long as the memories remain
Never will it go and be done
When cement covers the ground
Where a garden was clumsily sown
When orange netting blankets the place
Where the garden was slowly grown
Those of us will remember, forever and ever
Our clubhouse that once was there
We will remember what happened, all what was destroyed
And it will matter – we will care