CONTINUING THE CLIMB
A look back at Pontiac in a difficult 2020
Despite the immense challenges posed this year by the coronavirus, the city of Pontiac’s revitalization continued in ways big and small.
The year began on a high note with 38 active construction projects, Pontiac’s biggest building boom in decades. Some of those projects, like the $271.6 million Amazon distribution center and a new lowincome housing complex downtown, are nearing completion as the final days of 2020 wind down.
By April, as the nation began to feel the first waves of the virus, Pontiac had become home to the county’s first testing site. Large tents stood guard over medical staff behind the Oakland County Medical Examiner’s Office on Telegraph Road. Trickles of cars became streams as the pandemic wore on, with the site able to test 250 people per day.
“Even in the face of the pandemic, which has affected everyone, we never
slowed down here in Pontiac,” Deirdre Waterman, mayor of the city, said. “We just learned how to work around it, how to accommodate the changes necessary to keep people healthy and safe.”
The city’s job’s pipeline hotline transformed overnight into a help desk for COVID-19 relief. This fall, administration also launched a mobile app to assist residents with testing and contract tracing.
In May, seven of the downtown’s restaurants banded together to form the Pontiac Restaurant Brigade. Over the course of 12 weeks they served thousands of meals to local hospital workers at Mclaren Oakland, St. Joseph Mercy Oakland and Pontiac General Hospital. The meals were supported by a $20,000 grant from Flagstar Bank.
With the added help of virus relief grants, nearly all of the downtown’s restaurants have been able to stay in business, save for the Fourth Dimension Coffee Company, according to Chris Jackson, president of Main Street Pontiac.
Pontiac’s downtown is mostly experience based, housing stages, bars and art venues as opposed to more shopping-based downtowns like Rochester. That’s been a double edged sword for the city’s revitalization over the past five years and especially in 2020. On one hand the experienced-based economy suffered a tremendous blow this year.
On the other, Pontiac’s downtown is no stranger to fighting for foot traffic. In some ways, this year wasn’t much different than others for the business owners along Saginaw Street and Huron.
“Even though everything was stifled, we were and are still on the come up,” Jackson said. “We were gradually working our way up to building our downtown. So it wasn’t like other places that went from 100% capacity to 20%. We’re still building. We have time to reorient the plan.”
Main Street Pontiac pivoted to host annual offerings online, like Canvas Pontiac, which sees artists from around the country submit work to be hung on buildings downtown. In 2021, Jackson said the team is planning to create a new collective marketing strategy based off other urban centers that have seen success with their Main Street programs.
“If we do this the right way, everyone can leverage everybody else’s businesses in a positive way to attract people to downtown Pontiac,” Jackson said. “It’s the notion of creating a third place, where home is the first and work is the second. There’s a lot of potential for the downtown to become a place where people congregate, where people go for community. Whether it’s marketing or offering services digitally, we’re trying to incorporate a lot of plans in 2021.”
Summer and autumn in the city saw ground breakings, grand openings and monument unveilings.
At the historic Oak Hill Cemetery, a black granite memorial stone was installed this June. It sits near the back of the cemetery and, after more than a century, finally gives names to the 283 unmarked graves of patients who died in Michigan’s state asylums buried there.
In July, the city sold one of its only low-income housing developments to the Pontiac Housing Commission for $1. Carriage Circle, located off Auburn Avenue, is now slated for a $39 million redevelopment in part supported by the Michigan State Housing Development Authority. Nearby off Woodward Avenue, the $9.4 million low and moderate income Hamilton housing project began accepting rental applications this fall.
The M1 Concourse motorsports club and race track announced a $35 million investment into a new 28,500 square-foot event center and restaurant in early September. Construction is slated to wrap up next fall.
Days later, Amazon announced that it’s new delivery station at the former Pontiac Silverdome site was open for business bringing 100 jobs to the area. The 823,000 fulfillment center it serves is still under construction.
And later that month just down the road, the Oakland County Water Resources Commission held a ribbon cutting ceremony for the new $32 million waste treatment facility on Opdyke Road.
It’s one of only three waste treatment plans in the country that utilizes thermal hydrolysis and anaerobic digestion to transform the residual sludge left behind from treated water into sellable biosolids.
A new business moved into downtown Pontiac in October, Everybody by Dutton Farm, a Rochester-based nonprofit aimed at breaking down barriers to employment for those with developmental
disabilities. Employees create handcrafted bath supplies like soaps and lip balm which are sold at the storefront at 64 North Saginaw St., owned by McLaren Oakland Hospital.
United Wholesale Mortgage also made headlines in the city this year with two large investments — a 1,000-foot long pedestrian bridge that’s now the longest enclosed footbridge in the nation and the purchase of the Ultimate Soccer Arenas facility for $23.3 million. The company also announced it will be going public this January.
Perhaps the biggest news in the city this year, and the issue that took the most time in the city council chambers, was the new global settlement agreement for the Phoenix Center amphitheater and parking garage.
A last minute deal before a court mediated deadline saw the city agree to purchase the two adjacent Ottawa Towers buildings, and a nearby school, for $19.9 million. The deal creates a new public-private partnership with Chicago-based Dearborn Capital Management LLC acting as an equity partner. Under the agreements, the city will purchase the towers which would then be immediately sold to Dearborn Capital. The garage and amphitheater would remain under the city’s ownership with Dearborn Capital managing the parking structure.
The city also spent a large chunk of the year working through medical marijuana
facility application review processes, with the majority of the over 100 applications still under examination.
“Marijuana and the Phoenix Center took up all our bandwidth this year,” Kermit Williams, city council president, said. “Coming up with a solution was challenging, clearly there were disagreements on what should be done. So to be able to come to a solution, the sale of the property, was a huge win for the future of the city.”
In 2021, Williams said he wants to see more of a focus put on city services in the council chambers. Several projects were pushed aside this year, like the hiring of an animal control officer and discussions on potentially removing a bike lane from Perry Street.
While much of next year depends on the virus and vaccines, one thing is for certain about the city of Pontiac — Something that hasn’t changed, even as the rest of the world transformed dramatically.
“The resilience of Pontiac is the same as always. That’s the heart of this city and it hasn’t shifted. We take care of our seniors, we take care of each other. Pontiac has been through so much. This isn’t our first redo, we’re always dealing with something. But people step up. Pontiac has that underlying compassion by nature that you just can’t find other places. It’s unique, it’s a family atmosphere,” Williams said.
“And in times of crisis, that’s what really shows.”