Rebuilding Detroit is like a complex puzzle that takes years to piece together.
“It’s how you integrate the different neighborhood pieces to support one another,” says Sue Mosey, president of the nonprofit community development group, the University Cultural Center Association (UCCA).
“By being here, you figure that out,” she says. “That’s why I think there’s value in people who have been in these neighborhoods and organizations over time.”
For nearly 20 years, Mosey has been looking for the missing pieces — searching along the Cass Corridor, near Wayne State and the College for Creative Studies, and the areas around the DIA, museums and hospitals.
The picture forming on Mosey’s puzzle is familiar, yet has changed over time. The collection of educational, cultural and medical institutions that once struggled to promote itself as a “destination” in Detroit is now branded as “Midtown,” an evolving residential neighborhood framed by invigorated institutions and businesses.
In Midtown today, one sees an image of the emerging Detroit, driven by new housing and business development and a younger population. The area’s new vitality has largely resulted from the persistence, will and personal commitment that perhaps only a native Detroiter like Mosey is capable of.
Planning by default
Raised on the West Side, Mosey represents a small but very influential group of community development professionals who have secured positions of power by their long-term commitment and the absence of planning and development expertise at the city level, says Ernie Zachary, president of the Detroit-based Zachary and Associates, a planning and urban development firm.
Detroit once had “very strong city planners and developers,” he says. “That doesn’t exist any more. That hasn’t existed for a very long time. What’s happened — not just in the UCCA area — you see much of the planning and development has been, by default, taken over by nonprofit organizations.”
While there appears to be progress, especially Downtown, Zachary says that the city’s revival is “very fragile … because of the thin talent base in leadership in this city at the community level.”
That’s why people like Mosey, he says, are critical to generating development.
“She’s become, in her approach to this area, entrepreneurial,” Zachary says. “That effort is really couched in a complete understanding of the market and reality.
‘Not just talking the talk’
Mosey received her undergraduate and graduate education in urban planning from Wayne State University. Although she spent a few years as downtown development director for Ypsilanti, the bulk of Mosey’s career has been in urban Detroit.
“I’ve been working in this city since the ’70s,” she says. “Clearly, I have learned a lot — through all of the different experiences working in different neighborhoods, doing different types of jobs. All of that has played a role in how I approach what I do every day here. Part of that is getting out there every day and trying to move stuff along.”
That determined work ethic — short on ideology but long on brawn — enables Mosey to withstand the frustration of working in a financially troubled city, in a region that competes with its core city. Instead of wearing her down, the environment has “toughed me up,” Mosey says.
“I’m very focused on product — getting stuff done, on the street, delivered; getting parks done, getting streetscapes done, getting festivals produced, getting comprehensive data on the neighborhood, getting way-finding signs, getting flowerbeds (planted). We’re really about not only putting people together and making connections, but we’re also about doing projects and making sure they’re done well and maintained and add value.
“It’s not just talking the talk, but it’s actually getting these things funded and maintained. I try to deliver at least a couple projects every year. If we’re not doing that, we’re not doing our job.”
Rebuilding Midtown
With Mosey’s leadership, the UCCA has helped create more than $400 million in new residential investment alone — with about 2,800 housing units planned or completed. She’s also been instrumental in the creation of the Woodward Corridor Development Fund, which has provided financing for about 30 Midtown housing developments. The association has developed the Inn on Ferry Street and has supported development of the Garfield Building and other businesses. Most recently, UCCA announced plans for a two-mile greenway, linking Midtown with safe space for pedestrians, joggers and cyclists.
Business-as-usual includes producing Noel Night each winter (this year’s is coming up Dec. 3), as well as the Detroit Festival of the Arts and planting boulevard gardens in the summer.
“What’s happening in this part of the city surpasses what’s happening in most other parts of the city,” Zachary says. “The results that Sue has had in this area, in terms of planning and development, are enormous.
“Sue sees an opportunity in the Midtown area of helping to create a city that’s attractive to everyone; a city where people can work, where people can live, where we can compete on a regional basis and maybe win.”
Mosey is motivated by a challenge “that creates added value for something that’s worthwhile,” she says. “In this case, rebuilding the city is certainly worthwhile.
“There’s great people in this city, there’s great history, there’s great architecture … and metro Detroit deserves a major city. It doesn’t act that way. But it needs one. … There are a lot of good people around who aren’t naysayers — people working on a lot of great things. Even though it’s really challenging and will try your patience all the time, there are enough good things going on and good people to keep me feeling passionate about it.”
Creating synergies
Mosey has fond memories of growing up in Detroit. She also recalls the city’s traumatic decline. But she would rather not dwell on the past.
“I totally focus on what we need to do to get to the next level. I’m not one to think about our history and analyze it. I’m about trying to put the pieces together, coordinate a lot of activity, get people sort of on the same page, look for opportunities to create deals and synergies.”
Relationships, she says, are key to her success. “You have to know a lot of people and what they’re doing. You have to be able to get people together and suggest opportunities, and raise the funding. That’s what this organization is good at doing.”
Through persistence and will, Mosey has endured the stress of the job, Zachary says. “It’s not as though you’re beating your head against the wall constantly for 15 years without seeing anything — you’re beating your head against the wall, then all of a sudden, the wall starts cracking and you see daylight. I think that’s what has happened with Sue and her efforts.”
But can Mosey sustain the pace? Although she seems to have an inexhaustible supply of energy, Zachary wonders how long she can keep it up. “I have that concern about her, as I do of some of the other people (in community development). You go 90 miles an hour, year after year, it does wear on you.”
Mosey feels the wear. “It’s extremely stressful right now,” she says. UCCA has a staff of three full-time and three part-time employees, but that’s not enough. “We’ve taken on so much. There are additional responsibilities. We need more operating support. It has been very frustrating that there hasn’t been the (financial) support necessary for the operation of our organization. That continues to be a huge stressor facing me and facing the organization.”
Nevertheless, there’s work to be done. It will take another decade before the Midtown puzzle will be completed, but Mosey says she wants to finish it.
“I do want to see the fruits of all this labor,” she says. “Unfortunately, in my career, in this city, you’re talking about 40 years for that to happen.”
This is the first in a series of features on longtime women leaders in Detroit's community development. In coming weeks, we will feature profiles on Kathy Wendler, president of the Southwest Detroit Business Association, and Maggie DeSantis, president of the Warren Connor Development Coalition.
The Inns on Ferry Street
Detroit Institute of Arts
Festival of the Arts 2005
Garfield Building
Sue Mosey
All photographs copyright Dave Krieger