The Jeffries Homes, also called the Jeffries Housing Projects, was a

public housing Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is usually owned by a government authority, either central or local. Although the common goal of public housing is to provide affordable housing, the details, terminology, def ...

project located in

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

, near the

Lodge Freeway M-10 is a state trunkline highway in the Metro Detroit area of Michigan in the United States. Nominally labeled north-south, the route follows a northwest-southeast alignment. The southernmost portion follows Jefferson Avenue in downtown De ...

. It included 13 high-rises and hundreds of

row house In architecture and city planning, a terrace or terraced house (British English, UK) or townhouse (American English, US) is a form of medium-density housing that originated in Europe in the 16th century, whereby a row of attached dwellings party ...

units, and was named for Detroit Recorder's Court Judge Edward J. Jeffries, Sr., who was also father of Detroit Mayor Edward J. Jeffries, Jr.

History

The first phase, Jeffries West, opened in 1953 as a complex of eight 14-story

towers A tower is a tall structure, taller than it is wide, often by a significant factor. Towers are distinguished from masts by their lack of guy-wires and are therefore, along with tall buildings, self-supporting structures. Towers are specifica ...

. The second phase included five additional towers in Jeffries West and Jeffries East, 415 apartments in a set of low-rise apartment blocks, added in 1955. In total, the project included 2,170 housing units on 47

acres The acre is a unit of land area used in the imperial and US customary systems. It is traditionally defined as the area of one chain by one furlong (66 by 660 feet), which is exactly equal to 10 square chains, of a square mile, 4,840 square ya ...

. At first, the complex was popular among many Detroit residents who were eager to move into the new buildings. But by the late 1960s, the buildings had become a haven for

drug dealers The illegal drug trade or drug trafficking is a global black market dedicated to the cultivation, manufacture, distribution and sale of prohibited drugs. Most jurisdictions prohibit trade, except under license, of many types of drugs through ...

and an area with a high crime rate.

Redevelopment

Five towers of the complex were demolished in 1997, and four additional towers were imploded in 2001 to make way for the redevelopment of the site. The remaining tenants of the Jeffries were moved to Freedom Place and Research Park housing complexes, approximately 8 city blocks from the Jeffries, while the redevelopment took place. A development by Scripps Park Associates was built on the site of Jeffries West and named "Woodbridge Estates" at a cost of $92 million. Woodbridge Estates includes 281

mixed-income housing The definition of mixed-income housing is broad and encompasses many types of dwellings and neighborhoods. Following Brophy and Smith, the following will discuss “non-organic” examples of mixed-income housing, meaning “a deliberate effort to ...

rental units, 101

owner-occupancy Owner-occupancy or home-ownership is a form of housing tenure in which a person, called the owner-occupier, owner-occupant, or home owner, owns the home in which they live. The home can be a house, such as a single-family house, an apartment, ...

attached and detached single-family homes, a 100-unit senior housing apartment building, plus 297 units of senior housing in the three remaining towers of the former Jeffries West. Jeffries East was demolished in 2008 and the site redeveloped as mixed-income complex named "Cornerstone," completed in late 2012 developed in three phases.. It included the development of 180 rental units in 30 buildings of

townhomes In architecture and city planning, a terrace or terraced house ( UK) or townhouse ( US) is a form of medium-density housing that originated in Europe in the 16th century, whereby a row of attached dwellings share side walls. In the United State ...

and

duplexes A duplex house plan has two living units attached to each other, either next to each other as townhouses, condominiums or above each other like apartments. By contrast, a building comprising two attached units on two distinct properties is ...

, consisting of 138

units and 42

affordable housing Affordable housing is housing which is deemed affordable to those with a household income at or below the median as rated by the national government or a local government by a recognized housing affordability index. Most of the literature on affo ...

rental units. Former residents of Jeffries East in good standing with the Detroit Housing Commission were permitted to return to the new complex.

References

External links

Jeffries towers tumble
— 2001 article in the ''

Detroit News ''The Detroit News'' is one of the two major newspapers in the U.S. city of Detroit, Michigan. The paper began in 1873, when it rented space in the rival ''Detroit Free Press'' building. ''The News'' absorbed the ''Detroit Tribune'' on Februar ...

'' about the demolition of many of the Jeffries Projects towers.
About the Jeffries Projects
— Information about the buildings in Jeffries Project. {{coord, 42, 20, 29.5, N, 83, 04, 02.7, W, region:US-MI_type:landmark, display=title Public housing in Detroit Urban decay in the United States Residential buildings completed in 1953 1953 establishments in Michigan Buildings and structures demolished in 1997 Buildings and structures demolished in 2001 Demolished buildings and structures in Detroit