Super Bowl spurs Detroit's cleanup

BY JOHN GALLAGHER
FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITER

June 9, 2006

A Clean Detroit crew picks up trash along Woodward Avenue. The effort is paid for by donations. Power washers and mechanized sweepers are to pick up litter and scrub graffiti. Super Bowl XL inspired the campaign. (JERRY S. MENDOZA/Associated Press)

Inspired by the success of Super Bowl XL, Detroit launched a Clean Detroit effort Thursday.

After a kickoff ceremony at Campus Martius Park, uniformed crews outfitted with power washers and mechanized sweepers headed out to pick up litter, scrub away graffiti and otherwise make downtown sparkle.

Paid for by private and corporate donations, the effort, slated to run at least through late 2007, is likely to make the uniformed crews and their Clean Detroit trucks familiar sights throughout downtown.

Organized by the civic leadership group Downtown Detroit Partnership, the effort is meant to harness the energy and cooperative spirit that metro Detroit showed leading up to Feb. 5's Super Bowl XL.

The program is under the overall control of businessman and auto racing legend Roger Penske, who chairs the Downtown Partnership and led the city's efforts to prepare for the NFL's Super Bowl XL.

"A clean downtown is pivotal to attracting new businesses, residents, conventions and visitors to our city," Penske said.

The cleaning crews have been organized by Goodwill Industries of Greater Detroit. Approximately 40 members strong, the crews will wear uniforms consisting of dark green caps and shirts with Clean Detroit labels and black slacks and boots.

The pay is about $8 an hour for workers and $14 an hour for supervisors, plus health-care benefits.

Just before the crews fanned out to begin work, one of the members, Lisa Hopkins, who described herself as a lifelong resident of Detroit, called the program "wonderful."

"I'm happy to be working for Mr. Penske and the City of Detroit," she said. "This is a long time coming. We needed something like this."

Ann Lang, president of the Downtown Partnership, said the Clean Downtown program is the first step toward creation of a so-called Business Improvement District, or BID. Such organizations, common across the nation, involve groups of downtown property owners assessing themselves a small amount of money to pay for cleaning, marketing, business attraction and other services.

Detroit has tried to create a BID in the past, but opposition on the City Council and among legislators in Lansing killed the prospect. Penske and Lang hope to try again.

"This is actually a very typical way for a BID to start," Lang said of the cleanup. "It's the most visible and in a lot of ways the easiest to get support for."

Citing comeback urban centers such as Washington, D.C., Times Square in New York, and Philadelphia, she added, "It was this kind of effort that began the revitalization of those downtowns."

Contact JOHN GALLAGHER at 313-222-5173 or gallagher@freepress.com.

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