Experts: Ypsilanti’s Water Street offers riverfront redevelopment potential but faces environmental, financing and timing hurdles

City of Ypsilanti staff and outside experts on development, banking and environmental law urged a cautious, long-term approach to redeveloping the roughly 30-acre Water Street site, while describing both the property’s potential as riverfront mixed-use land and the environmental, financing and timing constraints that will shape any project.

Katie Jones, economic development equity manager and project manager for the Water Street site for the City of Ypsilanti, opened a public panel at Spark East and said the city has been testing and recently begun excavation to remove PCB contamination from a storage-yard “hot spot.” Jones said the city is preparing additional site evaluation work to inform an upcoming request for qualifications (RFQ) process for developers.

Panelists framed the site as attractive for mixed commercial and residential development because of its riverfront, proximity to Michigan Avenue and downtown, and contiguous parcel layout. “It’s an exciting possibility because it’s continuous land in the heart of Downtown Ypsilanti,” said Patrick Tamsen, senior vice president and private banking manager at Bank of Ann Arbor. He urged that the right mix of incentives and financing could bring the project to life.

Michael Caldwell, an environmental attorney and shareholder who leads the environmental practice at Zasmer, said the site’s contamination also creates opportunity because of available incentives and liability-limiting processes in Michigan. “As the environmental lawyer, I’m usually . . . the voice of gloom and doom. But the fact that…