Community leaders and supporters in Detroit gathered for the grand opening of The Freelon at Sugar Hill in Detroit’s historic midtown area on September 22. According to the press release, Project developers Sonya Mays, president and CEO of Develop Detroit and Aaron Gorstein, president and CEO of the Boston-based nonprofit developer Preservation of Affordable Housing (POAH) were joined by project partners, along with Nnenna Freelon, widow of the late architect Phil Freelon, to formally open the $36 million project, which transformed a previously vacant acre of land into 68 unit new mixed-income residential apartments with 11,000 square feet of commercial space.
A joint venture between Develop Detroit and POAH, The Freelon was one of the final projects to be designed by Phil Freelon, who passed away in 2019. The famed architect, who led the design team for the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC and was also involved with the new design for Detroit’s Motown Museum, was approached by Develop Detroit’s Sonya Mays who had long been an admirer of Freelon’s aesthetic and believes in doing, as Freelon himself once said, “Projects that enhance the lives of everyday people, like campus buildings, libraries, museums…,” and now Detroit’s latest residential community.
