two fell swoops

Whenever I go by, these two houses and their respective detached garages appear solitary and stately, set back from the road on a large empty lot just east of Platt on the north side of Packard. They’ve been abandoned for years - their exteriors unmaintained - to the point that the paint and siding has weathered in a way that makes it look almost like grayed Cape Cod-style cedar shingles at a glance. Except for their exterior surfaces, the houses are remarkably pristine and free of more of the structural damage typical of abandoned/vandalized houses. Potential graffiti writers might be deterred by the prospect of their paint just chipping off like the rest. But the overall course of this dilapidation - the preponderance of paint-chipping - is somewhat of a miracle, and visually it is quite stunning.

Developers Hyun and Jason Bang of Troy-based B&K Investment Group Inc. are planning construction next year for a “complex” (read: strip mall) with a neighborhood grocery store and a coffee shop among the tenants they hope to attract. Their site plan has already been approved by City Council. The architect Michael Van Goor told the Ann Arbor Business Review that the developers want to make the site “a destination”.

I say it already is a destination, for anyone who wants to see a great example of the “shingle effect” of badly chipped paint before these buildings are demolished.