Does multimillion dollar Chinese investment signal Detroit’s rebirth? | Cities |

Does multimillion dollar Chinese investment signal Detroit’s rebirth? | Cities | theguardian.com In September, the Shanghai-based developer Dongdu International (DDI) made its first move. In an online auction, it snapped up three iconic downtown properties, all built during the city’s early 20th-century heyday as an industrial powerhouse. DDI purchased the David Stott building, a 38-storey art-deco skyscraper built in 1929, and the former Detroit Free Press newspaper headquarters, a T-shaped edifice adorned with bas-relief sculptures of biplanes and locomotives. Later, it acquired the 10-storey Clark Lofts, an inconspicuous residential building with a manual, pre-second world war elevator – the oldest in Detroit. Altogether, DDI spent $16.4m (£9.6m) on the properties, slightly more than a top-market apartment in Shttp://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/jul/22/does-multimillion-dollar-chinese-investment-signal-detroits-rebirth?CMP=twt_gu&utm_source=The+Sinocism+China+Newsletter&utm_campaign=603de7b770-Sinocism07_23_14&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_171f237867-603de7b770-29615013&mc_cid=603de7b770&mc_eid=5935182a65