Hive 50 Honors
For betting on Detroit’s future, with grassroots-level work to repair neighborhood blight by proving working class households’ ability to create regenerative value.
What You Need To Know
Century Partners’ Fitzgerald (Detroit neighborhood) Revitalization project increases the number of affordable high-quality homes working class Detroiters are able to own with significant asset appreciation potential, allowing these individuals to own an equity stake in their city’s revitalization, converting vacant properties into viable homesites. Century worked with local banks to ensure this neighborhood received CRA funds in the form of Down Payment Assistance and other home buyer subsidies to maximize affordability for home buyers. The company also is working with the nonprofit Detroit Economic Growth Corp. to form a Neighborhood Enterprise Zone (NEZ) for the area to limit the property tax increases for both existing and new residents.
Who’s Involved
Century Partners’ strategic team includes founding partners Andrew Colom and David Alade, two Columbia University graduates who gravitated to Detroit in 2015, bent on changing the world, one home and one block at a time.
Time Stamp
Andrew Colom and David Alade each gave up jobs—in Mississippi and New York, respectively—to move to Detroit in 2015. Their idea was to invest in Detroit's neighborhoods, and to close the wealth disparity gap by helping people invest in the rehabilitation of their neighborhoods. They were honored as inaugural Ivory Prize for Housing Affordability winners in 2018.