A Wayne County judge has slammed the brakes on Detroit Thermal’s plan to reactivate a steam tunnel beneath the Mies van der Rohe townhouses in Lafayette Park, keeping the neighborhood’s prized greenspace intact while leaving a nearby high-rise still searching for a long-term heat solution. Judge Annette Berry issued the order last Thursday, after months of legal skirmishes and earlier emergency rulings. The case was brought by residents of the Mies co-op, who argue the project would trespass on private land and chew up a nationally significant modernist landscape.
In a written, multi-page opinion, Berry denied Detroit Thermal’s motion for summary disposition, a move that, according to reporting, blocks the company from reconnecting a steam tunnel beneath the Mies co-op properties and undercuts key legal defenses raised by the utility. As reported by the Detroit Free Press, the judge determined that the easements Detroit Thermal relied on were narrowly drawn and may have been abandoned. The Metro Times reports that Berry also left in place a temporary restraining order issued in July, setting the stage for the dispute to be decided at trial.
What Detroit Thermal proposed
Detroit Thermal’s plan, detailed in a City of Detroit Historic District Commission staff report, called for slip-lining and extending an existing steam main across roughly 1,500 feet of the Lafayette Park townhouse complex to restore steam service to the 1300 East Lafayette cooperative. The report maps out excavation zones and staging areas that would cut through portions of the Mies superblock and its carefully designed landscapes. According to company filings and local reporting, the work was intended to secure reliable heat for about 600 residents at 1300 East Lafayette, many of whom have been riding out repeated boiler failures and temporary boiler setups during the standoff, as covered by WXYZ.
Neighbors say the plan would scar the landmark
Residents and preservation advocates counter that the route would gouge Alfred Caldwell’s original landscape design, threaten mature trees, and run new steam infrastructure uncomfortably close to a playground. Those objections helped convince Berry that the co-ops’ claims deserved a full hearing in court, the Metro Times reports. Plaintiffs say Detroit Thermal fenced off parts of the greenspace and rolled in heavy machinery. The court noted that if those allegations are proven, they could amount to trespass and support nuisance claims.
Legal stakes and next steps
Berry’s order still lets Detroit Thermal perform certain work in public rights-of-way, but it bars the company from entering land owned by the cooperatives while the lawsuit plays out. The utility has indicated it will chase appellate relief and other legal avenues, as reported by ClickOnDetroit. Detroit Thermal has publicly warned that the rulings could raise broader questions about how utilities access underground infrastructure, a concern outlined in company statements covered by the Detroit Free Press. On the other side, the plaintiffs are moving ahead on claims of trespass and harm to the historic landscape as the case heads toward pretrial hearings and a jury trial set for next July.
The human stakes are not subtle. “We need it like yesterday,” said Otis Starghill, a 1300 East Lafayette resident frustrated by the ongoing heating woes, according to WXYZ. Across the greenspace, Mies co-op resident Angela Fortino warned the project would “impact our parking, it will impact our old trees, it will impact our playground.” For now, Berry’s decision keeps Lafayette Park’s signature lawns and tree lines intact, while the real action shifts back to the courtroom, where decades-old easement language will decide how, or even if, Detroit Thermal and its Lafayette Park neighbors learn to live together.
