10000th Vacant Building Demolished Under Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan

DETROIT (WWJ) - Detroit mayor Mike Duggan is marking a milestone as demolition knock down the 10,000th vacant building in the city since he took office two-and-a-half years ago.

Heavy equipment was at work Tuesday morning.on Marlowe St., north of Grand River and Hubbell, on the city's west side.

Sybie Fason, who lives in a well-kept home across the street, said she's happy to see this happening as an vacant house can breed problems.

"Well, yeah, people coming in and out of it, you know...but I think them tearing it down, it won't even be an eyesore now," she told WWJ's Mike Campbell, adding that she doesn't even care what goes up in its place — even if it's just grass.

"Either some new houses or just take the property and do something different with it, you know?  That would be good," Fason said.

When Duggan took office in 2014, he said there were 40,000 structures that needed to be torn down.

While this is a start, there's plenty more to go.

"The magnitude of the blight problem in the city is enormous; but instead of whining about it, we got to work on it," Duggan said. "We got enough funding through 2016, 2017, and my hope is by the end of next year we're down around 20,000 house left to go."

Duggan's office said the tally would be at 10,001 by the day's end as another vacant building, two doors down, was also being torn down.