Overview

The Downs, a transformative mixed-use redevelopment of Northville’s former downtown racetrack site, began not with a groundbreaking but with a series of public meetings. Before a single shovel touched ground, the project needed to earn the trust of a community with deep, decades-long attachment to the site and real questions about what would replace it.

VVK PR + Creative has guided the project’s communications since its founding — continuing a relationship with Hunter Pasteur, Soave Real Estate and The Forbes Company that began under our previous company and has since grown to encompass several developments across the region, including The Apex in West Bloomfield, Birmingham Pointe and Woodview Commons. From The Downs’ earliest public hearings through today’s ribbon cuttings, we’ve helped this team navigate the public process, build community confidence, and tell the story of the site’s transformation at every stage.

The Strategy

A project of this scale, sited in the heart of a tight-knit community, called for a communications approach built on transparency and sustained presence rather than a single campaign moment. Key elements of our strategy included:

• Direct engagement with the public process. We monitored every City Council session and public meeting related to the project, staying close to the issues residents raised so that messaging could respond directly to real concerns rather than assumptions about them.

• Messaging built around citizen concerns, with room to make the case for the project’s value. We crafted communications that spoke directly to what residents were asking about — traffic, historic preservation, environmental impact and the pace of change to their downtown — before layering in the project’s economic upside: job creation, tax base growth and long-term investment in the community. As the project moved toward completion, that same groundwork made it possible to shift toward generating market interest in the finished product without abandoning the trust built earlier.

• Coordinated communications across multiple stakeholders. With Hunter Pasteur, Toll Brothers, Soave Real Estate Group and The Forbes Company all part of the broader Downs district, we helped align messaging and planning across partners for major milestones, starting with the groundbreaking.

• Crisis-ready media relations. When the demolition of the old racetrack site created a moment of heightened public and media attention, we managed the communications response in real time, protecting the project’s credibility during a visible and emotionally resonant phase of the work.

• A trusted, long-term partnership beyond a single project. Our work on The Downs has been shaped by years of experience supporting Hunter Pasteur, Soave and The Forbes Company across multiple developments, giving us a deep understanding of how this team builds, communicates and engages with the communities it works in.

The Work

VVK’s role has evolved alongside the project itself. In the earliest phase, that meant tracking public meetings and City Council deliberations and helping shape language that addressed citizen concerns head-on.

As the project moved from approvals into action, we helped plan and execute the groundbreaking, coordinating across multiple development partners and stakeholders to mark the milestone. During demolition of the former racetrack, we handled crisis communications and media relations through a sensitive and closely watched phase of the work.

More recently, our focus has shifted to celebrating progress: leading media relations for the opening of Downs River Park and writing press releases and coordinating media access for the debut of the project’s first model units.

As new phases of The Downs come online, VVK continues to support the next chapter of the project’s story.

The Impact

• A relationship with Hunter Pasteur, Soave Real Estate and The Forbes Company that spans VVK’s founding and predates it — carried forward from our team’s previous company and now encompassing multiple projects, including The Apex in West Bloomfield, Birmingham Pointe and Woodview Commons, in addition to The Downs
• Successfully navigated a demolition-phase crisis communications moment
• Coordinated a multi-partner groundbreaking event involving our client, Wayne County, U.S. Representative Debbie Dingell, The City of Northville, and the State of Michigan
• Led media relations and ribbon-cutting communications for the June 2026 opening of Downs River Park, generating coverage from Crain’s Detroit Business, the Detroit Free Press, WXYZ (Channel 7) and WWJ radio.
• Generated media coverage for the December 2025 debut of the project’s first model units, including placements in DBusiness Magazine and Crain’s Detroit Business