DETROIT, Mich. — The mayor and other city leaders gathered late last month at an abandoned farmers’ market to announce a $15 million infusion of funds to launch the city’s latest urban agriculture venture.

The project is called Recovery Park and, as its name suggests, a primary goal of the program is to help recovering addicts get a leg up in life and to aid others living on the margins of society.

Mayor Mike Duggan, Councilwoman Mary Sheffield and Recovery Park President and CEO Gary Wozniak gathered at the former Chene-Ferry farmers’ market on the city’s lower east side to announce an agreement to transform a blighted 22-block area, just south of the General Motors Hamtramck plant in the old Poletown neighborhood.

The project will have a 60-acre footprint, including more than 35 acres, or 406 parcels, of city-owned land. The chunk of properties is bounded on the north by Interstate 94, Chene Street to the east, St. Aubin Street to the west and Forest Avenue to the south. Recovery Park’s headquarters is just a jog to the north on St. Aubin, surrounded by the sprawling GM plant and associated businesses.

Recovery Park’s stated mission is to put recovering drug addicts, former inmates, veterans and others with what are described as "significant barriers to employment" on a positive path while also helping revitalize a blighted Detroit neighborhood.

"Recovery Park isn’t just about transforming this land. It’s about transforming lives," Duggan said at the announcement Oct. 26. "The city of Detroit is proud to support the work Gary Wozniak and his team are doing to put this vacant land back to productive use and to help ex-offenders and others with barriers to employment rebuild their lives."

In a separate interview, Wozniak cautioned "just because you’ve been in prison doesn’t mean you’re going to get a job here." People have to meet the group’s standards because the goal is to have a successful enterprise, he said. Once it’s up and running at full speed, he estimates Recovery Park will employ 120 people.

Recovery Park has been Wozniak’s vision for nearly a decade. "We’re pretty busy here," he said last week.

"There’s a lot going on because of the announcement. A lot of things have fallen into place, things that could only be done after the announcement."

Recovery Park has been growing about 60 different vegetables at two pilot program locations, one in Waterford and the other in Detroit. That’s been going on for about 18 months. Chefs are asking the program for as many as 120 different vegetables. The group has been growing vegetables for area high-end restaurants in and around Detroit, including Cuisine and Wright & Co. in Detroit and Bacco Ristorante in Southfield.

"We do have product in restaurants right now; we grow everything ourselves," Wozniak explained.

Recovery Park has been working with different banks, philanthropic foundations and the Michigan Economic Development Corp. (MEDC) to put together enough funds to make the enterprise truly viable. He said Community Reinvestment Act dollars are being used and "MEDC is guaranteeing half the borrowing; sometimes they make outright grants."

Regarding the Chene-Ferry market building, it’s a symbol of both blight as well as bygone prosperity in the city. The market goes all the way back to the 1850s when it and several other open air markets were established in Detroit, including the Eastern Market, which is still open. Chene-Ferry closed in 1990.

At this time there are no plans to have a farmers’ market at Recovery Park, Wozniak said. That’s because its customers are chefs rather than the general public. However, the group plans to have the building secured by this winter and is planning a new use for it as a distribution hub.

Eventually, the group plans to have temperature-controlled facilities as well so it can grow vegetables at all times of the year.

Under its contract, Recovery Park will be obligated to hire a certain percentage of its employees from the Detroit populace, tear down or secure all blighted or vacant buildings and take other steps to help revitalize the neighborhood, in addition to meeting specific business goals.