Renovations to Spirit Plaza — the newly dedicated public space at the corner of Woodward and Jefferson — will begin after Labor Day and will include removal of the Woodward median and a new performance stage.

Construction starts Sept. 4 and will last through the month. The updates will be paid for with $800,000 in existing city bond funds, officials announced Wednesday.

A new playground, stationary musical instruments, new tables, chairs, charging stations and drinking fountains also will be added to the 20,000-square-foot plaza.

The improvements mark a major update to Spirit Plaza since it was made permanent last month with a narrow approval from the Detroit City Council. The council originally voted to shut down the plaza but changed its mind at a subsequent meeting. The original installation of the plaza in 2017 was controversial because it blocked off Woodward to traffic at its intersection with East Jefferson Avenue.

But Councilman Scott Benson on Wednesday praised the plaza, explaining that other large cities such as Rio de Janeiro and New York City have taken back portions of streets for pedestrians.

“It’s new, and as part of a growing, thriving downtown we’re going to see change, we’re going to see streets blocked off," Benson said. "This is just a part of that and we’ve created a great pedestrian oasis right here in the streets of Detroit.”

MORE: Detroit City Council votes to keep Spirit of Detroit Plaza downtown

MORE::Hart Plaza in pictures

Benson hinted that the Spirit Plaza updates could be a springboard to more costly improvements at nearby Hart Plaza.

The city is looking at how to fix up Hart Plaza as part of an ongoing study of all its entertainment venues, said Erica Hill, special events manager for the city's parks and recreation division. A rough estimate to update Hart Plaza is $50 million.

Benson said Hart Plaza is underutilized. He said there have been discussions about connecting it with Spirit Plaza, possibly with a pedestrian sky bridge over Jefferson.

“Hart Plaza’s had tons of deferred maintenance over the years, but now we’re looking at what we can do to make it world class again,” Benson said. "But as we look at what we’ve done with Spirit Plaza, we are now focusing our gaze directly on Hart Plaza and what type of investment it's going to take to get it back to a world class level.”

Joe Guillen has been covering city governance and development issues for the newspaper since 2013. He has covered Detroit city hall, been a member of the investigations team and previously worked at The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer covering county and state government. Contact him at 313-222-6678 or jguillen@freepress.com.