Detroit man's video game lounge gets helping hand by Motor City Match

DETROIT (FOX 2) - A northwest Detroit community on Wyoming near Puritan is transforming one building at a time.

"I call this is an entertainment desert because there's not much for people to do around here," said Lance McGhee. So the entrepreneur got to thinking.

"We want to create a gaming lounge - the first one in the city of Detroit," he said.

He infused $70,000 of his own money into a building on Wyoming near Puritan and called his gaming business Playa Vs Playa. 

But with so much work to do to turn his dream into reality, he applied to the Motor City Match competition which supports small businesses in Detroit through grants and other resources. 

"Motor City Match believed in the idea and granted me $60,000," McGhee said.

McGhee's business is one of the 53 business winners in the competition's latest round. McGhee plans for his center to serve as a gathering place for kids of all ages featuring gaming and virtual reality.

"Forty-inch monitors, we are going to have a kitchen where we'll serve fresh fruit smoothies and grilled sliders," McGhee said.

After learning of the program's recent federal review and the City suspending use of federal funds for the program after HUD officials requested them to do so last month McGhee says he's happy the city found a way to keep it going. 

"They had a little oversight issue, a little auditing that they had to get done, but it did not stop," McGhee said. "It didn't stop me and the other business owners that needed that award to continue on with their dream." 

Lance says once he gets this business model up and going he plans to take the business model to other cities.

"I plan to duplicate this model in Flint and Pontiac," he said. "I want to specifically take my business to other neighborhoods that are similar to this that need these outlets."

| RELATED: 
One-of-a-kind esports bar opening in Auburn Hills