Some neat things that may be in place by the time FRC World Championship arrives:
M1 Rail project. this is a streetcar system started last year that will offer streetcars north of Wayne State and DIA and... It is slated to be finsihed in 2016, which means there is a decent chance it might be done by April 2018
Many of us in the area hope this project will eventually connect Pontiac, Michigan to Detroit via a transit system, but that requires a significant amount of political and financial coordiantion...
There is a beautiful Firehouse across from Cobo being turned into a 100 room hotel that should be pretty neat.
There are a lot of neat projects underway that hopefully will continue to show dividends. I will say the change the last 5 years has been really impressive to me compared to the first 10 years I was in the Metro area.
Ironically, Cobo is close enough to Windsor that I would not be shocked if many people end up staying in a whole different country for the event... Taking a bus load of kids back and forth across the boarder 2 times a day might not be the easiest, but could actually be an option. I have worked with Canadians that commute daily into Detroit for many years.
Many teams will likely do what I will be doing, Commuting from Oakland or Macomb county. Both are part of the Detroit "urban sprawl", and a really nice places to live. I lived for 5 years at 9.5 Mile and Woodward (IE 1.5 miles from the infamous 8-Mile road...).
Biggest issue (IMO) with Detroit is that being the Motor City, you have to drive to pretty much anywhere you are going.
If I was a team, coming to see the sites. On my list would be:
Henry Ford Museum (a bit of a drive, but really cool for any budding engineer types)
Fox Theatre (gorgeous old theatre)
Comerica Park for a game
Possibly an Auto-Plant tour (it is truly amazing the first time you see one).
For individuals, there is a lot of other neat resteruants and very particular things like Old buildings/factories....