http://www.mlive.com/flintjournal/bu..._downtown.html
Wade Trim Building in downtown Flint almost ready for business
by Melissa Burden | The Flint Journal
Monday July 28, 2008, 4:48 PM
FLINT, Michigan -- The moving truck for Wade Trim Inc. won't be traveling far Friday, but workers at the civil engineering firm are anxious to set up shop in a newly built downtown building.
Office furniture and supplies should be moved Friday from the current office at 601 N. Saginaw St. down the street to it's new building in the 500 block of South Saginaw Street, said Jason Kenyon, a vice president and office manager for Wade Trim's Flint office.
The office's staff of about 25 is expected to start work at the new building on Monday.
"This is something we're looking forward to," he said.
Wade Trim is leasing the $5 million building's entire second floor, which totals about 8,500 square feet.
The new brick building is owned by real estate development group Uptown Developments and sits next to the recently razed Copa Building.
Also, WNEM (Channel 5) is hoping to move into its first floor space by mid-September, said Al Blinke, WNEM's general manager.
Three of the four loft apartments in that building have been leased and Uptown Developments is getting close to leasing at least one, if not all three remaining retail spots on the first floor, said Phil Shaltz, a managing partner in Uptown Developments.
Next door to the Wade Trim Building at Saginaw and Second streets, a pile of bricks and rubble is all that remains of the former Copa Building, where women shopped for fashions for decades in the old Vogue store and more recently where people danced the night away at The Copa nightclub.
Uptown Reinvestment Corp., a nonprofit spearheading downtown Flint revitalization and owned the Copa Building, had planned to market the building to a restaurant or nightclub, but found that part of the project not viable because of the building's age and deterioration, said Ridgway White, a project manager with Uptown Reinvestment.
Crews will continue working at the site, which will be created into a grassy park area. Uptown Reinvestment will try to market the space to a developer to use as an office space, White said.
Across the street at the Rowe Building, which suffered a partial collapse in August 2007, foundations are being put in to support steel structures, Shaltz said.
Rowe will occupy two of the floors in the $13 million building, which is combining three historic structures into one. The first floor could be home to a restaurant and loft apartments are slated for the top floor.
If all goes well, the building could be completed by the end of the year or shortly thereafter, Shaltz said.
Other projects downtown include the recently completed Community Foundation of Greater Flint Building and First Street Lofts.
Shaltz said Uptown Developments is meeting with people interested in locating restaurants in the new downtown buildings.
"There's a lot of activity with a lot of potential restaurants and bars," he said.