DETROIT | Development & Construction: Motown Lowdown

[animatedmartian]

Originally Posted by detroit_alive

• The $33 million mixed-use project by Detroit-based Queen Lillian II LLC at 3455 Woodward Ave. and 13 Stimson St. that will include 25,000 square feet of retail space, 68 one- and two-bedroom apartments and a 230-space parking deck. The developer received up to $5 million in tax incentives. Developer Chris Jackson is the principal of Queen Lillian.

Via Crains: http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article...ong-4-projects

Also confirmed via Curbed, but Queen Lillian (formerly known as Midtown Professional Building) has been changed from a office building to an apartment building. Wonder if this means they whole design of the building will have been changed as well.



http://detroit.curbed.com/archives/2...apartments.php

[animatedmartian]

Someone finally snatches up the Old Wayne County building.

Old Wayne County Building to sell for $13.4 million
By Kirk Pinho. July 10, 2014.



The vacant Old Wayne County Building at 600 Randolph St. and a county-owned parking lot at 400 E. Fort St. in downtown Detroit are being sold to a private New York City investment group for $13.4 million.

....

The commission preliminarily approved the building, land and parking lot sale to 600 Randolph SN LLC on Thursday and must grant final approval on the terms and conditions. That is expected July 17, said Michael Layne, president of Farmington Hills-based Marx Layne Public Relations, which is handling media inquiries for the buyers.

It’s the buyer’s first purchase in Metro Detroit, Layne said. The group has “multiple Class A real estate holdings in Manhattan,” he said.

The building is expected to be renovated for single-tenant occupancy. Layne said renovations on the interior and exterior of the building are expected to begin immediately. Quinn Evans Architects Inc., which has offices in Detroit and Ann Arbor, is the architecture firm on the project.

The building, which is located between East Congress and East Fort streets, had been on the market for nearly three years, according to Washington, D.C., real estate information service CoStar Group Inc.

....

[animatedmartian]

Busy news day. Metropolitan Building confirmed for (potential) apartments.


http://detroit.curbed.com/archives/2...estoration.php

http://staging-degcv3.cirrusabs.com/...ilding-facade/

July 10, 2014

The Detroit Downtown Development Authority (DDA) has reached an agreement with a potential developer of the historic Metropolitan Building at 33 John R to complete a significant project to stabilize the historic, but deteriorating building façade.

Metropolitan Development Partners has deployed a 165-ton crane to reach the top of the 15-story structure so workers can remove loose pieces of the decorative terra cotta facade.

The crews will also install rubber flashing around sections of the roof to reduce water infiltration and build additional scaffolding and fencing around the structure to protect pedestrians. The cost for the protective steps is expected to total about $300,000 and be completed by July 27.

The staff for the Downtown Development Authority has been working diligently to preserve this historic structure and find a suitable developer to bring it back as an attractive and vital part of Downtown. Although there is still a great deal of work to be done, this is a great step towards both goals. At the same time it protects the ever increasing pedestrian traffic in the area.

Eric Means, CEO of Means Group said, “We have a project team with strong experience in historic restoration and urban redevelopment, so we are very confident we can restore this building.”

“We don’t take safety lightly,” he added. “We are making a substantial investment to protect the public while we take the necessary steps to close a deal.”

The Metropolitan Building was built in 1925 and for many years was the location of jewelry businesses. Its highly decorative façade is comprised of terra cotta, granite and brick, which has been deteriorating since the building was vacated in 1977. Metropolitan Development Partners plan to create 61 high-end apartments in the building, along with commercial space and retail on the lower floors.

Brian Holdwick

Executive Vice President, Business Development

[Matthew]

It's great to see plans to restore and reuse the Metropolitan Building as apartments! This is one of my favorites.

[LMich]

I'd imagine the Queen Lillian development has changed quite a bit in design with its going residential. I kind of wish they'd have just added residential to the project instead of replacing the office space with it. And, I'm concerned about how they are going to do this parking garage, and wondering exactly who they are marketing the spots to given that we're only talking 60-something units. Even with the retail component, that's still a lot of extra spots. I just hope this takes demand off the surface lots in the area making them more attractive to developers. BTW, the streetcar stop looks to be a block to the north of here.

Glad to hear about the Metropolitan Building. My hope is that the interest in that building spurs someone to save the adjacent Wurlitzer, which is really hanging on by a nail, figuratively and almost literally. Back on the Metropolitan, I hope that it includes reconstructing the terra-cotta detailing after they stabilize the bad portions of it. I'm also interested into seeing how exactly they are going to orient the residential units. This is an oddly shaped building, after all.

On the old Wayne County Courthouse, they say they are renovating this as a single-tenant property, which kind of surprised me. I'd have thought they'd leased out parts of it, but it sounds like they might have someone already lined up or at least a single entity interested in it. Personally, I wish Wayne County would have stayed. But, quite frankly, it's amazing it held on this long given what happened to the old City Hall when the City-County Building essentially made both of the buildings obsolete.

Lots and lots of movement in the city.

[Rizzo]

Really made my day that the Met may be saved. I love this building. You just cannot build something at unique as this.

[animatedmartian]

Gilbertville adds another one.

Gilbert buys former Globe Tobacco Co. building for $3.3 million
July 11, 2014. By Kirk Pinho.



Add the 58,000-square-foot former Globe Tobacco Co. building to Dan Gilbert’s downtown Detroit real estate empire.

The founder and chairman of Quicken Loans Inc. and Rock Ventures LLC purchased the six-story building at 407 E. Fort St. for $3.3 million on Thursday, according to Matt Farrell, executive principal/partner of Bingham Farms-based Core Partners Associates LLC, which represented the seller, the Gus Vincent Trust.

The sale amounts to $57 per square foot.

“From our perspective, we took on the asset as a very, very cool building built in 1888,” Farrell said. “It has a brick exterior and offers a very creative, cool lofty interior.”

Jennifer Kulczycki, vice president of communications for Rock Ventures, confirmed the building’s purchase and said redevelopment plans have not yet been determined.

....

Farrell said the building was about 45 percent occupied when Core Partners was hired to lease the building to tenants; today it’s about 80 percent.

“Literally, the day Detroit filed the formal bankruptcy (July 18, 2013), we experienced many buyers – local, national and international – with interests in the building,” Farrell said.

Gilbert now has a real estate portfolio of more than 60 properties in Detroit — buildings, parking decks and surface lots — totaling more than 9 million square feet. He has spent more than $1.3 billion buying and renovating property in Detroit since 2010, mostly in the central business district.

....

[EuphoricOctopus]

It amazes me how much downtown has really changed over the past couple of years. I never thought I'd see some of these buildings renovated and occupied like the Broderick Tower and the Whitney Building.

[James Bond Agent 007]

Front page story on Detroit in today's NY Times Magazine.

The Post-Post-Apocalyptic Detroit

In downtown Detroit, at the headquarters of the online-mortgage company Quicken Loans, there stands another downtown Detroit in miniature. The diorama, made of laser-cut acrylic and stretching out over 19 feet in length, is a riot of color and light: Every structure belonging to Quicken’s billionaire owner, Dan Gilbert, is topped in orange and illuminated from within, and Gilbert currently owns 60 of them, a lordly nine million square feet of real estate in all. He began picking up skyscrapers just three and a half years ago, one after another, paying as little as $8 a square foot. He bought five buildings surrounding Capitol Park, the seat of government when Michigan became a state in 1837. He snapped up the site of the old Hudson’s department store, where 12,000 employees catered to 100,000 customers daily in the 1950s. Many of Gilbert’s purchases are 20th-century architectural treasures, built when Detroit served as a hub of world industry. He bought a Daniel Burnham, a few Albert Kahns, a Minoru Yamasaki masterwork with a soaring glass atrium. “They’re like old-school sports cars,” said Dan Mullen, one of the executives who took over Quicken’s newly formed real estate arm. “These were buildings with so much character, so much history. They don’t exist anywhere else. And it was like, ‘Buy this parking garage, and we’ll throw in a skyscraper with it.’ ”

[animatedmartian]

Originally Posted by EuphoricOctopus

It amazes me how much downtown has really changed over the past couple of years. I never thought I'd see some of these buildings renovated and occupied like the Broderick Tower and the Whitney Building.

Yea me neither. Some buildings seemed so doomed only a few short years ago. Now there's hardly any major buildings left vacant or recently bought. The last untouched jewel is the Book Tower. The last time there was any news about it was when the owners were trying to get a tax abatement for renovation almost a full year ago.

I suspect if they haven't gotten the tax abatement (or financing) yet, the next likely news to come out about the Book Tower is that it's up for sale or auction if not any progress on actual renovations.

[LMich]

The Book's days as a vacant building do seem numbered. Does that company up in Macomb County still own it? I can never remember who owns it, anymore.

[animatedmartian]

The owners are apparently ANKO Enterprises of Vancouver. However, googling that name doesn't tell ya much of anything so I have trouble believing this company even still exists (or ever did). So I figure who ever is owning it is likely holding on to it at this point so they can sell it and make buku bucks.

[uaarkson]

Downtown seems to be hitting escape velocity, no?

[animatedmartian]

Originally Posted by uaarkson

Downtown seems to be hitting escape velocity, no?

It would seem that way. However, a lot of projects still seem to be slow to start either because of financing or red tape. Financing is getting easier to come by these days because of the economy, but I think at the city government level, Detroit still isn't quite friendly towards developers. For as many incentives as the city offers, there's still a bunch of special conditions attached to them.

For instance there's this big deal about requiring developments (for example, within Renaissance Zones) to "provide jobs" for the community (Detroit residents) whether through hired construction workers or from the purpose of the development itself. The government is still trying to play the role of job creator rather than make it favorable for the private sector to create jobs naturally.

So really, Downtown Detroit could be growing a lot faster than it presently is, I think, if the city government was able to shift its priorities. I don't understand how they think requiring the market to specifically hire Detroit residents would be effective if much of the city is still shrinking.

[LMich]

ANKO was the developer until a few years back; I believe they were the owner between the Pagan Organization (out of NYC) and the current owners, who I believe are local. The last I remember, the local company was some mom-and-pop investors based in Clinton Township, or something.

I have to disagree strongly with the criticism of city government, though. The city really isn't being too hard on developers, and the community benefits issue - which would only be for projects over a certain large size threshold - probably won't make it through. It's really still the private sector skeptical of funding projects in Detroit, and some incompetent developers or developers not on the up-and-up. I think this is a mostly made-up conservative talking point about red-tape. The truth is that if anything, Detroit often approves things by developers far too hastily with terms developers could only dream of in other towns. The Red Wings arena is a perfect example of where the city eventually gave away the store to the Ilitches, particularly when it came to all of the swapping of land between the city, DDA and the Ilitches. The terms for the new arena were even more favorable to the Ilitches than the already favorable terms they were given with the Joe, to be honest.

In a city as perpetually development starved as Detroit has been until recently, it has been rare for a project to ever be turned down, or even be significantly altered by the city, and the number and influence of NIMBYs in the city center is still about zero when compared to other cities. Detroit's city government has had a lot of problems, but approving of large-scale development hasn't really been one of them. In fact, that has been a criticism from the residential neighborhoods at least since the 80's.

[animatedmartian]

My feelings were more towards the impacts of the DEGC. Or maybe it's just my cynicism towards George Jackson. I dunno, I just feel that DEGC-affliated projects aren't as good as non-DEGC projects.

Anyway, according to DYES, the Michigan Theatre has already been bought. This morning it was scheduled to go up for auction but was mysteriously canceled according to news reports. If DYES is correct, then the Michigan Theatre has been bought by local developer, Dennis Kefallinos.

http://www.detroitnews.com/article/2...listed-auction

[The North One]

Originally Posted by animatedmartian

I suspect if they haven't gotten the tax abatement (or financing) yet, the next likely news to come out about the Book Tower is that it's up for sale or auction if not any progress on actual renovations.

Can you imagine how amazing book tower would look renovated?

If it ever happens I hope they don't clean it too well though, I've grown to like the gothic blackness of the façade.

[animatedmartian]

Originally Posted by The North One

Can you imagine how amazing book tower would look renovated?

If it ever happens I hope they don't clean it too well though, I've grown to like the gothic blackness of the façade.

I'd rather see it cleaned. At the very least, have a fresh copper roof.


Downtown by southofbloor, on Flickr


Book Tower, Detroit by southofbloor, on Flickr

[LMich]

Originally Posted by animatedmartian

If DYES is correct, then the Michigan Theatre has been bought by local developer, Dennis Kefallinos.

http://www.detroitnews.com/article/2...listed-auction

Ouch! Locals almost spit when they say this guy's name, that's how much contempt he's held in. If he can fill up the Michigan Building, though, I guess it won't matter, but this is one case where I wish it'd have been someone from out-of-town. lol

I still wonder what kind of interesting usage they make for the actual theater portion of the complex, though. I imagine anyone would simply keep it as parking for the building, but I've always imagined carving it up into a laboratory or research facility or a planetarium given the vaulted ceiling. Of course, there would have to be a market there for something like that, and we're still years off, but a parking garage doesn't feel like a gross underutilization of the property no matter how cool of an experience - an incredibly brief experience, for sure - that may be for the customers.

Speaking of old theaters in this neighborhood, I wonder what's going on with the United Artists Theatre? The Ilitches did some basic clean-up and mouthballing work on this thing years ago and I haven't heard anything about it sense. That was around the Super Bowl.

[user062789]

The color scheme on the DuCharme building appears to be a cantina which fused with a generic apartment building, hopefully the final product will shy away from the lime green, orange, sea green and indigo windows.