I know it's considered blasphemy on a site named "SkyscraperPage", and my younger self would have treated it as such, but living in the state that I've lived for as long as I have, I am
so over height as the primary factor for a high-rise. I mean, if we can get it, that's great. But, now, at the end of the day, I'm far more concerned about how something fills the block, what the quality of the materials are, the general architecture...than how high it goes.
There is not a city in my state in which land is at such a premium that it would greatly incentivize building up rather than out. The only incentive left is for bragging rights. And in that vein, Dan Gilbert in Detroit is really looking for a marquee project for the Hudson site in downtown Detroit, and has not ruled out something very tall. In fact, he hired SHoP out of New York to design something for the site It'll be interesting if we've found that he's been courting tenants behind the scenes all along to make this thing skyline-changing, but we'll just have to wait and see. I kind of doubt any over 500 feet, even on part of the site.
Most of the commercial activity in Detroit, though, is filling back in what was lost (i.e. renovations), and that's fine by me. If we start having demand to the point of where a high-rise could be built, but the developers don't want to spend the extra bucks for going vertical, then I'll be a little annoyed.
Oh, here is what SHoP will be working with if anyone is interested:
Quicken Loans Blog
As is apparent, there are multiple sites for buildings on this huge block, and no one seems to know exactly how high they could go over the garage as there is still a question as to how much of the old Hudson's foundation was used for the current parking garage.