DETROIT | Development & Construction: Motown Lowdown

[The-New-Tony-Detroit]

From Crain's Detroit Business today, re: Old DPD HQ

http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article...soccer-stadium

"Look closely at the plans revealed today for a new Major League Soccer stadium and mixed-use development district on the site of the half-built Wayne County Consolidated Jail property.

Something appears to be missing: The 1923 Albert Kahn-designed building that up until a couple years ago was the headquarters of the Detroit Police Department at 1300 Beaubien.

...

So does the building's apparent absence mean it's slated for demolition?

Not necessarily.

So says Matt Cullen, president and CEO of Dan Gilbert's Rock Ventures LLC, which along with Detroit Pistons owner Tom Gores is spearheading the planned $1 billion project..."

"The building is officially owned by the city of Detroit, although it was one of a handful of pretty prime downtown and downtown-ish properties bond insurer Syncora Guarantee Inc. snagged as part of its settlement with the city in federal bankruptcy court a year and a half ago.

...

Cullen says that the demolition of the DPD building has not yet "been contemplated."

...

Cullen said the building could be redeveloped as a historic preservation project as part of the overall plan"

[Docta_Love]

Glad to hear there thinking of saving old DPD hq as mentioned its not been kept in great shape but id imagine they would gut it and prolly change the configuration anyways it doesn't seem that its in the way of anything if they are still contemplating its fate otherwise it would be a foregone conclusion they'd tear that shit down so to speak.

There was also an interesting tid bit of information on the brewster-douglass site there is a 30 million dollar grant that's tied to the proposed redevelopment and it seems a foregone conclusion that detroit has it on lock, so hopefully this summer the 500 unit redevelopment will move forward.

[detroit_alive]

Originally Posted by Docta_Love

Having jail's right next to the city's premier entertainment district is just silly when the mound rd correctional facility could be easily redone and there is plenty of land to build court facilities that lawyers wont complain about, if that's what it takes.

People keep saying that it is silly to have the jail downtown, yet the reality is that the courts are downtown. The police HQ is downtown. Many law offices are downtown. Many bails bondsman are downtown. All transit infrastructure meets downtown.

Think about the logistics of moving that infrastructure to serve a new site. Think about the people in jail and those visiting them, many of whom may not have cars and rely on transit. I can understand the want to move the undesirable to the periphery, but there are legitimate reasons to have a jail in the city center.

[Docta_Love]

I agree that its not unusual for a city to have a jail complex downtown and it makes since that the jail would have been built near the police hq and court house but after ford field and co.pa were built it seemed like the area was moving towards being an entertainment center. It doesn't make since imo now that the public safety center is on the other side of downtown to further consolidate jail facilities in such a desirable area when there is an abundance of undesirable land not far from the core city.

[Docta_Love]

As expected the DDA has greenlit Gilberts plans for the Hudson's site, Edit; Ground breaking April 2017

Detroit greenlights Gilbert plans for Hudson's site
Project is set to break ground in April and finish by spring 2020

By ROBERT SNELL
4-27-16
Crain's Detroit Business

Detroit's Downtown Development Authority on Wednesday approved a deal with Dan Gilbert that could bring a modern, landmark high-rise to the former J.L. Hudson's department store site on Woodward Avenue.

The vote on a development plan amendment was delayed for months as Gilbert negotiated the $15 million purchase of a 900-space parking garage underneath the site. The garage sale also was finalized Wednesday.

The mixed-use high-rise is still being drafted and no renderings were released Wednesday. The project will include 225,000 square feet of mixed-use space — including more than 24 retail shops — 700 parking spaces and 250 residential units.

The plan is to re-create a sense of community along lower Woodward missing since Hudson's closed 33 years ago. The building was demolished in 1998.


http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article...r-hudsons-site

[animatedmartian]

Originally Posted by detroit_alive

Think about the logistics of moving that infrastructure to serve a new site. Think about the people in jail and those visiting them, many of whom may not have cars and rely on transit. I can understand the want to move the undesirable to the periphery, but there are legitimate reasons to have a jail in the city center.

New Center would be a pretty ideal location, possibly south of Grand Boulevard and east of Woodward.

[Docta_Love]

Restoration of the Farwell Building has begun, photo by Joseph Krause for http://HistoricDetroit.org



https://twitter.com/HistoricDET/stat...578176/photo/1

[The North One]

I'm really excited about the Farwell building! It has to be one of the most opulent buildings in downtown.


https://www.pinterest.com/pin/391179917606059552/


http://scotthaefner.com/photos/place...Building/2825/

I hope they restore the chandeliers.

[kcexpress69]

Originally Posted by The North One

I'm really excited about the Farwell building! It has to be one of the most opulent buildings in downtown.


https://www.pinterest.com/pin/391179917606059552/


http://scotthaefner.com/photos/place...Building/2825/

I hope they restore the chandeliers.

Definitely not much to look at from the outside, but quite unique and pretty neat on the inside!!

[Docta_Love]

I was wondering what was going on over at the former Holiday Inn as the new owners say it's in too good of a location to not be a success, i suppose a the same can be said of the metro airport hotel.

Reopening of 2 metro Detroit hotels to offer more meeting space
By SHERRI WELCH
April 30, 2016
Crain's Detroit Business



Nearly 40,000 square feet of meeting space is set to come back on the metro Detroit market this year with the reopening of two long-shuttered hotels.

Renovations are underway at the former Metropolitan Hotel in Romulus, which operated for a time as a Doubletree. The hotel, on Wick Road near I-94, is expected to reopen this summer as the Radisson Hotel Detroit Metro Airport. It will include about 15,000 square feet of flexible meeting space.

Further to the north and east, the former Holiday Inn of Southfield on Telegraph Road, notable for its round tower, is being converted to three hotels with more than 400 rooms. The tower is visible from nearby I-696 and M-10.

The Best Western Premier flag — the first in Michigan — will fly over the tower when it opens late this year or early next year. It will include about 25,000 square feet of banquet, meeting and event space and be the first of three hotels planned for the property.

There is demand for both hotels about to reopen. Romulus and Southfield are two different markets all together, said Michael O'Callaghan, executive vice president and COO of the Detroit Metro Convention & Visitors Bureau.

The first, near the airport, is convenient and targeted for business travelers, while the second is near a large number of automotive and other commercial customers, he said.

"Demand has increased pretty nicely since 2003, yet the ... supply hasn't," O'Callaghan said.

"This is a good way to provide an increase in supply. These are both full-service hotels, and the community needs that product to attract meetings, in particular, and to provide enhanced facilities for social functions."

http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article...-meeting-space

M-1 Rail's Penske Tech Center opens today
$6.9 million facility will serve as M-1 Rail's maintenance, storage, operations nexus for Woodward Avenue line

By BILL SHEA
May 02, 2016
Crain's Detroit Business



The 19,000-square-foot Penske Technical Center that will be the central nervous system of M-1 Rail's QLine streetcar system in Detroit opened Tuesday.

The $6.9 million facility will serve as the maintenance, storage and operations nexus for the 3.3-mile Woodward Avenue line, which is scheduled to begin passenger service in the first half of 2017.

The facility is at the northern terminus of the line at Woodward Avenue and West Grand Boulevard in the New Center neighborhood between Bethune and Custer streets.

http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article...er-opens-today

[Docta_Love]

Here's an update on Lee Plaza closing has been pushed back from December to June 1st, its taken longer than expected to line up various city, state and federal approvals but despite the delays we could see work starting this summer.

Lee Plaza Will Be Redeveloped
We could see 200 market-rate apartments west of New Center in 2018

BY ROBIN RUNYAN
MAY 2, 2016
Detroit Free Press



An ambitious $51-million plan to turn the ravaged and abandoned Lee Plaza tower on Detroit's west side into an oasis of upscale housing is still moving forward, despite months of project delays, the prospective developer said last week.

"We're going to renovate the building and bring it back to luxury," said Craig Sasser, 63, a Detroit native who recently returned to the city from Los Angeles. "Bring it back to being an iconic landmark, with first-class of everything.”

The 17-story high-rise, 2240 W. Grand Blvd., is located about a mile west of New Center in a part of the city that is spotted with empty homes and storefronts and has yet experienced the revitalization energy pulsing through areas of greater downtown. Built in an Italianate Art Deco style, the Lee Plaza opened in 1929 as a luxury residential hotel and closed in the 1990s as low-income senior housing.

....

Sasser's redevelopment plans call for 200 market-rate apartments and construction of a new 300-space parking garage at the tower's rear, as well as a small side-lot park. He estimates that renovating the tower would cost $34 million and building the parking garage and park would cost $17 million.

Once the redeveloped tower opens — perhaps in 2018 — the new apartments would be about 1,000 square feet and asking rents could be $2 per square foot, or $2,000 a month per unit. Those rates would far surpass current rents in the neighborhood and rival prices in some of the newest and trendiest apartment buildings in downtown.

"I believe three years from now, this area will be able to support $2 a square foot," Sasser said. "If not, I have a little fallback room."

The key to making Sasser's vision reality is a major investor — he declined to say who — who wishes to make Lee Plaza a demonstration project for a large residential building that could generate as much energy from renewable sources as it uses. Potential energy sources could include solar panels, wind turbines and geothermal units, he said.

The project could also utilize various historic and energy tax credit programs. Lee Plaza is on the National Register of Historic Places.

....



Sasser has a background in commercial real estate and, in decades past, assisted his mother, the now-retired developer Loretta Sasser Orme, with market research for some of her projects. He has experience restoring single-family homes in Los Angeles, although has never before tackled a development of Lee Plaza's size and complexity.

He said he has the money to close on the property in June. He acknowledged he is still raising funds to secure the property afterward. His company, Moneta Energy, would be purchasing the land.

Sasser estimates that full redevelopment would take about 18 months to compete, with initial months spent clearing out and cleaning up the building.

....

Sasser envisions Lee Plaza as the anchor and the first phase of a two- or three-phase project. The second phase would involve constructing low-to moderate-income senior housing in the neighborhood and veterans housing.

http://www.freep.com/story/money/bus...sing/83669182/

Work on the former Strathmore Hotel looks to be about done and its reopening as high-end apartments is coming soon.

[animatedmartian]

Gilbert's Bedrock, 3 other companies selected for $267-million development of Brewster-Douglass site, Eastern Market
By KIRK PINHO. May 07, 2016.

Dan Gilbert’s Bedrock Management Services LLC and three other companies, including two national real estate developers, are part of a joint venture that has been selected to build a mixed-use development of primarily multifamily housing on about 25 acres of land in Eastern Market and around Brush Park on the site of the former Brewster-Douglass housing projects, the city of Detroit said Saturday.

When all is said and done, the multiple-phase project by Choice Detroit LLC is expected to include 900 to 1,000 units of housing ranging from low-income to market rate and costing approximately $267 million.

In addition to Bedrock, the joint venture includes Columbia, Md.-based Enterprise Communities, a national developer with significant low-income housing experience; as well as KBK Enterprises, which has offices in Columbus, Ohio, and Pittsburgh, Pa. The final company is Novi-based Ginosko Development Co., according to the city.

....

http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article...or-267-million

[Docta_Love]

Not that Dan Gilbert buying a small to medium sized building downtown is really news anymore but i'm honestly surprised he doesn't already own every building along Woodward between 1001 Woodward the David Whitney - Broderick Tower. But hearing news like this also increases my confidence in the Hudson's Block Redevelopment.

Gilbert buys 2 more Woodward buildings north of Hudson's site

Grinnell, Sanders buildings total 83,000 square feet

By KIRK PINHO
May 09, 2016
Crain's Detroit Business



Dan Gilbert has purchased two more buildings along Woodward Avenue in downtown Detroit.

Gilbert, the founder and chairman of Quicken Loans Inc. and Rock Ventures LLC, bought the Grinnell Building and the Sanders Building just north of Clifford Street, a spokeswoman for his Bedrock Real Estate Services LLC confirmed. dBusiness first reported the news Friday.

The seller was Farmington Hills-based Howard Schwartz Commercial Real Estate LLC.

The purchase price was not disclosed.

According to CoStar Group Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based real estate information service, the Grinnell Building has 43,000 square feet. It is currently home to the Henry Ford Health System QuickCare medical clinic, which opened last summer.

....

On the 1500 block of Woodward, Gilbert also owns the buildings at 1505 Woodward, 1520 Woodward, 1528 Woodward and 1550 Woodward.

He owns more than 14 million square feet of space spread across 80 properties like buildings and parking decks, largely in and around downtown.

http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article...f-hudsons-site

[animatedmartian]

Big Eastern Market expansion plans in the works
John Gallagher, Detroit Free Press. May 16, 2016.



Detroit’s Eastern Market, already a hub of the regional food economy, is mapping plans to expand in ways that could create up to 3,000 new food-related jobs and prompt up to $300 million in new food-related business expansions in coming years.

If carried out in full, the 10-year plan would supercharge Detroit's growing local food movement and help dozens of tiny start-up food businesses grow to maturity.

....



The market and the city have four main projects in planning stages. Among those

• Conversion of a vacant 104,000-square-foot structure formerly used by the Detroit Water & Sewerage Department into a Detroit Regional Food Accelerator. The space would be leased to start-up food entrepreneurs to develop their businesses. A fully equipped commercial kitchen would be available. This project would cost from $7 million to $12 million. “It’s the next step in our developing of a supportive infrastructure to grow value-added food makers," Carmody said.
  
  
• The Food Innovation Zone would see multiple new buildings built to the north and northeast of the current market, adding 100 to 150 acres of the market footprint. Food manufacturers currently doing business either in the market or outside the city could build or lease space in this zone. The expansion would be done in accord with sustainable development practices that include open green spaces, walking and bicycle lanes and storm water management practices. The cost would vary depending on what actually gets built.
  
  
• The market's Shed 4, now an open-air facility, would become an enclosed market hall with up to 60 mixed-income residences built atop it. The project would densify the market core and provide new revenue to support the market. The Shed 4 project could cost $10 million to $15 million.
  
  
• The Market Garden, a three-acre site operating on Orleans Street between Erskine and Wilkins, was created by the Greening of Detroit with a $1-million grant from the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan. Urban farmers grow fresh produce, flowers, and herbs there, with products sold to area restaurants and donated to local food banks. Plans call for the activities there to be continued and possibly expanded.

....

http://www.freep.com/story/money/bus...food/84287234/

[The North One]

JPMorgan Chase talks housing, jobs efforts in Detroit



Financial giant JPMorgan Chase says it’s making new investments as part of its earlier $100 million commitment to Detroit’s economic recovery.

The banking company said Wednesday the initiatives include $4 million for preserving affordable housing in neighborhoods through the nonprofit Develop Detroit; $1.5 million to strengthen job training and summer youth employment; and other efforts to support small business growth.

Develop Detroit will work to preserve existing affordable homes and build new, inclusive mixed-use housing projects, including initial investments in more than 400 housing units.

RELATED STORY: Chase's Jamie Dimon hails Detroit's recovery

JPMorgan Chase also says it’s marking the second anniversary of its Detroit investment by sponsoring Detroit Startup Week, a week of free activities to support area entrepreneurs. And more top managers plan to visit the city in June and October to help nonprofits.

http://www.freep.com/story/news/loca...roit/84541624/

[animatedmartian]

There's a number of different non-profits doing developments like this in various parts of the city, though this is the first time I've seen the 'tiny homes' concept applied to it. I'm sure the images are just general ideas, but that's pretty neat if they actually end up being architecturally interesting homes.

Also, if I remember correctly, this same group renovated the apartment building that's on the corner there. Pretty positive stuff in an overlooked nook of the city.

Tiny home project aims to stabilize neighborhood, house Detroit homeless
By Ian Thibodeau. Mlive. May 18, 2016



The targeted blocks are just two of many empty swaths of land in Detroit, but Rev. Faith Fowler and Cass Community Social Services are gearing up to build around 20 tiny homes on the city's northwest side.

The homes will house Detroit homeless people.

In a video published Tuesday, Fowler touches on a few key points of the project, which has been planned for some time.

Fowler said in an email that 24 houses are planned for a two block area north of the community center's campus at Woodrow Wilson and Elmhurst Streets in the Dexter-Linwood neighborhood.

The homes will be finished by the end of the summer.

Once finished, they will be rented out to people who will "earn the property."

....

Video Link

http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/in...s_to_chan.html

[The North One]

I'm not sure why but it seems the new Statler city project was never posted here.


http://www.villagegreen.com/developm...ion-renovation

[animatedmartian]

Originally Posted by The North One

I'm not sure why but it seems the new Statler city project was never posted here.


http://www.villagegreen.com/developm...ion-renovation

That is a significantly better redesign over the original announcement design. Still would be nice if it was taller though.

[mousquet]

^ That's a complete waste of an obviously significant lot, though. Maybe they should wait for another couple of years before planning anything there, so they can afford to pick something more ambitious. Or perhaps they really have to waste some lots like this to build bigger things later on.

[mousquet]

This was posted to SSC.

Originally Posted by freep.com

Duggan sees positive in Detroit population loss

Detroit's long population decline slowed to its lowest pace in decades last year and some experts say next year's numbers could show the first signs of growth since the 1950s.

The Census Bureau's estimate from July 1, 2015, listed the city’s population at 677,116, a 0.5% decrease, or a loss of 3,107 residents from the same date the previous year. The decline between 2013 and 2014 was 1.4% — a loss of 9,727 residents.

Mayor Mike Duggan cheered the news and noted that positive trends have continued but aren't yet included in Census estimates.

"I'm very confident that the city of Detroit is growing now and that will be reflected in the next report," Duggan said. "People aren't moving out at anywhere near the rate they were. They are choosing to stay. We're at a historic tipping point."

Duggan said his goal of reversing population declines by the end of his first term is within reach.

[...]

http://www.freep.com/story/news/loca...nsus/84546630/

I'm kind of fed up with the load of bitchy cynical misinformation about some so-called American decline or decadence over here, and all the noise about outrageous inequality and poverty rates over there, things like those. It's been pretty unhealthy to my own place, I think. To be honest, I'm not even sure the US poverty rate would be worse than France's. So it'd be better to see people move back in indeed, to stop misinformation once and for all.