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  #2341  
Old Posted Jan 28, 2014, 2:58 AM
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I get the feeling that this is the sort of situation Dan Gilbert would just love to capitalize on. If he makes the Hudson project majority residential and with a good number of units, no doubt it'd get filled in an instant. And if it does get filled, he'll just build another one until demand matches supply. He'll be able to shuffle in all the workers of companies that he brings into downtown with incentives and whatnot.

Plus Mayor Duggan just announced plans to lower property taxes by 5% to 20% depending on the neighborhood. Stable areas are more likely to see a smaller cut than vacant areas, but it's all good nonetheless.
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  #2342  
Old Posted Jan 28, 2014, 4:01 PM
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If anyone doesn't mind the drive (and even less retail options than what you'd get downtown aside from the Meijers down the street), you should be glad to know Palmer Park is going through a quiet revival. A nice second option while downtown is going through high rents.

Quote:
Palmer Park's turnaround and neighborhood revival
MATTHEW PIPER | TUESDAY, JANUARY 28, 2014



.....

Between 2007 and 2012, Kathy and Mark's Shelbourne Development purchased a total of 14 apartment buildings in Palmer Park, with the intent to breathe new life into the neighborhood and restore its historic grandeur through redevelopment. Of the 14, six were completely vacant at the time of purchase and eight had very low occupancy.

When I ask her why she and her husband have invested so much in the Palmer Park apartment district, Makino-Leipsitz replies, "How can you not fall in love with that area? Each building's a work of art. That district is one of the few in the nation, if not the only one, where you can see so many distinct styles of apartment buildings in one place."

Renovation work is complete in seven of Shelbourne's Palmer Park buildings; of those, four have people living in them, one has people moving in, and two will be ready for move-in in early February.

Kathy and Mark financed the purchase and redevelopment of the buildings -- and weathered the recession -- through a complex assortment of financial tools, including historic tax credits, federal stimulus funding, and low-income/affordable housing tax credits. As a result of the latter, 80 percent of the renovated apartments will be designated affordable housing, giving low-income Detroiters the opportunity to live in updated apartments inside beautiful, well-preserved historic shells.

.....

Rochelle Lento is on the board of People for Palmer Park, the citizen-driven nonprofit organization that assumed operational control of the park in 2011, in the wake of its threatened closure.

At the time, the city's General Services Department staff had been drastically reduced, prompting it to announce the closure of 77 city parks. Led by Palmer Park's tennis players, a diverse group banded together to protest the closure, eventually forming People for Palmer Park, an organization dedicated to the park's rejuvenation and sustained vitality.

Their efforts in recent years have been remarkable, including clearing miles of trails, pruning trees to enhance visibility through the park, opening Thomas and Lizzie Palmer's log cabin to visitors for the first time in decades, planting apple trees, managing a large-scale composting effort, and, in August 2013, installing a brand-new splash park for kids. (1,200 people attended the grand opening.) People for Palmer Park has hosted harvest festivals, tennis lessons for both kids and adults, yoga and t'ai chi classes, and once-a-week bike rides through the park. They're getting ready for WinterFest this coming Sunday, which will include a doggie fashion parade (that's right), as well as skiing, snow-shoeing, ice skating, and horse and carriage rides.

And they honor the neighboring apartment district with an annual fall walking tour that gets more and more popular every year (200 people attended in 2011, 400 in 2012, and 600 in 2013).

Together, the ongoing revitalization of the park and rehabilitation of the apartment buildings are utterly transforming Palmer Park, turning it into a vibrant center of community activity and local pride where one constructive effort uplifts another.

"One of the things we just decided we're going to do," Kathy Makino-Leipsitz tells me, "is to buy everyone who moves into one of our buildings membership in People for Palmer Park. What they're doing is such a complement to what we're doing, and the more we can do to get the residents involved in the whole community, the better off we're all going to be."







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  #2343  
Old Posted Jan 28, 2014, 5:28 PM
subterranean subterranean is offline
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That far north, you're better off going into Ferndale/Royal Oak for your retail/shopping.
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  #2344  
Old Posted Jan 29, 2014, 8:10 AM
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I was about to say that the retail situation up there really isn't that bad. It's certainly more everyday shopping than anywhere you'd find in the inner-city. I know that a lot of folks in the westside of the city end up shopping along 8 Mile in or near Southfield, Oak Park of Ferndale for their everyday needs. Places like Palmer Park don't compete with downtown, anyway. This is the out-city, which again is more comparable to neighborhoods in neighboring cities.
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  #2345  
Old Posted Jan 30, 2014, 5:52 PM
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The massing doesn't really fill the site like Staler did, but it has nice height and hotel at least faces GCP. There is a podium but would the hotel be better if it lined the streetwall of GCP?

Quote:
Boutique hotel development planned for former Statler Hilton site in Detroit
By Kirk Pinho. January 30, 2014.



A group of Michigan and out-of-state investors plans a new development with a 118-room boutique hotel, 150 high-rise residences, a Miller Parking Services parking garage with at least 700 spaces and three restaurants on the site of the former Statler Hilton Hotel on Grand Circus Park.

A $1.5 million purchase offer and $100,000 deposit for the site on Washington Boulevard has been presented to the office of Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, the Downtown Development Authority and the Detroit Economic Growth Corp., according to a news release.

The Downtown Detroit Executive Hotel Complex development group expects the project, dubbed the Fitzgerald Place, to be complete by the third quarter of 2015.

According to the news release, the owners of the 34-story Broderick Tower at 10 Witherell St. are included in the investment group. However, Mike Higgins, owner representative for the Broderick Tower, told Crain's he is not involved in the project.

The group has sole Detroit market rights for the San Francisco-based Commune Hotels & Resorts Inc. brand of hotels, which includes Thompson Hotels and Tommie Hotels.

The first Luca's Chophouse in Detroit is expected at the Fitzgerald Place development, according to the release. Gillespie's jazz bar and the Blues Note club are expected, as well. There also would be a Grant Street Cleaner's, the company's second in Detroit, according to the release.

An attorney representing the development group and one of the developers, William McCrary of Tennessee, could not be reached for comment.

The Statler Hilton was razed in 2005 ahead of the 2006 Super Bowl.
http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20140130/NEWS/140139978/boutique-hotel-development-planned-for-former-statler-hilton-site-in

Last edited by animatedmartian; Jan 30, 2014 at 9:03 PM. Reason: different news source
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  #2346  
Old Posted Jan 30, 2014, 11:49 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by animatedmartian View Post
The massing doesn't really fill the site like Staler did, but it has nice height and hotel at least faces GCP. There is a podium but would the hotel be better if it lined the streetwall of GCP?



http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article...hilton-site-in

It's hard to imagine what this might look like with such a rudimentary sketch-up. The site plan with its weird three-pronged massing looks like a misshapen plug for a 220v outlet.

I know it's early, but they didn't even get the orientation of the two larger (orange) towers correct. Half of the upper left tower faces an existing building. And at least if it were to be oriented along Washington, the street wall would be much more attractive than the parking garage.

Couldn't this be a liner building with parking in the center? I'd rather see a uniform structure on this block with the parking completely hidden. This looks like a 3rd grader put it together.

Hopefully those in charge of the site aren't so desperate as to not have some design input.
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  #2347  
Old Posted Jan 31, 2014, 12:22 AM
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I agree with both of you. It sounds like an exciting project, but the building should be oriented with a straight-up streetwall fronting GCP and Washington Blvd at least.

On a similar note: does Detroit really need another boutique hotel downtown? I'm not sure on the answer, but it seems as though there have been a lot of boutique hotel proposals popping-up lately...
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  #2348  
Old Posted Jan 31, 2014, 12:36 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by subterranean View Post
It's hard to imagine what this might look like with such a rudimentary sketch-up. The site plan with its weird three-pronged massing looks like a misshapen plug for a 220v outlet.

I know it's early, but they didn't even get the orientation of the two larger (orange) towers correct. Half of the upper left tower faces an existing building. And at least if it were to be oriented along Washington, the street wall would be much more attractive than the parking garage.

Couldn't this be a liner building with parking in the center? I'd rather see a uniform structure on this block with the parking completely hidden. This looks like a 3rd grader put it together.

Hopefully those in charge of the site aren't so desperate as to not have some design input.
I figured it was set up like that to maximize views for each tower. If the tower on Washington is set up along the streetwall, the residents on the west side of the building would basically just have a view into the other tower. Better views make better sales, no?

But yea, originally I was expecting a linear building as well. Hopefully lining the streetwall on all sides similar to Statler. Though I'm much less concerned about a hidden parking garage since pretty much every residential high rise and Detroit doesn't have a hidden parking garage.

Last edited by animatedmartian; Jan 31, 2014 at 1:09 AM.
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  #2349  
Old Posted Jan 31, 2014, 1:04 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jonathan.jam View Post
I agree with both of you. It sounds like an exciting project, but the building should be oriented with a straight-up streetwall fronting GCP and Washington Blvd at least.

On a similar note: does Detroit really need another boutique hotel downtown? I'm not sure on the answer, but it seems as though there have been a lot of boutique hotel proposals popping-up lately...
With this proposal included, there's a possible 3 boutique hotels on the way for downtown; one being the David Whitney renovations, one being the former fire department HQ across from Cobo Hall, and now Fitzgerald Place. One that's already recently opened is the Crowne Plaza across from Cobo.

It is kind of iffy territory. Hotel occupancy rates and prices haven't exactly skyrocketed or anything but if you take into account falling office vacancy rates and possibly increased business and convention activity for downtown in the coming years, it's not exactly a bad thing to have as many possible hotels as there are now. I don't think it'd be severe over-saturation unless there were proposals for several more hotels downtown or something. Hard to know until a report comes out about it.
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  #2350  
Old Posted Jan 31, 2014, 8:29 AM
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With Detroit being as tough a market as it is, I don't think these developers would be proposing these hotels if they didn't believe there to be a market. I'm not at all convinced there is an oversaturation, and if you're going to make hotels work in downtown Detroit at this point, boutique is the best way the go. Were Marriott or Westin or (insert other huge brand) was proposing something, I'd be a bit skeptical. But, I think this isn't a sign of reaching saturation as it is that things are finally beginning to snowball and create its own demand. It doesn't feel like we're reaching the end of anything; it feels like we're just reaching the beginning of something legit. I think hotel developers are picking up on the fact that Cobo's booking is booming, and more important, that's it's not a fluke, but a direct result of the renovation and expansion.

But, yeah, the massing of Fitzgerald Place is just plain weird. I'll just chalk this up to being extremely preimilary, though.
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Last edited by LMich; Jan 31, 2014 at 9:29 AM.
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  #2351  
Old Posted Jan 31, 2014, 9:04 AM
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Originally Posted by LMich View Post
But, yeah, the massing of Fitzgerald Place is just plain weird. I'll just chalk this up to being extremely preimilary, though.
Though the construction time seems pretty quick. I mean, wouldn't they have to break ground this weekend to meet a 3rd quarter 2015 timeline? Financing already done? Permits and whatnot? Then again, there's already confirmed retailers so I guess they really are ready to break ground once approved. With that in mind, that does make me wonder just how 'preliminary' this sketch is.

The design might already be finalized, but then again it could still be an early draft than they just put out for whatever purpose. I don't man, doesn't add up.
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  #2352  
Old Posted Jan 31, 2014, 9:32 AM
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Having come out of nowhere, completely, it does seem kind of shady. It's also kind of weird that Crain's is reporting that their press release states they delivered the deposit for the site directly to the mayor's office, which does not at all sound like the normal process of development. This stuff doesn't go through Mike's office, at least not this early in the process. lol
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  #2353  
Old Posted Jan 31, 2014, 9:51 AM
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Checked out Detnews and reported that they worked four years on it and that it's "too soon to determine the project's fate" which is what I had assumed was the case. Though nonetheless amazing that it's been a secret for so long.

Originally the article was similar to Crain's so some of that information only came out within the day. But I breathe a sign of relief at least feeling that the rough model is only preliminary. But if it's a good rendering then I'd be glad if they complete it by 2015.
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  #2354  
Old Posted Jan 31, 2014, 7:37 PM
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Gentrification Downtown and more residential coming to Midtown.

Quote:
More Capitol Park Residents Receive Eviction Notices
Friday, January 31, 2014, by Paul Beshouri



Just a few months after Bedrock Real Estate Services was declared the new building manager at 1215-1217 Griswold, residents are being told to hit the road. According to a tipster, residents recently received eviction notices describing "issues with the fire marshall," before issuing a move-out deadline of February 28.



Just across the park, the thousands of senior citizens inside the Griswold Building are facing the same headwinds of gentrification. Purchased by a development company in early 2013, the Griswold Building is already renovating into market rate apartments. The remaining seniors must be out by the end of March.
Quote:
New Apt. Building Might Replace Crumbling Midtown Ruin
Friday, January 31, 2014, by Paul Beshouri







An old apartment building on Selden Street might soon face demolition. The Historic District Commission recently approved an application from Ferlito Construction to demolish 438 Selden, which has been abandoned since the 1980s. At Wednesday's HDC hearing, Ferlito told commissioners that approving the demolition would allow the company to purchase the property from the city of Detroit. The plan: rip down 438 Selden early next summer to begin construction on a new residential building.

Several dominos need to fall before those plans are finalized, but Ferlito's early designs call for a smaller residential building of market-rate lofts, with an open parking area on the ground floor (like we see at the Auburn Building). New residential construction is just what Midtown needs. One that avoids another surface lot is a double bonus. The new building would likely finish up in mid-to-late 2015. Ferlito Construction is the company behind the new Anytime Fitness, as well as the Bamboo Detroit coworking space.
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  #2355  
Old Posted Jan 31, 2014, 10:04 PM
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OMG they must be crammed into that building if there are thousands of seniors.
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  #2356  
Old Posted Jan 31, 2014, 10:59 PM
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Quote:
DEGC: Proposed boutique hotel project at Grand Circus Park 'not realistic'
By Kirk Pinho. January 31, 2014.

A spokesman for the Detroit Economic Growth Corp. said Friday that a proposed development for the former site of the Statler Hilton Hotel on Grand Circus Park had “serious deficiencies” and was rejected by DEGC staff.

Bob Rossbach said he did not know when the proposal to build a 118-room boutique hotel, a 700-space Miller’s Parking Services garage, 150 high-rise residences and three restaurants was rejected, but it was “some time ago.”

Crain’s reported Thursday that a group of Michigan and out-of-state investors had plans for the project and that a $1.5 million purchase offer and $100,000 deposit had been made for the site and presented to the office of Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, the Downtown Development Authority and the DEGC.

But Rossbach said Friday that the developers did not present a viable business plan. The plan included revenue and expense projections that were “not realistic,” Rossbach said. He would not elaborate.

William McCrary, the president and vice principal of the Downtown Detroit Executive Hotel Complex development group, said Friday that there was never a formal request for approval to the DEGC.

“It was never a rejection because it was never an official request,” he said. “There was never an official request with any entities.”

McCrary, who sent a press release on Wednesday night about the development, declined to reveal the cost of the project.

He said he will continue to try to purchase the Grand Circus Park land from the city. However, Rossbach said that in general, the city would only sell the land to the development group if it had a positive recommendation on the project from the DEGC.

The DEGC continues to consider alternative proposals for the site, which is owned by the city of Detroit, according to Rossbach.

...
By the way, this might be a relevant time to mention that George Jackson is resigning from the DEGC this March. Not that he has anything to do with this story, but relevant to the entity.

Last edited by animatedmartian; Feb 1, 2014 at 5:19 AM.
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  #2357  
Old Posted Feb 3, 2014, 9:39 AM
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The next hotspot along Woodward could possibly be Highland Park. I can only imagine good things if Highland Park were able to reverse its decline.

Quote:
A city 'ready to rise': With state control looming, Highland Park sees signs of hope
February 02, 2014. By Gary Anglebrandt.


Mark Hackshaw, chairman of Highland Park's Tax Increment Finance Authority, said the TIFA will be issuing requests for proposals on TIFA-owned sites on Woodward Avenue, such as the vacant Highland Appliance store.


.....

Mark Hackshaw, president of the Highland Park Business Association and chairman of the city's Tax Increment Finance Authority, said real estate sites like the vacant store on Woodward Avenue have built-in value, namely, their location off a major regional artery.

"It's Main Street USA," he said.

The authority purchased the Highland Appliance property last fall, and the TIFA also now owns the old city hall, fire station and other properties on or near Woodward and is preparing request for proposals for them. The idea is to attract businesses such as restaurants, bars and entertainment venues.

The city has plenty of retail; it now needs these kinds of quality-of-life businesses, Hackshaw said.

"You're not going to be able to go downtown without stopping somewhere in Highland Park," he said.

Conversations with other people in the local business community reveal optimism like Hackshaw's — more than might be expected from a city that just emerged from financial management in 2009, a status it had since 2001.

No one glosses over Highland Park's problems. But they say there's more going on than people realize.

"You never like to hear that your city is going to be under control of a financial manager. But ... with all the negative that's been in Highland Park for so many years with arson and fires and businesses leaving, I gotta tell you I'm optimistic," said Nick Becharas, president of Becharas Brothers Coffee Co., a coffee roaster that's been in business for 100 years and in Highland Park since 1961.

"There's business here," he said. "It might not be as evident as what Dan Gilbert is doing downtown because there's no real destination point here in Highland Park. But there's business in the city."

....
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  #2358  
Old Posted Feb 3, 2014, 9:49 AM
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I didn't even know HP had a TIFA, and I'm surprised with a city with basically no tax base left that there is enough to do anything, really. I do wish HP luck, but it's one of the few places I have very little hope for - at least surviving as an independent city. HP is about to go back into emergency management.

It'll always have some value being on Woodward, but I don't see the point of it having a government, anymore. It's weird that HP is basically the only city that would probably be better off merged with a bankrupt Detroit, because it at least then have access to the city's economic development expertise.

I wish that at least the streetcar would have been stretched up to it for economic development purposes. The BRT is going to great for moving HPers, but I don't expect a lot of spin-off development from it.
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  #2359  
Old Posted Feb 3, 2014, 1:10 PM
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There are smaller suburbs in Metro Detroit that are still independent, I think HP can pull it off.
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  #2360  
Old Posted Feb 3, 2014, 1:53 PM
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I'm hopeful that Highland Park ain't goin' nowhere. There are ongoing multifamily rehabs assisted by the state housing authority along the Woodward corridor. If the city could continue to bring back that density and fan out with new development atop the demolished/land banked properties, this could put HP into (slow) growth territory since they've already dropped so low. However, population estimates show that their decline has pretty much bottomed out.
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