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Originally Posted by ardecila
^ Sounds about right. Surprising that Detroit developers are embracing underground parking like that. In Chicago, our high water table and garbage swampy soil makes underground construction too expensive for neighborhood-scale buildings. I always assumed Detroit as another flat (ish) Great Lakes city would have similar issues, but maybe not.
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Not to the point where it's cost-prohibitive like in Chicago. I at least know in some suburbs, you can find subdivisions with houses built with sump pumps or otherwise deal with semi-frequent flooding during the summer. However it's more of a nuisance rather than a detriment to development.
There's a number of downtown buildings with underground parking, but since space has never really been an issue during the middle part of the century (and even still today on the fringe of the core), it's still cheaper to stick with above ground garages. Nowadays, underground parking is really only used if space is super limited and other design needs take priority.