Downtown Historic Movie Palace Tour Part 1

Preservation Wayne conducted their largest annual tour on August 18th, their Downtown Historic Movie Palace Tour. Here is a glimpse at the remains of the lobby to the Oriental Theater. The Oriental Theater was located on West Adams Ave. It was the only atmospheric theater ever be built in Downtown Detroit. The Auditorium was demolished in 1953 but the attached building where the lobby was located still exists today as the Park Apartments building.



Water Winter Wonderland has some additional, earlier photos of the lobby.

Ilitch Blocker Redux

If you recall, this past spring I speculated that demolition and reconstruction of the CC Bar was an effort by the owners to inflate the value of the property in order to extort more money from Olympia Development. Olympia has been buying more land behind the Fox Theater causing widespread speculation that this is to be the location of a new arena for the Red Wings.

I stopped by today to see if any progress had been made on the bar as work papered to have stalled over the summer. Far from there being any progress, the bar seems to be in a state of deconstruction once again.

While a new expiration date for the Red Wings lease at Joe Louis Arena has been determined, I am left once again to speculate. Have the owners finally sold out to Ilitch, or did the building inspectors determine some flaw in the construction that is forcing the builders to start from scratch?

CC Bar Pre- Demolition

Reconstruction May 2007

Demolished once again August 2007

May 2007

August 2007

While the City Sleeps

Ghost Ship

Ghost Ship, originally uploaded by A Dubs.

River Days

River Days, originally uploaded by A Dubs.

Rudy in the D

Rudy in the D, originally uploaded by A Dubs.

Not Quite Ready (Update)

Work continues on Rivard Plaza. Will it be completed in time for River Days?



Rivard Plaza held it's soft opening last Wednesday. By all accounts it has been a huge success. The Plaza is beautiful and there was plenty of traffic between Rivard and Hart Plaza on Saturday. I can only imagine what it will be like once the @water and Water Mark projects have been completed. Hopefully, retail and restaurants won't be far too behind.

Mid-Med Lofts Update

The exterior work is almost done on the Mid-Med Lofts conversion. They've come a long way.

Setting the Foundations

Foundation work has begun on Brush Park Village North.

Ilitch Blocker

The owner of the CC Bar appears to be ready to cash in on the speculation related to the rumors that a new Red Wings arena will be built behind the Fox Theater. Mike Ilitch owns the majority of the vacant land West of Park Avenue with a few exceptions. With the demolition of the Hotel Vermont and Olympia Developments' involvement in other land acquisition in the area it appears that something is in the works.

The CC Bar was completely demolished except for two exterior walls prior to the new construction seen below.

So question is why rebuild almost completely from the ground up on a site that is almost certainly within the footprint of a new arena? Is the intention to rake in the cash from the foot traffic created by a new arena, or is the idea to put up some cheap construction in order to raise the property value in advance of an impending land grab? Either way it appears that the owners are trying to stick it to Mr. Mike.

Dark Tower

***UPDATE***

Northeast Commercial Services Corp., a real estate manager and developer, filed for Chapter 11 protection on May 24th. The company has been redeveloping the Book Building and the Book Tower.

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APRIL 5th 2007

It has been reported that DTE cut of power to the Book Tower on Thursday due to non payment of bills over a lengthy period of time. Apparently, a notice was posted by DTE in February and nothing happened.

Building management notified tenants Wednesday afternoon that there would be a three-day power outage. The New York City-based Pagan Organization purchased the historic building from the former local owner, Susan Lambrecht in the summer of 2006 with the intention of renovating the 36 story building and converting the top ten floors into condos.

Generators were brought in to power the elevators, but the rest of the building is without power.