What's Gilbert Buying?

Bedrock Real Estate is at it again. Detroit booster Dan Gilbert has purchased a large portion of the east side of Broadway between Grand River and Gratiot. With the purchase of these three early 20th century buildings, Gilbert has added nearly 27,000 square feet to his downtown empire.

1332 Broadway (Display Creations Building) in 2005

1332 Broadway (1919), 1326 Broadway (1904), 1322 Broadway (1922) today

Place Promo shows Broadway as it looked in 1976:

1332 Broadway

1326 Broadway

1322 Broadway

Another Building in TechTown to Get the Loft Treatment

HD Developments of Florida has announced that this warehouse on the corner of 2nd and York will be getting the loft treatment just as soon as it can get its final financing in place.

"Yorke Lofts" will consist of 42 studio and one-bedroom units and a rooftop garden. The two smaller buildings next door will be part of the development as well. One building will continue to serve as a parking garage while the other will provide room for retail spaces.

Temple Hotel

The Temple Hotel was demolished in May of 2014 to make room for the expansion of a DTE substation that will supply power to the new Detroit Red Wings arena that will be built nearby.

 (February, 2005)

(May, 2014)

 (October, 2013)

(May, 2014)

(May, 2014)

From Barbershop to Burger Joint

 (September, 2004)

(May, 2014)

Second floor bar and seating area

Here's the Steeple

It appears as though the Mother of Divine Mercy Parish's "Save Our Steeples" campaign has been a success.  Rather than removing St. Josaphat's damaged central steeple and capping the tower with a new roof, work began earlier this spring to restore the 200 foot structure and clad its exterior with new slate.

Notice

Waumbek Apartments (October, 2004)

Capitol Park on the Rise

Things are looking up for Capitol Park as renovation work picks up in one of downtown Detroit's oldest districts. Bedrock Real Estate are the ones responsible for kicking up the dust.

Work was already underway to renovate the Bamlet Building (1897) when Bedrock announced this week that it had acquired two additional buildings and a surface lot in Capital Park.

With the purchase of the Church Building (1895) at 45 W. Grand River Avenue and the six-story building at 119 State Street (1887), Bedrock now controls nearly 92,000 square feet of space within the district.

No announcement was made for the development of the 4,000 square foot lot next to The Grind strip club at 28 West Grand River Avenue, but Opportunity Detroit's Placemaking and Retail Vision suggests a residential/retail building at that location.

An earlier renovation of the Bamlet Building (September, 2004)

The Bamlet Building (May, 2014)

 The Bamlet Building (right) next to the Farwell Building (October, 2013)

The Bamlet Building (May, 2014)

The Church Building (September, 2004)

The Church Building (March, 2009)

119 State Street (May, 2014)

28 West Grand River Avenue (May, 2014)

Lawrence Technical University Has Designs on Midtown

The corner of Willis and Woodward has come alive as crews have begun excavating the future site of Lawrence Technical University's Detroit Center for Design + Technology.

The 30,000 square foot building will house LTU's Detroit Studio, along with Evans Architects Inc, DetroitSHOP, Studio Couture and Invest Detroit.  The facility is being constructed on the site of long since demolished Greystone Ballroom.

Construction Pace Quickening at Corktown Site

Well, we now know what the webcam that had been documenting the construction of The Z has been focusing on since the completion of that 10-story parking garage.  It turns out that the camera has been relocated to a lofty position in Corktown overlooking the construction of Dan Gilbert's new 66,000-square-foot data center and office complex.

Half of the building located at Rosa Parks and Porter Street will be used to house data servers and technology staff for Quicken Loans. The remainder of the office space, along with a portion of the server capacity, will be available for lease.

Work is scheduled to be be completed by January of 2015.

 

Brush Park Deletions

As we noted back in July of 2013, when the city of Detroit filed for bankruptcy, it listed several city properties that pose an "Imminent and identifiable harm to the public health or safety." That list contained a number of properties within Brush Park that were scheduled to be demolished.

It appears that the city has remained true to its word. The Angela and another unnamed apartment building at the corner of Winder and Beaubiean have already been demolish.

 The Angela - July, 2013

 The Angela - May, 2014

February, 2009

May, 2014

Clean up work has also started on Patterson Terrace. However, it remains to be seen if this is prep work for another demolition or the beginning of a renovation.

The city only owns of one the seven units in Patterson Terrace and it is neither of the units they claimed on their 2013 filing. Almass Downtown Real Estate owns three units and Elana McKinney owns the remaining three. Almass has applied to purchase the city owned unit, but neither Almass nor Mckinney have filed a request to remove the building from the emergency demo list. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out.

Patterson Terrace - July, 2013 

Patterson Terrace - April 2014

Rubble

Demolition came swift for the remains of First Unitarian Church of Detroit.

Deconstructing Detroit: Bates Garage

May, 2013

October, 2013

April, 2014

First Unitarian Church Destroyed by Fire

First Unitarian Church on Woodward in Midtown was originally built in 1890,  and partially redesigned for the widening of Woodward in the mid-1930s. Passing hands through multiple denominations after the Unitarians left it for a new home on Cass in the late 1930s, its sanctuary remained largely in-tact until it was hit by several fires in the 2000s.  It has been abandoned for some time and on the morning of  May 10, 2014 it was completely destroyed by a fire.

Pewabic Pottery

The Pewabic Pottery Company was founded in 1904 by Mary Chase Perry, one of the leaders of the city's turn-of-the-century Arts and Crafts movement.Three years later, she attained a beautiful building on Jefferson Avenue to house the new company, designed by her good friend who would later become her husband, architect William B Stratton. The cozy look both inside and out provided the right atmosphere for a small-scale handicraft industry. The building today is a National Historic Landmark. A countless number of the city's most prestigious homes and buildings include Pewabic tiles, among them the Guardian Building and the Detroit Institute of Arts.

The Griswold 3.0

The Roxbury Group is finally moving ahead with plans it first developed in 2007 to build housing above a city owned parking garage constructed for the renovated Book Cadillac Hotel.

The Detroit Commerce Building was demolished in 2007 to make way for a garage/condo development on the site. However, due to the economic crisis that year, only the garage was built.

The project has undergone some changes over that time. Now, Instead of condos, $22 million will be spent constructing 80 apartments in a less aesthetically pleasing style.

2014 Rendering (Click on Detroit)

Heidelberg Project Minus Nine

The Party Animal house was the ninth Heidelberg Project home to be set ablaze over the past 11 months when it burned to the ground on the morning of March 7.

James Scott Mansion up for Condo Conversion

According to MLive work could begin this summer on a $7 million rehab of the 137 year old James Scott Mansion on Peterboro.  Developer Joel Landry has secured $2.6 million in state historic and brownfield redevelopment tax credits to turn the Richardsonian Romanesque home into 25 condos.

Cass Corridor Construction

The Cass Corridor Neighborhood Development Corp has started rehabilitating two long neglected buildings in Detroit's Cass Corridor.

The corner of Cass and MLK will see $17 million dedicated to the transformation of the Cass Plaza (Naomi Apartments 1924) and the Davenport Apartments (1905) into 47 affordable-income units. These two buildings, along with the Aderna Court Apartments and the Chesterfield Apartments make up the Cass-Davenport Historic District.

Cass Plaza

Cass Plaza

The Davenport Apartments stand in the shadow of Cass Plaza