USA Sprawl Festival continued: Detroit [Archive]

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James Bond Agent 007

Dec 11, 2006, 7:18 AM

Link to the first thread in this series.
USA Sprawl Festival (http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=112959)

Or, click on the following links to see just individual cities in that thread:

Kansas City (http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showpost.php?p=2240987&postcount=1)
Some northern Denver suburbs (http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showpost.php?p=2241038&postcount=3)
Albuquerque (http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showpost.php?p=2241043&postcount=4)
Seattle (http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showpost.php?p=2241046&postcount=6)
Las Vegas (http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showpost.php?p=2241049&postcount=7)
Dallas-Fort Worth (http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showpost.php?p=2241120&postcount=15)
Some western & southern Minneapolis suburbs (http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showpost.php?p=2241150&postcount=16)
Orange County, California (http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showpost.php?p=2242458&postcount=33)
Philadelphia (http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showpost.php?p=2243795&postcount=39)
Tucson (http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showpost.php?p=2244020&postcount=40)
Orlando (http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showpost.php?p=2246260&postcount=54)
Northern Virginia/DC (http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showpost.php?p=2248127&postcount=77)
Cleveland (http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showpost.php?p=2248415&postcount=79)
Houston (http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showpost.php?p=2250662&postcount=126)
Atlanta (http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showpost.php?p=2252845&postcount=148)
Indianapolis (http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showpost.php?p=2255900&postcount=169)
Long Island, New York (http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showpost.php?p=2258869&postcount=186)
Jacksonville (http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showpost.php?p=2262283&postcount=188)
Boston (http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showpost.php?p=2288881&postcount=198)

And the 2nd round ones:

Phoenix-East (http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=115970)
Phoenix-South (http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=115974)
Phoenix-North (http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=115972)
Phoenix-West (http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=115971)
Portland (http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=116211)
Silicon Valley (http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?p=2342500)
Los Angeles (http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=116366)
San Bernardino County (http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=116460)
San Diego - south (http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=116473)
San Diego - north (http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=116668)
Buffalo (http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?p=2364201)
Broward County, Florida (http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=117116)
Dallas-Fort Worth II (http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=117213)
Riverside County, California (http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=117511)
Denver - south suburbs (http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=118325)
Orange County II (http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=118331)
Bergen and Passaic Counties, New Jersey (http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=118454)
Milwaukee (http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=119705)
Columbus (http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?p=2491318)
El Paso, with some Juarez (http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=121264)
San Antonio (http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=121358)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

DETROIT

Windows Live Local only had suburban Detroit coverage starting roughly at Novi and Farmington Hills and going southward, so all of these pictures are of Detroit's western suburbs.

http://img296.imageshack.us/img296/3035/detroit1qc4.jpg

http://img243.imageshack.us/img243/1342/detroit2nl0.jpg

http://img243.imageshack.us/img243/2676/detroit3ld3.jpg

Dunno what this was, but it looked pretty cool so I included it.
http://img223.imageshack.us/img223/5430/detroit4wg0.jpg

http://img223.imageshack.us/img223/8033/detroit5dp5.jpg

http://img223.imageshack.us/img223/9805/detroit6lb1.jpg

http://img223.imageshack.us/img223/1899/detroit7ty8.jpg

Looks pretty nice for a trailer park,
http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/8835/detroit8af9.jpg

http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/2662/detroit9jm5.jpg

Older sprawl.
http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/9625/detroit10rq4.jpg

http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/3782/detroit11yl3.jpg

http://img157.imageshack.us/img157/4792/detroit12te3.jpg

http://img157.imageshack.us/img157/6075/detroit13vs7.jpg

Nice new townhouses.
http://img157.imageshack.us/img157/8504/detroit14fd3.jpg

http://img157.imageshack.us/img157/245/detroit15kb8.jpg

http://img157.imageshack.us/img157/9734/detroit16st5.jpg

There's a lot of lakes and ponds here (as in photos above, too). In a way it's almost like Florida.
http://img157.imageshack.us/img157/6639/detroit17hj9.jpg

http://img157.imageshack.us/img157/2923/detroit18jq4.jpg

Big factory.
http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/8538/detroit19kl6.jpg

http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/6976/detroit20hf1.jpg

The requisite business/industrial park. Part of the sprawl.
http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/4900/detroit21ga9.jpg

http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/2267/detroit22vt1.jpg

Some non-sprawl, for comparison.
http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/761/detroit23fb5.jpg

Semi-rural sprawl. There's no clear line between the suburbs and the rural areas around here. They just *very* gradually faded into one another.
http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/6416/detroit24wc1.jpg

Newer houses around Detroit seem to like these really peaky roofs.
http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/9230/detroit25in8.jpg

More lakes and wetlands.
http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/3128/detroit26ms7.jpg

http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/7193/detroit27in7.jpg

And still more lakes. Actually these look like very large detention ponds.
http://img165.imageshack.us/img165/3200/detroit28ch3.jpg

Sprawl? Or rural?
http://img165.imageshack.us/img165/7859/detroit29we1.jpg

Semi-sprawl.
http://img165.imageshack.us/img165/6629/detroit30kt7.jpg

http://img223.imageshack.us/img223/9919/detroit31aj4.jpg

http://img223.imageshack.us/img223/3209/detroit32yb7.jpg

Fore!
http://img223.imageshack.us/img223/421/detroit33tm7.jpg

Some older not-very-sprawly development with some new infill being built.
http://img223.imageshack.us/img223/3303/detroit34id3.jpg

If Detroit had a Levittown, this is what it would look like.
http://img157.imageshack.us/img157/2908/detroit35kd4.jpg

http://img157.imageshack.us/img157/291/detroit36pd6.jpg

http://img157.imageshack.us/img157/2310/detroit37ua5.jpg

The future is now!
http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/7986/detroit38zy8.jpg

http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/2994/detroit39wf6.jpg

Another non-sprawl shot to break the monotony.
http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/2656/detroit40qq3.jpg

http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/2311/detroit41mu3.jpg

And yet another not-really-sprawl pic just for the heck of it.
Actually the streetside commercial area in this pic and one of the ones above is fairly auto-oriented, when you get down to it. Though I'm sure it wasn't originally that way.
http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/8453/detroit42ir9.jpg

http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/7780/detroit43fl6.jpg

This one should get an award. :D
http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/2117/detroit44cj7.jpg

Office park.
http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/3986/detroit45ai4.jpg

More peaky roofs on McMansions.
http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/4786/detroit46gn5.jpg

http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/7090/detroit47wf3.jpg

http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/9468/detroit48cw3.jpg

LMich

Dec 11, 2006, 7:42 AM

It sucks that every aerial shot ever taken of Metro Detroit seems to be taken in fall or winter. lol

I'd wish this could go more into Oakland County and include Macomb County to show some of the diversity of the sprawl and non-sprawl. The Woodward Corridor would be particularly interesting to see from the air. Western Wayne is rather homogonized in its sprawl.

BTW, were any of the Downriver (southern river suburbs) Communities included in Local Live?

James Bond Agent 007

Dec 11, 2006, 7:47 AM

BTW, were any of the Downriver (southern river suburbs) Communities included in Local Live?
I ventured down near the airport and a bit southward for some of these shots, but that's as far south as I got. I seem to recall their coverage stopped around there, but my memory could be scetchy on that.

Exodus

Dec 11, 2006, 2:31 PM

A lot of those made me gag:yuck:

BTW, How do you save an image from live local ? Because I can't just right click and save like other pics, and I've tried different things but nothing works.

ColDayMan

Dec 11, 2006, 8:21 PM

...

The-New-Tony-Detroit

Dec 11, 2006, 8:33 PM

Some of those look like inner city Toledo.

For shame Detroit! For shame!

urban_encounter

Dec 11, 2006, 8:58 PM

Yep looks like sprawl.

But not surprisingly, it doesn't look that different from the 40 other sprawl threads you have listed.

GeorgeLV

Dec 11, 2006, 9:05 PM

Yep looks like sprawl.

But not surprisingly, it doesn't look that different from the 40 other sprawl threads you have listed.

Actually there is one pretty big difference. Driveways. All the exurban sprawl in the east/central makes it seem like there's a fire sale on concrete over there. In the western cities there's more of a tendency the garage to open directly at the street.

illmatic774

Dec 11, 2006, 10:01 PM

It sucks that every aerial shot ever taken of Metro Detroit seems to be taken in fall or winter. lol

It makes some areas look very, very desolate, and i hate that as well.

I see Bond missed Taylor-tucky. He sure didn't missed Canton or Novi though :yuck: :yuck: :yuck: :yuck: :babyeat: :maddown: :breakcomp: :breakcomp:

what a **ckin waste. Almost every lake up there is surrounded by these beasts.

http://img157.imageshack.us/img157/6639/detroit17hj9.jpg

For the record, besides Taylor, which is a joke, almost all of downriver is very economical, and even semi-urban sorta like this (http://local.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&cp=r18sv581yjfg&style=o&lvl=1&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&scene=5660978).

Thats an aerial of Allen Park.

However, Western Wayne County is by far the worst.

bgwah

Dec 11, 2006, 11:00 PM

This seems like the only place other than Seattle so far that has trees and plants in the middle of some of their cul-de-sacs.

LMich

Dec 12, 2006, 12:20 AM

Yeah, Ill. I hate that he could only show western Wayne. If I had to live in Sprawl, it definitely wouldn't be in western Wayne.

James Bond Agent 007

Dec 12, 2006, 1:38 AM

A lot of those made me gag:yuck:

BTW, How do you save an image from live local ? Because I can't just right click and save like other pics, and I've tried different things but nothing works.
Use the "Print Screen" key (just to the right of your F12 key), then open a blank Paint document and go Edit->Paste. After I do that I select a sub-area within the image to keep out all the directional arrows, scale and other stuff that Windows Live Local puts on its images, and then select Edit->Copy. Then I close the Paint document without saving it, then re-open it again, and then Edit->Paste the newly saved image.

Exodus

Dec 12, 2006, 1:58 PM

Exodus

Dec 12, 2006, 3:10 PM

I tried it and it worked:banana: Thanks:)

zerokarma

Dec 13, 2006, 8:50 PM

I continue to love this series.

Randy Sandford

Dec 14, 2006, 8:28 PM

Use the "Print Screen" key (just to the right of your F12 key), then open a blank Paint document and go Edit->Paste. After I do that I select a sub-area within the image to keep out all the directional arrows, scale and other stuff that Windows Live Local puts on its images, and then select Edit->Copy. Then I close the Paint document without saving it, then re-open it again, and then Edit->Paste the newly saved image.

John, when you paste the screen capture into paint, you have the ability to move it around. So all you have to do is position the top and left margins where you want them, click somewhere outside the pasted area to finalize the paste, then drag the right and bottom margins (using the little blue dot in the middle of each of those sides) until you have them where you want them and save the final image. No need to close and reopen paint. In fact, if all your images are going to be the same size, then click on Image > Attributes to find the width and height of the first image, and once you've set the top and left margins of subsequent images, go to Image > Attributes and enter the width and height from the first image, and you're finished. ;)

BTW, I've enjoyed your sprawl series. :)

crisp444

Dec 14, 2006, 9:05 PM

Yep looks like sprawl.

But not surprisingly, it doesn't look that different from the 40 other sprawl threads you have listed.

Look at the threads of South Florida, Detroit, Phoenix, Denver, Seattle, Boston, and Houston... this sprawl from metro to metro is easily distinguishable and does not look alike. It may be equally monotonous within its metro, but it sure isn't monotonous across the country.

James Bond Agent 007

Dec 15, 2006, 1:48 AM

John, when you paste the screen capture into paint, you have the ability to move it around. So all you have to do is position the top and left margins where you want them, click somewhere outside the pasted area to finalize the paste, then drag the right and bottom margins (using the little blue dot in the middle of each of those sides) until you have them where you want them and save the final image. No need to close and reopen paint. In fact, if all your images are going to be the same size, then click on Image > Attributes to find the width and height of the first image, and once you've set the top and left margins of subsequent images, go to Image > Attributes and enter the width and height from the first image, and you're finished. ;)

BTW, I've enjoyed your sprawl series. :)
Thanks Randy, I've actually done something like that for a few of my shots. But for most it's more work than it's worth. Most of them are good-enough as-is.

Anyway thanks for the compliment. :)

hudkina

Dec 15, 2006, 3:43 AM

All of Downriver is covered by Bird's Eye View.

Trenton
http://www.downriverdetroit.net/002.jpg

Lincoln Park
http://www.downriverdetroit.net/003.jpg

Allen Park
http://www.downriverdetroit.net/004.jpg

Woodhaven
http://www.downriverdetroit.net/005.jpg

Gibraltar
http://www.downriverdetroit.net/006.jpg

Brownstown TWP
http://www.downriverdetroit.net/007.jpg

Flat Rock
http://www.downriverdetroit.net/008.jpg

Huron TWP
http://www.downriverdetroit.net/009.jpg

Southgate
http://www.downriverdetroit.net/010.jpg

Taylor
http://www.downriverdetroit.net/011.jpg

the pope

Dec 21, 2006, 10:00 PM

i didn't recognize anything. Then again recognizing sprawl may be an oxymoron.

Patrick

Dec 23, 2006, 4:33 AM

Hmm its always seemed wierd to me how many people in the east have houses with no fences, huge forests and grasslands for backyards. They sure dont do that in LA and Phoenix.

LMich

Dec 23, 2006, 5:54 AM

Yeah, the recent sprawl, here, tends to bleed into nature. Some developers this purposefully to give residents access to woodlots and such, and sometimes they don't even think about it.

MrBlueSky

Sep 6, 2008, 10:07 PM

Downriver suburb of Wyandotte.
http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n302/adwornick/DowntownWyandotte.jpg
http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n302/adwornick/Wyandotte.jpg

I love this city. Est. in the 1850's, well before the sprawl started, so it doesn't look like most of Detroit's suburbs. It has barely changed in 60 years. Lots of historic commercial and residential buildings. 10-15 minutes from Downtown Detroit. NO FREEWAYS, just a quaint riverside bedroom community with a cute downtown and riverfront parks and such.

BnaBreaker

Sep 6, 2008, 11:00 PM

Wow, talk about a blast from the past.

MrBlueSky

Sep 7, 2008, 1:16 AM

Eh, well. I had two cents to spare so I spent it on this thread.

jodelli

Sep 7, 2008, 1:57 AM

Downriver suburb of Wyandotte.

I love this city. Est. in the 1850's, well before the sprawl started, so it doesn't look like most of Detroit's suburbs. It has barely changed in 60 years. Lots of historic commercial and residential buildings. 10-15 minutes from Downtown Detroit. NO FREEWAYS, just a quaint riverside bedroom community with a cute downtown and riverfront parks and such.

I like Wyandotte. It's kinda like Port Huron grafted onto the bottom of Detroit.

hudkina

Sep 7, 2008, 3:23 AM

Yeah, Wyandotte is sort of like the "Pontiac" or "Mt. Clemens" of Wayne County. The former Ecorse TWP which now consists of Wyandotte, Ecorse, River Rouge, Lincoln Park, Allen Park, Southgate, Melvindale, and a small section of Detroit has a population of about 170,000 in just 35 sq. mi. Back in the 60's and 70's the area had over 230,000 people.

MolsonExport

Sep 7, 2008, 3:51 AM

With all those billions of McMansions, how the heck is Detroit so damned poor?

POLA

Sep 7, 2008, 4:03 AM

I got all excited and thought this was a new sprawl fest thread!

LMich

Sep 7, 2008, 7:50 AM

With all those billions of McMansions, how the heck is Detroit so damned poor?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/3d/Incomemap.jpg

hudkina

Sep 7, 2008, 3:54 PM

With all those billions of McMansions, how the heck is Detroit so damned poor?

The city of Detroit (915,000) has a large poor population, but the city only makes up about 20% of the metro population. (And even still the city isn't as poor as many might think.) The other 80% lives in the "suburbs". There are over 3 million people who call "suburban" Detroit home, including about 1.5 million that live in the relatively dense "inner-ring" suburbs covering an area of about 350 sq. mi. While the suburbs do have "poor" areas, they are mostly middle-class with several large pockets of wealth. (The Grosse Pointes, The Bloomfields, etc.) In the sense that Detroit represents the one end of the spectrum, the suburbs represent the other end. The suburbs are so wealthy because the city is so poor, and the city is so poor because the suburbs are so wealthy.

Crawford

Sep 8, 2008, 2:12 AM

With all those billions of McMansions, how the heck is Detroit so damned poor?

Detroit isn't "so dammed poor". It's basically at the national median for income.

Detroit city proper is poor, but none of these aerials are anywhere close to city limits.

In fact, these aerials don't even show the "rich" part of the metro, which is north of Detroit, in the Bloomfield/Birmingham area. Bloomfield Hills is basically a midwestern version of Greenwich, CT or Beverly Hills. These pics show western Wayne county and extreme southwest Oakland County, which are basically just middle to upper-middle class.

Oakland County has over 1.2 million residents, and is among the richest counties in the nation.

Finally, McMansions do not indicate regional wealth. If anything, they are indicitive of cheap and plentiful land and lax zoning.

In metro Detroit, one can buy a McMansion in some exurbs for around $200,000. In contrast, a crappy vinyl-sided rowhouse in my outer Brooklyn neighborhood can cost $1,000,000.

Similarly, the richest parts of metro Detroit have almost no McMansions. Bloomfield Hills has huge estates, rather than cookie-cutter boxes. Birmingham has very small homes, but they are very expensive.

alexjon

Sep 8, 2008, 3:05 AM

I lived in Taylor, sigh

mhays

Sep 8, 2008, 4:41 AM

It's always surprising to see a highrise with surface parking.

hudkina

Sep 8, 2008, 5:59 AM

How about this then:

http://www.downriverdetroit.net/oaklandcounty/southfield/19.jpg
http://www.downriverdetroit.net/oaklandcounty/southfield/26.jpg
http://www.downriverdetroit.net/oaklandcounty/15.jpg

There are a lot of highrises in suburban Detroit surrounded by seas of parking. That's why downtown Detroit's skyline hasn't changed much in the last few decades. Everything was built out in the suburbs.

hudkina

Sep 8, 2008, 6:41 AM

BTW, here are a few pictures of Metro Detroit's truly "wealthy" areas:

Bloomfield Hills:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3205/2838434139_e91ce20560_o.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3200/2839266874_622c577e1f_o.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3081/2838434183_09f9a8517b_o.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3028/2838434207_391c6d4b39_o.jpg

Birmingham:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3146/2838434245_fbe1d5bd21_o.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3166/2838437615_cb9d79a53f_o.jpg

jodelli

Sep 8, 2008, 9:08 AM

How about this then:

There are a lot of highrises in suburban Detroit surrounded by seas of parking. That's why downtown Detroit's skyline hasn't changed much in the last few decades. Everything was built out in the suburbs.

Trouble is even those three buildings were built in the 70s. Not many new talls have been built anywhere in the metro area in almost 20 years now.

Crawford

Sep 8, 2008, 2:15 PM

^
I'm not sure what that is a problem. Outside of people like us who are into tall buildings, most people don't care about this stuff, and tall buildings are not necessarily indicative of prosperity.

alexjon

Sep 8, 2008, 3:52 PM

mhays

Sep 8, 2008, 4:51 PM

How about this then:

http://www.downriverdetroit.net/oaklandcounty/15.jpg

There are a lot of highrises in suburban Detroit surrounded by seas of parking. That's why downtown Detroit's skyline hasn't changed much in the last few decades. Everything was built out in the suburbs.

Suburban highrises can have below-grade parking too, or at least adjoining garages.

Apparently they're tall not because land is expensive or they're going for density, but because tenants want views and/or prestige. Land must be (or have been) pretty damn cheap to build surface parking.

Luckily (?) my city never built many suburban highrises except in areas zoned for high density (though surface parking was once fairly common with our suburban lowrise office projects). Today, the economics of surface parking don't work very well anywhere except with smaller buildings in less-desirable areas.

hudkina

Sep 8, 2008, 8:27 PM

Actually the Big Beaver corridor (the picture you just quoted) has some of the more expensive land prices in the metro area. While most of the buildings along the corridor are low-rise and mid-rise in nature, it's not as if the land is dirt-cheap. Otherwise, you'd see massive complexes complete with landscaping and mega-ponds. (Think Chrysler's complex in Auburn Hills) Basically this is land that isn't quite as expensive as that of a major downtown, but it's also not so cheap.

Here are a few examples of "mid-rise" buildings along the corridor:
http://www.downriverdetroit.net/oaklandcounty/18.jpg
http://www.downriverdetroit.net/oaklandcounty/20.jpg
http://www.downriverdetroit.net/oaklandcounty/21.jpg

mhays

Sep 8, 2008, 8:38 PM

"Expensive" is relative.

If the land is just $100/sf, then a parking space is $30,000 for land alone. At that price, you can build an above-grade garage a lot more cheaply. Even below-grade starts to make sense depending on soils.

A highrise site in an expensive suburb can easily cost $500/sf. There's no way you're building surface parking when the land is $150,000 per space.

Of course, the zoning has to allow dense development. Sometimes floor-area-ratio is the limiting factor. But that would also mean cheaper land.

hudkina

Sep 9, 2008, 4:40 AM

Where are you finding unimproved land that is $500/sf? If that were the case a 1 acre plot of land would cost $22 million! I don't even think you'll find that in places like suburban Los Angeles or San Francisco. Maybe you might find that on Manhattan.

I don't think you'll find unimproved land that is much more than $20/sf in most suburban metro areas.

mhays

Sep 9, 2008, 5:58 AM

Downtown Bellevue for one. Here I found one Downtown Bellevue site for sale, and it's going for over $500/sf. http://www.loopnet.com/Washington/Bellevue_Land-For-Sale/

Edit: This article says typical Downtown Bellevue land values would be in the $300-400/sf range based on sales in the past year. Of course that's a government worker talking, and basing numbers on past trends rather than current...I'd be curious to hear from one of the commercial brokers on SSP, particularly about what the record land/sf price might be for Bellevue. http://seattle.bizjournals.com/seattle/stories/2008/07/14/story2.html?b=1216008000%5E1667241

I suspect you can find prices like that in highrise zones in many of the nation's denser suburban nodes -- the ones where you can build a sizeable tower on a small site in terms of available entitlements and market.

Seattle has had numerous sales over $500/sf. The first one I found in the Daily Journal of Commerce archives was the Embassy block, which sold for $596/sf in May.

Manhattan would go multiples of that at the top end. Tokyo reportedly tops out in the $15,000/sf range.

Crawford

Sep 9, 2008, 6:31 AM

Downtown Bellevue for one.

Downtown Bellevue is practically the furthest thing from virgin suburban land. And a reported $500/sf asking price has nothing to do with actual sales comps.

Manhattan would go multiples of that at the top end. Tokyo reportedly tops out in the $15,000/sf range.

Tokyo is cheaper than New York (and London, Hong Kong and many others). It lost an incredible amount of value from the early 1990's until about 2005. It once again experienced something of a property bubble until about a year ago, when prices again plummeted.

Re. your parking lot argument, I'm not sure I agree. Sometimes a surface parking lot is a highly desirable, high-priced use. For example, in Mexico City, the richest parts of town all have lots of surface parking, because the rich all drive (or are driven) and prefer surface parking over garages.

Granted, such areas aren't as parking lot saturated as suburban America, but they are surprisingly filled with such uses, and these are not fringe locations. They are the fanciest, most expensive locations in the richest city in Latin America, and the "market" has determined that surface parking is the highest and best use.

hudkina

Sep 9, 2008, 2:24 PM

Downtown Bellevue for one. Here I found one Downtown Bellevue site for sale, and it's going for over $500/sf. http://www.loopnet.com/Washington/Bellevue_Land-For-Sale/

I was referring to virgin land. Most of the listings you have on that site have actual buildings on them! (Gas stations seem to be the most common listing) And even with the improvements on the land, the price per square foot is mostly under $100. Again, I'm talking about unimproved land (that means that nothing was ever on the land except maybe a farmhouse) that is on the edge of the metropolitan area. In fact one of the few listings I saw in the Bellevue area was a 5.25 acre plot that was less than $22/sf.

Sure you can find a few listings over $500/sf in a few areas of major downtowns, but again most suburban areas are going to be in the $20/sf range.

mhays

Sep 9, 2008, 4:09 PM

Not true Hudkina. For a developable highrise site, a small existing building adds nothing to the price. In fact, it can REDUCE the price. If the buyer plans to redevelop, he has to pay to demolish the existing building, and sometimes faces uncertainty about hurdles in that process. (BTW, my link had only one Downtown Bellevue site.)

You won't find many developable office sites for $20/sf in any better Seattle suburbs. It's easy to find sites for more. Microsoft paid $36/acre for a developable lowrise office site in 2007. A 36-acre potential midrise site in the Bel-Red corridor went for $43/sf in 2007.

Crawford, the "actual comps" is why I'm hoping one of our broker members will reply. The appraiser thinks Downtown Bellevue is in the $300-400 range, and I suspect the peak (at least a year or two ago) was higher.

Downtown Bellevue isn't suburban? It's not traditional suburban, but it's a suburban highrise node, and that's what we're talking about.

Crawford, I realize that surface parking sometimes happens on expensive land, particularly for high-end uses and generally in small amounts. But commercial office development mostly follows economic rules which I touched on above. If you'd like to read up on it, I could dig up some sources later. But frankly, that would be like digging up sources saying the Earth is round. Everyone in commercial real estate already knows that land prices are a primary factor in parking type. You might start with Joel Garreau's "Edge Cities".

alexjon

Sep 9, 2008, 4:17 PM

Bellevue is a suburb.

Anyway, Seattle is not a good place to find an "average" of any sort since there are so many things (views, access, terrain features, etc.) that can make one undeveloped parcel jump in price up or down.

Flat undeveloped land is pretty average price, though.

hudkina

Sep 9, 2008, 8:38 PM

mhays, my point is that the land was VIRGIN land. That means that no gas stations were ever built there, it was generally a larger parcel of land (several acres or more) that hadn't been subdivided, it wasn't in the heart of a major office center, and it was on the edge of the metro area. If you can find me a 5+ acre plot of former farmland in Sammamish or the edge of Redmond that costs over $500/sf then I'll agree with you. To give you an idea, The Big Beaver corridor is 17 miles from Downtown Detroit.

mhays

Sep 9, 2008, 10:08 PM

We don't have highrise sites on the fringe of the metro. They're all in areas that have already been developed. These sites are expensive because we don't have many developable highrise sites, rents are high enough to make developments work, the zoning allows dense use (no setbacks), and soils are conducive to below-grade parking.

Farmland on the Eastside will be priced according to what you can build there. If you can build at the density of the Microsoft site I mentioned, and transportation is available, the price would be pretty similar because the Eastside has great demand for new offices, and Eastside sites are rare even for lowrises. If Microsoft was $36 I'd expect something slightly lower. Again, I'm not a broker or developer, just a contractor.

PS, I can't help myself. Forumer Hans Gruber, aka Frasier Crane, posted an aerial of this Microsoft site on his website. It has lowrise office buildings and 7,000 below-grade parking spaces going in. http://www.everythingeastside.com/showthread.php?t=22

Crawford

Sep 9, 2008, 11:02 PM

Mhays, I don't think you understand either my nor Hudkina's points.

Bellevue is a city center. Troy is a sprawlburb. More important, Troy was still undeveloped farmland 40 years ago. Those towers with surface parking were all built decades ago. Newer Troy developments have parking garages (Somerset Collection, Troy Mariott, etc.).

In contrast, as of 2008, Bellevue is the second most valuable piece of land in the Pacific Northwest. Current property prices on the best block of downtown Bellevue have nothing to do with virgin land in Troy, MI 40 years ago.

The fact that Microsoft is building underground parking does NOT mean that it's the highest and best use of the land. It likely just means there's a zoning code that bans this use, or Microsoft thinks that hiding parking makes a "green" PR move (forget the fact that 100% of their workers are commuting alone in their private vehicles).

IBM has 100% underground parking in their suburban NYC campus. It has nothing to do with property prices. It's strictly an image thing (bucolic campus environment).

mhays

Sep 9, 2008, 11:31 PM

If Microsoft wanted to build surface parking or above-grade garages, they'd be allowed by the City of Redmond. My company built Redmond City Hall a couple years ago...with an above-grade garage. The two commercial office campuses we built in the late 90s (a couple million gross sf) had a mix of below-grade and above-grade parking in one, and all below-grade in the other, both with a few surface spaces for visitors. Meanwhile, surface parking is still built in Redmond for less-intensive retail.

That's just background. Here are my two main points, neither of which is disputable:

1. Suburban property prices are a primary factor in parking solutions, and can make garage parking effectively mandatory.

2. There's a lot of suburban land out there that's far more expensive than $20 per square foot, and some gets into the hundreds.

I said Big Beaver Corridor land must not be very expensive, and then we got into this discussion. The result of that is pretty clear too -- if BBC land is $20, it's cheap compared to central Bellevue, and by extension, probably a lot of other dense suburban nodes around the country.

PS, if BBC land is $20 and surface parking costs $6,000/space for land (not counting setbacks, etc.), then they're building garages for reasons other than land price. My guess is desirability is high and they want to fit projects onto smaller sites. That's good.

hudkina

Sep 10, 2008, 2:31 AM

Mhays, if it's any consolation, several of the newer developments in Troy do indeed have parking structures. Now that the edge of the urban core is about 10 miles north of the Big Beaver corridor, and now that Troy has become more of an economic/office center for the region, land prices have created a need for more efficient parking:

In fact, you can actually see the tip of a parking garage in the following picture. It's in the center directly behind the flags.
http://www.downriverdetroit.net/oaklandcounty/18.jpg

And notice how Somerset mall doesn't have as big of a "footprint" as what you might expect from a mall? That's because there are several large parking structures for the "over-spill" parking.

The first image is a traditional mall (in suburban Chicago) and the second is the Somerset Collection in Troy:
http://www.downriverdetroit.net/somersetvswoodfield.jpg

mhays

Sep 10, 2008, 4:52 AM