[DetroitSky]

Well, we got some disappointing, yet not terribly surprising, news today. Regardless of what gets built there, it will be nice to have another occupied block downtown. I personally feel like it might end up being the state's tallest, just not 912 feet.

Hudson's site tower may not be the city's tallest after all, Bedrock says

Detroit's planned tallest new building may no longer in fact be the city's tallest when it opens on the old Hudson's site in a few years.

Officials from the Bedrock real estate firm said Wednesday that switching the programming of the planned skyscraper tower on the Hudson's site from all residential to partly a hotel may change the height of the tower, depending on the needs of whatever hotel operator is chosen.

Renderings shows the design for Bedrock's planned Hudson's site project.
Renderings shows the design for Bedrock's planned Hudson's site project. (Photo: Bedrock)
"I think it's fair to say it's open," Joe Guziewicz, vice president of construction for Bedrock, said Wednesday during a media briefing and hard hat tour of the Hudson's construction site.

The planned height has evolved over the past two years, from an initial estimate of 734 feet (just a few feet higher than the Renaissance Center), then perhaps 800 feet tall, and finally about 912 feet. But all the previous estimates were viewed as approximate until a final program was fixed.

Bedrock now estimates that the Hudson's site project will open in 2023, about a year later than was estimated at groundbreaking in 2017.

During a wide-ranging discussion of Bedrock's four "transformational" projects mapped by business Dan Gilbert in the heart of downtown Detroit, Guziewicz and other Bedrock officials also said:

With the switch of the Hudson's tower to partly hotel, the idea for a public observation deck at the top has been scrapped, Guziewicz said. Building the viewing platform would have required one too many elevator shafts that would have cut down on usable space lower in the tower.
The office, retail and residential mixed-use project on the Monroe Block is undergoing design revisions. Actual construction, which was to have been underway by now, is scheduled to start in early 2020.
Bedrock's addition to the rear of the One Campus Martius building, formerly the Compuware headquarters, is about 60% complete. The extension should be ready for occupancy late this year and will include office and rentable event space.
Renovations continue to the historic Book Tower, a vacant office tower that dates to the 1920s. Exterior restorations are nearly complete and interior renovations are ongoing, with completion scheduled for 2022.

And now for some less frustrating news:

Market opens in former liquor store near Little Caesars Arena that sold for $3.25 million

A former party store in The District Detroit that sold for $3.25 million two years ago is seeing new life as a market.

ZZ Market & Grill opened Tuesday at 210 Henry St., around the block from Little Caesars Arena. The high-end market will cater to the downtown lunch crowd and fans attending sporting events with fresh grab-and-go meals, snacks, beer and liquor.

The new market occupies prime real estate that netted big bucks after the previous owners of Paul's Place liquor store held onto it while the arena district took shape around it. Salem and Ayser Toma bought the building in 1999 for $200,000 and it sold for $3.25 million in 2017, according to city property records.

The buyer was IWH Real Estate Ventures LLC, which is registered to Isaac Hanna. Hanna is chairman of Madison Heights-based Wireless Giant, which operates 60 mobile phone stores around the country.

Isaac Hanna's nephew Dominic Hanna manages the market. Dominic Hanna said restoration of the building, built in 1890, began about one year ago and cost nearly $2 million. He said he "is sure" his uncle received offers from developers to buy the property, but he and his uncle saw an opportunity in creating something the neighborhood lacked.

This Crain's article mentions a new residential development by the DMC:

A Grand Rapids-based developer plans to enter the Detroit market with a $5 million residential project in Midtown.

Mosaic Homes aims to start construction in October or November on 10 for-sale condominiums on the southwest corner of John R. Street and Forest Avenue, across from the John D. Dingell VA Medical Center. The complex will also include 1,000 square feet of live/work space, said Brad Rottschafer, president of Mosaic.

The development, consisting of six townhomes and four lofts with rooftop decks, is expected to take about a year to construct. Rottschafer said the project has received all approvals and just a construction permit is needed to proceed.

The residential units will cost $300,000 to $600,000. They have not been sold yet.

The same article has photos of the Henry Glover House project and the Buhl Building's facade work:





First unit in ‘reverse gentrification’ fourplex is complete, lists for $620K

Last year, builder Joe Ventimiglia and designer Michael Coffindaffer began renovating a fourplex on East Grand Boulevard in Islandview, but there was a catch. While three of the four units were vacant, the fourth was still occupied by owner Lorraine Griffin, who’d been in the home nearly 50 years.

Instead of pressuring Griffin to sell, they decided to renovate her home, for free, along with the others as part of the group’s Saint Paul on the Blvd development. The group installed new windows, a roof, a facade, and electrical system.

“Because she stuck it out, she deserves to enjoy the rebirth of the building. She also has the opportunity to have the value change from $10,000 to $300,000 for her,” Ventimiglia told Fox 2 Detroit last year.

Moreover, the developers say they’ve hired over a dozen local residents to work on the project, many of whom had few carpentry skills and got on-the-job training.

Because of how the developers have included residents in the development, they’ve dubbed the process “reverse gentrification.” As neighborhood home values increase, they’re hoping this is a way for locals to stay, as opposed to be displaced.

The first of the three completely-rehabbed units has just finished and is listed through Max Brook Realtors for $620,000. The other two will hit the market in the fall.

^This stretch of East Grand has a lot of renovations going on besides this one. It's really encouraging.

Detroit job growth puts it among 20 ‘superstar’ cities in U.S.

Detroit is regularly said to be in the midst of a “revival.” Certainly there have been plenty of buildings undergoing construction, businesses opening, and changes to the city’s infrastructure. But how else to quantify it?

Using federal data, Reuters analyzed 378 metropolitan areas in the United States from 2010 to 2017 and found that Detroit was among the top 20 cities to experience significant job growth. It was one of only two from the Rust Belt, the other being Grand Rapids.

The analysis found that nearly 40 percent of all new jobs generated in the U.S. went to the top 20 metro areas. A significant drop-off takes place from there—the next 20 only accounted for 10 percent of new jobs.

Metro Detroit came in at number 10, accounting for 1.73 percent of job growth. Los Angeles-Anaheim at 4.79 percent was the area with the highest percentage of total job growth.