DETROIT | Development & Construction: Motown Lowdown

[ShadowSoarer]

Finally about time Amazon creating a distribution center in Detroit proper.

https://www.crainsdetroit.com/real-e...irgrounds-site



*Amazon.com Inc. proposed tenant for former Michigan state fairgrounds site, abandoned years ago

*Detroit, Dallas developers planned to convert part of the 142 acres into warehouse for e-commerce giant

*No city tax breaks or incentives planned for $400 million, 3.8 million-square-foot center

[DetroitSky]

Some more info on the fairgrounds:

Amazon looks to open $400-million distribution center at Michigan State Fairgrounds in Detroit

After more than a decade of failed attempts, the old Michigan State Fairgrounds is finally being redeveloped with plans to build an Amazon distribution center.

Under the proposal, Amazon would invest $400 million to build a 3.8-million-square-foot distribution center at the site, bringing at least 1,200 new jobs to the city, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan said at a news conference Tuesday. The distribution center is expected to open in 2022, and employees will make a minimum of $15 an hour, plus benefits, Duggan said.

The Sterling Group and Hillwood Investment Properties will buy and develop the site. They've worked together before, building an Amazon distribution site in Shelby Township.

As part of the deal, the Sterling Group and Hillwood will pay for a $7 million Detroit Department of Transportation transit center. The indoor transit center will have heat and air conditioning, bathrooms, and free Wi-Fi, Duggan said.

Sanford Nelson's real estate company moving into vacant Eastern Market building

Detroit — The real estate firm connected to landlord Sanford Nelson officially is moving into Eastern Market from Troy.

FIRM Real Estate, a residential and commercial development firm owning several properties in Eastern Market, says it is investing $3 million to transform a vacant food-processing facility at 2000 Division St. into office space for itself and up to three large tenants.

[seabee1526]

Has Farmer Street been closed off yet? What are they doing the the facade at 100 Monroe Street, I heard that was supposed to be saved and used in the development.

[seabee1526]

I was also wondering about the Detroit Zoo Aquarium down at Hart Plaza area. Has that been officially canceled or just put off for now? It would be nice to have some version of Pier 39 or Navy Pier down by the river someday...museum ship...places to eat and pick up souvenirs...

[DetroitSky]

Farmer Street has been closed off since at least last summer. Last we heard the National Theatre facade was being relocated to Farmer and Monroe to serve as a pedestrian entryway.

As far as we know the aquarium is being put off. The Hart Plaza site was ruled out awhile ago.

[DetroitSky]

Michigan Avenue may soon become the most advanced road in US

Michigan Avenue could become the most advanced road in the world, replete with sensors, Wi-Fi, a dedicated lane for autonomous vehicles and traffic lights that communicate with vehicles and each other, under a public-private development program announced in Detroit on Thursday.

The goal is to make a 40-mile route from downtown Detroit to Ann Arbor the best place in the world to develop vehicles and services that make it easier, safer and more efficient for people, goods and services to get around.

Called CAVNUE — a mashup of connected and autonomous vehicles with avenue — the ambitious project is part of a strategy to make southeast Michigan a hot spot for developing the vehicles, which are expected to become a multibillion dollar business.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said building “the world’s most sophisticated roadway” would be part of a foundation for Michigan’s economic recovery from COVID-19.

Groups work together to raise money for a new pocket park in Hamtramck

In Michigan’s densest city, public green space is relatively hard to come by.

But a new campaign is underway to convert a vacant lot into a pocket park on Hamtramck’s Trowbridge Street.

Sandwiched between two homes, a vacant lot located at 2134 Trowbridge St. could soon become the Salam Peace Park, thanks to a partnership between the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, city of Hamtramck, and Wayne Metropolitan Community Action Agency.

The parcel itself was a gift from a "civic well-wisher" wanting the city to turn it into a park.

Organizers for Salam Peace Park have until Saturday, Sept. 26, to raise $22,000 through a crowdfunding campaign. Should they reach their goal, the MEDC will then contribute an additional $22,000 as a matching grant.

The project is part of the state’s Public Spaces Community Places placemaking initiative, which is hosted on the Michigan-based Patronicity platform.

Facebook user John Lauter posted update photos of The Platform's The Obama Building development at 22000 Grand River in Old Redford on the Historical Detroit Area Architecture page. Originally built as a Peoples State Bank branch and opened in 1917, The Platform is converting it into 8800 square feet of retail space on the ground floor and 4 apartments. The name comes from a photo of Barack and Michelle that was on the corner for years.


As originally built


Pre-renovation


Currently

More info on The Obama Building can be found here. The second phase of this project is the renovation of the nearby Sunflower Building, also name for a mural. It will become artists studios, classrooms and a performance theater.

[ShadowSoarer]

Seems like a crane is going up at the TFC HQ:

https://imgur.com/1BqjmrN

[DetroitSky]

Originally Posted by ShadowSoarer

Seems like a crane is going up at the TFC HQ:

https://imgur.com/1BqjmrN

animatedmartian posted a few photos today to the building's page on here.

[seabee1526]

Originally Posted by ShadowSoarer

Seems like a crane is going up at the TFC HQ:

https://imgur.com/1BqjmrN

Gordie Howe bridge site got one too.

[DetroitSky]

Motown Museum expansion lands $3M from ex-Microsoft CEO's nonprofit

The Motown Museum's expansion campaign has taken another notable step toward its $50 million goal.

The Detroit institution announced a $3 million grant Monday from the Ballmer Group, a nonprofit founded by Detroit native, Los Angeles Clippers owner and former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and his wife, Connie Ballmer.

The museum, situated in Motown's original headquarters on West Grand Boulevard, said last fall it had raised $25 million, halfway to the target set when expansion was announced in 2016.

The first of four construction phases started in March and resumed in May after being interrupted for several weeks by the coronavirus shutdown. The museum itself reopened to the public July 15.

Last Detroit house demolished in $265M blight-removal effort

Detroit — For nearly a decade, Stephenie Lee has been fearful and embarrassed over the burned-out house across from her eastside rental.

On Friday morning, it took mere minutes for a demolition team to topple it down.

The property on Waveney off Cadieux was the final house of 15,084 knocked down with $265 million in federal Hardest Hit Fund dollars in Detroit since spring 2014.

The Detroit News posted a few photos from the new dog park in Capitol Park that can be seen here: New dog park opens in Capitol Park

DetroitYes users are saying ground has been broken for the Brush + Watson development.








Source

[DetroitSky]

Most apartments in complex near Detroit's New Center will have $454 to $945 monthly rent

Affordable housing is coming to Detroit's Milwaukee Junction neighborhood in 2021 to address increasing rent in the New Center area, the city of Detroit announced Tuesday.

Twenty out of 25 units in the new Milwaukee Junction Apartments will have monthly rent ranging from $454 to $945 — based on average median income — with water bills included. Construction began on the four-story development in May and will cost about $8 million, according to a news release.

The building is expected to open May 2021.

Amazon hiring 100 additional jobs in Detroit with salaries averaging 150K

DETROIT - Amazon isn't slowing down its ever-expanding business model as the e-commerce giant continues to open more jobs in Detroit.

The company announced Tuesday it plans to fill an additional 100 positions in the city, expanding its field operations in tech hubs by hiring white-collar positions.

As part of a $1.4 billion investment into new offices around the country, Amazon's new jobs in Detroit will pay on average $150,000 each.

150 West Jefferson, location of the Amazon tech hub. Source.

Former home of Ulysses S. Grant heads to new site at Detroit's Eastern Market

Detroit — A beloved piece of Michigan history — the former home of Ulysses S. Grant — was lifted Thursday from the old Michigan State Fairgrounds for a move to Eastern Market.

The decaying home, once occupied by the 18th U.S. president who led Civil War Union forces, is being relocated to the northeast corner of Orleans and Wilkins where it will be revived.

"We want it to be a living space that really celebrates the legacy of Grant and all of the work throughout his entire life," Tobi Voigt, an engagement director with the Michigan History Center, said Thursday morning just before two sections of the house headed down State Fair Street on Detroit's east side.

[ShadowSoarer]

$50.3 million Tapestry hotel planned in former Park Avenue House downtown

*$50.3 million project to bring Tapestry hotel by Hilton to downtown Detroit
*Construction to be complete by 2023, lead developer says; permitting expected in late fall
*Building had been primarily low-income housing; tenants relocated last year

https://www.crainsdetroit.com/real-e...house-downtown


Auto insurance company Clearcover plans 300 jobs in Detroit
*Chicago company to get $4.65 million in state, local incentives
*Auto insurance carrier still seeking office space in Detroit
*Jobs to be mostly in claims and underwriting

https://www.crainsdetroit.com/insura...0-jobs-detroit


81 apartments, commercial space planned in $20 million project in Detroit
*Development of former Lincoln Motor Co. property would cost nearly $20 million
*81 apartments, about 38,000 square feet of commercial space planned in Elijah McCoy neighborhood
*Project awarded pair of Michigan Strategic Fund loans, brownfield incentive

https://www.crainsdetroit.com/real-e...roject-detroit

[DetroitSky]

Lots of news the past few days!

Motown-inspired Hotel Opens in Downtown Detroit

Following a two-year, $10 million update, a 241-room boutique hotel in downtown Detroit with design elements inspired by 1960s Motown and soul music is now open.

Hotel Indigo is located at 1020 Washington Blvd. (southeast corner of Washington and Michigan Avenue). The updated design also pays homage to the original mid-century modern design of the building when it was first opened as a Howard Johnson Motor Lodge in 1966.

The new hotel, located across Michigan Avenue from the Westin Book Cadillac Detroit, includes a restaurant, The Trolley Room, which will open at a later date, and 1,700 square feet of meeting space. Hotel Indigo is managed by Ray Balkey and the Pyramid Hotel Group in Boston.

Detroit’s Sugar Hill Arts District Lands $36M Apartment and Retail Project

Detroit’s Housing and Revitalization Department today announced Preservation of Affordable Housing and Develop Detroit have broken ground on a new mixed-use and mixed-income development in Midtown Detroit’s Sugar Hill Arts District.

The $36.3 million project will open in late 2021 on what is currently a vacant lot at the northwest corner of John R and Garfield streets (west of the John D. Dingell VA Medical Center).

The project will have 68 apartments, 11,900 square feet of retail, and 164 public parking spaces. Fourteen of the apartments will be set aside as affordable housing at 30 percent to 60 percent of the average median income, and will be targeted to formerly homeless veterans served by the HUD-VASH voucher program.

Detroit native buying homes in childhood neighborhood — and bringing them back to life

Several abandoned homes. A large street flood. Trash covering the ground. Overgrown grass and weeds. An almost completely deserted neighborhood.

This is what Detroit contractor Alonzo Ramon, who goes by his rapper stage name King Yadee, saw when he returned to see the neighborhood where he grew up.

The area, located off Seven Mile Road at Archdale and Vassar, was a disaster. Yadee immediately wanted to fix it.

So he put his music career aside to begin doing what seemed like the impossible: buy up his entire childhood neighborhood and bring it back to life. His brother encouraged him to go to school to learn how to accomplish it all.

Aretha Franklin Memorial Highway dedicated by Whitmer, Duggan in event at Lodge Freeway

About a mile from the original church site where Aretha Franklin honed her musical chops, Michigan and Detroit dignitaries gathered Monday to christen a freeway in her honor.

A stretch of the Lodge Freeway between Livernois and I-94 was ceremonially designated Aretha L. Franklin Memorial Highway, two years after the Queen of Soul’s death. Signs are being installed on the north- and southbound sides of the freeway near the Pallister overpass.

More info on the Royal Palm:

Park Avenue House owner gets the OK to turn lower-income hotel into an upscale Hilton

State and City of Detroit officials have approved $6.1 million in economic development incentives to turn a 13-story residential hotel in downtown that recently housed lower and moderate-income tenants into an upscale Hilton hotel.

The development group, Downtown Hospitality Detroit LLC, is planning a $50-million overhaul of the old Park Avenue House, 2305 Park Ave., to turn it into a 172-room "Tapestry Collection by Hilton" hotel featuring a first-floor restaurant and a cafe.

The building would be renamed Royal Palm Hotel, which was its original name when it opened in 1924 as a Louis Kamper-designed property for prominent Detroit hotel developer Lew Tuller.

Detroit chefs opening new restaurant in Eastern Market, planning another in Core City

“We've always been on the lookout for something in the city and we really wanted to be here and be a part of the community,” says Tootla. They were acquainted with Kyle and Lea Hunt, former owners of the restaurant Gather and the beer bar Collect on Gratiot in the Eastern Market district. They closed both those businesses last year but are planning to reopen Collect on the second floor, with Bunny Bunny on the first floor where Gather once was.

With the still-to-be-named Core City café, which will be in the Pantry space in the Sawtooth Building, the vision is to make the most out of Core City Park.

“That park is huge and beautiful and a big motivation to get open in the next month or so to utilize the last bit of warm weather,” Tootla says, and perhaps beyond, with pumpkin patches in the fall and a Christmas tree farm in the winter.

I don't have a Crain's subscription, but there's several stories there today:

Real Estate Insider: The Platform's Islandview neighborhood effort scaled back

Manna brings Hungry Howie's back to Detroit as pizza delivery sales surge

Detroit Manufacturing Systems plans $31.9 expansion, 220 new jobs, training program

[DetroitSky]

Cleanup of Former Uniroyal Site Will Extend Detroit Riverwalk

The Detroit Riverfront Conservancy and the EPA have started work on a $2.9 million project that will clean up a portion of contaminated sediment along the Detroit River and set the stage for the completion of the Riverwalk along the East Riverfront by linking two popular waterfront parks.

The project remediates approximately one acre of contaminated sediment located along the shoreline of the Detroit River downstream (west) of the MacArthur Bridge to Belle Isle — the so-called Uniroyal site located at the southwest corner of E. Jefferson and East Grand Blvd.

First U.S. Automated Parking Solution Being Tested in Detroit’s Corktown District

Ford Motor Co., Bedrock, and Bosch are launching a demonstration project with connected Ford Escape test vehicles that can drive and park themselves inside Bedrock’s Assembly Garage west of downtown Detroit using Bosch smart infrastructure.

This is the first U.S. infrastructure-based solution for automated valet parking where the vehicle will park itself inside a parking garage.

The research will take place in the Corktown neighborhood, the site of Ford’s new mobility innovation district, anchored by Michigan Central Station. The district will draw mobility innovators and disruptors from around the world to develop, test, and launch new solutions to solve urban transportation challenges, improve mobility access, and prepare for the increasingly connected and autonomous world ahead.

The first plants are being planted at the Belle Isle Oudolf garden:

Oudolf garden in Belle Isle expected to open to public in late summer 2021

Thousands of tall plants, flowering plants and green plants are being landscaped in Belle Isle to create a visual experience for people and a new habitat for animals and bugs.

And the plants will last all four seasons. The gates to the Oudolf Garden Detroit will open in late summer of 2021 when the plants begin to bloom, but Belle Isle visitors can get a glimpse outside of the gates.

After four years of planning, the goal is to make sure that visitors can see something visual, no matter what season it may be. Visitors will see 26,000 plants with 100 different plant varieties.

Michigan Central Station's Facebook page posted some update photos today:

[DetroitSky]

Originally Posted by cityslickerrr

U of M already "delayed" construction of their $1bn hospital in Ann Arbor --
"It is unclear when construction on the facility would restart" -- so obviously the $300m innovation hub in Detroit is also punted. With no innovation center and Hudson's not appearing viable, bleak next few years in the Motor City.

https://www.beckershospitalreview.co...-hospital.html

We have a separate thread specifically for Ann Arbor developments.

I'm not sure where you're seeing the connection between the Michigan Medicine hospital's construction and the Detroit innovation center. Each project is backed by different financiers and they have two completely different functions. There's really no reason to believe that because a hospital in Ann Arbor gets put on hold that a university structure in Detroit to be occupied by U of M will also be put on hold.

There's also no indication that Hudson's is not viable besides the ramblings of a few individuals online who have no connection to the project. There's been workers on the site consistently for well over a year and progress is being made - even if it is slow. See today's progress video on YouTube. Construction IS occurring.

There's also a lot of construction happening across the city and plenty of new developments being announced every week. I don't see the next few years being "bleak" unless we enter a bad recession.

[pablospotatos]

Originally Posted by DetroitSky

We have a separate thread specifically for Ann Arbor developments.

I'm not sure where you're seeing the connection between the Michigan Medicine hospital's construction and the Detroit innovation center. Each project is backed by different financiers and they have two completely different functions. There's really no reason to believe that because a hospital in Ann Arbor gets put on hold that a university structure in Detroit to be occupied by U of M will also be put on hold.

There's also no indication that Hudson's is not viable besides the ramblings of a few individuals online who have no connection to the project. There's been workers on the site consistently for well over a year and progress is being made - even if it is slow. See today's progress video on YouTube. Construction IS occurring.

There's also a lot of construction happening across the city and plenty of new developments being announced every week. I don't see the next few years being "bleak" unless we enter a bad recession.

Quite the flurry of activity in the 9/1 video! Contrary to not being "viable." work seems to have picked up on site.

[Busy Bee]

MCS

Man what an endeavor. Im having trouble finishing my bathroom remodel. Really puts things in perspective.

[seabee1526]

Frankai Videos also shows whats going on in the Motor City. He does a great job of taking us all through the city.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrcFFZOa7c0

[DetroitSky]

Detroit’s Eastern Market Poised to Grow with New Housing, Food Production, Offices, and Retail

The City of Detroit’s Housing and Revitalization Department (HRD) and the Detroit Economic Growth Corp. (DEGC) today announced they are seeking proposals from qualified development teams for two sites in the Eastern Market District.

The first property is nearly 1-acre of vacant land at 1923 Division St., on the northeast corner of the Dequindre Cut Greenway. HRD is seeking proposals to build a new mixed-use, mixed-income housing development with the potential to offer up to 125,000 square feet for residential dwelling use.

The land is centrally located near Lafayette Park and downtown Detroit. The property is adjacent to several businesses and is generally bounded by Alfred Street to the north, Division Street to the south, the Dequindre Cut Greenway to the west, and St. Aubin Street to the east. It is close to both I-75 and I-375, and two blocks from Gratiot Avenue.

The former Cadillac Stamping Plant on the east side is slated to be demolished for a new 682,000 square foot warehouse. More info should be coming soon.


An overview of the abandoned Cadillac Plant.Source.

[jmcilreavy]

Went by the Brush and Watson site this morning. Heavy equipment has arrived. I reached out to OOMBRA Architects, who designed the buildings, for more information on time line.