January 2024 Review
Getting the year started off right.
January set us up for a year full of new Detroit developments, so let’s take a look at some of the newsworthy developments and trends that came up over the past month.
Hotel-A-Paloza
With the NFL Draft coming to Detroit in just a few months, a common talking point has been the need for additional hotel space in the city. Supposedly, Detroit has been passed over for major events in the recent years because of the lack of hotel rooms near the downtown arenas, venues, and Huntington Place. Even with the recent additions, it’s likely going to be tough to come across a hotel or AirBnb during the April draft.
We got plenty of announcements in 2023 of new hotels, and it doesn’t appear 2024 will be any different until Detroit catches up to competing cities. Last year we saw the opening of Cambria Detroit, Roost at the Book Tower, and the Godfrey in Corktown, as well as the groundbreaking and rapid construction of the AC Marriot. Not to mentioned the new hotel at the Joe Louis site I talked about in an earlier post. According to a recent Crain’s article, other cities such as Atlanta, Chicago, and Indianapolis have thousands of hotel rooms directly attached to their convention centers, while Detroit has zero. Not surprisingly, the hotel announcements have continued and in recent weeks, we’ve seen some interesting plans set forth.
The Merchants Building on Broadway downtown is undergoing a conversion to a boutique hotel with about 135 units, restaurant and bar space, as well as a rooftop deck. This project, undoubtably, has seen the success of other boutique hotels in the immediate area including Shinola Hotel, Element at the Metropolitan, and Siren Hotel. These hotels, while smaller in size, offer a unique experience for guests as they are often more stylishly or bespoke feel, and offer different amenities than we see in some national chains.
Sometimes, these boutique hotels are still under a national flag (The Element is a Westin/Marriott), which allows guests to still use and gain rewards while getting a different experience. This building seems perfect for a boutique hotel as it’s close to the theaters and stadiums, as well as the fact that is was underutilized for the better part of a decade, hotels or residential seemed the logical choices.
The conversion of older buildings to hotels is a theme that’s ramped up recently, as we’ve recently learned that Ford is looking to put a hotel on the top few floors of Michigan Central Station. I mentioned it a bit before when looking to convert old buildings to new use, but early 20th century buildings often have floorplans that prioritized access to light and ventilation, meaning there is greater access to windows than more recent builds, which bodes well for hotel and residential conversions.
I’m not really sure I have a good guess as to how the hotel will work at MCS. The building is great for it, the views will be spectacular, but I don’t know if the building will utilize the ground floor as a lobby and amenities, or they will be tucked away at a higher floor. I do think a hotel makes more sense than apartments, which was originally contemplated. With a hotel in the works, the hope is that the building would be accessible and activated around the clock, as it would make a great centerpiece for the neighborhood that’s more than a nice looking office building.
There are still a few hotel unknowns out there, like will we ever see the Equinox Hotel planned near LCA, conversion of the Fox Theater office space into hospitality, will Sports Illustrated bring their new hotel to Detroit, and will the second Pontchartrain (Crowne Plaza) tower make it’s way back into the plans?
Creative Housing
While new 5 over 1 mixed use apartment buildings are great, and I’d invite hundreds more of them to be built, some of the coolest housing projects are often ones that repurpose older buildings, giving the new apartments character you’d never see built today. There’s been a few historic rehabs into housing such as the Ransom Gillis House and the James Scott Mansion. But for a City full off heavy industry and a surplus of old warehouses, you don’t see too many residential loft conversions. There’s a few newer ones like the Assembly, which is a former dry goods warehouse and “Dreamtroit”, which is an old auto factory.
Both of those are cool, but you’d kind of expect Detroit to have these types of developments all over. Luckily, a few more old buildings will be saved in the coming months/year and should bring some excellent new housing stock. The Fisher 21 Building is on its way to be redeveloped into the Fisher Lofts, in which the 600,000 square feet of factory will be converted to over 430 apartments, with retail and mixed use space. While it’s been a slow go, the development team is seemingly putting together their capital stack, which includes a plethora of state and local incentives. It also appears the building has begun undergoing some preliminary demolition and site cleaning.
Another loft style conversion is at 450 Amsterdam, which is taking an old Cadillac factory and renovating it to be 92 units, including 23 “micro apartments”, which are apparently a smaller studio. I assume the target market here would be Wayne State students, which shows the spread students up towards New Center, likely looking for cheaper rent than Downtown and Midtown. These could be a very interesting case study for further projects, as this type of small industrial space is still fairly plentiful around the railroad tracks.
Although, new builds can be unique as well. Just this past week, a developer announced their plans to build a first of its kind in Detroit “gatehouse” apartment building. Apparently, the objective here is to shield a new parking lot for Mad Nice and Vecino.
In looking further into this development and this lot in general, it appears that the current owner bought it within the last decade, torn down a small apartment building, and then proposed a new built in the recent years. Then he retracted that development plan, and announced his plan to build a parking lot for the nearby restaurants. Now finally, this gatehouse is apparently the compromise, as the parking lot was denied by the Historic District Commission. I guess it’s better than nothing, but I wouldn’t want to live in an apartment where 100 cars a night are driving right past my window.
Gordie Howe Bridge
This isn’t anything new, but I think people are forgetting how enormous this project is. The photos taken of the two sides getting closer and closer together are amazing to see, and I can’t wait to see how it impacts the skyline when it’s done. It’s going to one of the longest cable stayed bridges in the world when it’s done, and should offer some great views, both of it and off it.
As reported recently, we won’t be able to use the bridge until 2025, but I do expect to see a bit of development traction near it over the next year. It was just reported that the Delray neighborhood near the bridge saw some of the highest property value growth in the city. The entire Southwest Detroit area has seen great growth over the past few years, and while the bridge will bring new traffic and pollution, it should also attract new businesses and travelers. My own long term hope is that this helps bring attention and money to Historic Fort Wayne so we can begin to see that for the historic gem that it is.
Edit:
The Red Arrow Lofts in Corktown is another loft style conversion of an old industrial building to housing that I forgot to discuss. I’ll find another time to go more in depth on this project, and I’ll make sure to get some pictures once construction kicks off. The whole Oxford Perennial portfolio in Corktown probably deserves its own write up.