The Motor City has loft fever.
From Downtown to Midtown, New Center to Corktown, signs boasting new loft properties are popping up across Detroit’s landscape.
Vacant buildings that were once considered eyesores are now home to trendy up-and-comers and suburbanites looking for something other than a white picket fence and three-car garage.
But what makes a loft a loft and not just a condo or apartment?
“Lofts mean different things to different people,” says Timothy Colbeck, community development director of the Midtown nonprofit development corporation, the University Cultural Center Association (UCCA).
That makes it difficult to track just how many new lofts are being built downtown, he says.
“A loft is really in the eye of the beholder,” Colbeck says. “There are some developments (in Midtown) that qualify as lofts, and then there are some that call themselves lofts, but really aren’t.”
Evolution lessons
To complicate matters, loft developers throw around terms like “soft lofts” and “raw lofts,” and talk about loft-condo hybrids (a.k.a. loftominiums) and loft apartments.
Isaac David Kremer, Principal of Isaac David Productions, says understanding the evolution of lofts helps to sort out some of the complexity. Originally, he says, lofts were used as storage or sleeping space in cabins or barns. They were usually accessible by ladder and often featured one side that overlooked the ground floor. This feature, often called a suspended bedroom loft, remains in some of the lofts around Detroit, such as the Stuberstone Lofts in Midtown.
Kremer, whose firm specializes in historic preservation, among other things, says the evolution of the loft came in the 1970s when artists and urbanites began using old warehouses and factories as living and working spaces, referring to them as lofts. Midtown’s Canfield Lofts are a good example of these “raw lofts,” as developers sometimes call them. Featuring open, airy layouts and ceilings that are two to three times the height of standard ones, the vast, unobstructed space that characterizes raw lofts are often their biggest draw. Commercial windows, concrete floors and exposed pipes and timber are also things that typify raw, or hard, lofts, which are usually only minimally finished.
David Knapp, an architect with Detroit’s Albert Kahn Associates, says raw lofts like these are the closest things to the architectural definition of a loft.
“In its most technical form, a loft is an old building — typically a warehouse — that was converted from its original state as a commercial establishment into a residential one,” Knapp says.
An element of luxury
When the real, unadulterated warehouse feel isn’t available, developers often create “soft lofts” with refined, finished interiors, sometimes featuring artificial brick and ductwork made to look old. The Lofts at New Center are an example of a soft loft. Lofts that are new construction (i.e., not redeveloped from existing structures) sometimes also fall into the soft category, as is the case with Lofts at New Center and Garden Loft Condominiums at Woodward, the new Crosswinds development.
Mixing the old with the new, another mutation, “luxury lofts”, often features the 15-foot ceilings and 10-foot windows of a more traditional loft, but incorporate upscale features like polished granite countertops, kitchen islands and stainless steel appliances. Sophisticated clientele get the trendy loft-feel they are looking for, with the modern amenities they are used to. Some luxury lofts in Detroit, like Rivertown’s 200 River Place and Downtown’s Lofts at Merchant’s Row, even offer amenities like valet parking, room service and on-site workout facilities.
Similar in premise to the luxury loft, the most recent type of loft to make an entrance in Detroit’s loft scene is the loft-condo, or loftominium. These housing hybrids have the hip look of a redeveloped warehouse or factory, but often require complete redevelopment of a building’s interior, leaving little or none of the original building’s details. As a result, new ductwork or 10-foot windows may be installed. Or, as is the case with the Lamar Loft Condominiums in Brush Park, new finishes and fixtures are incorporated into existing elements, such as the building’s exposed clay-tile walls and ceiling.
Blank canvases
Austin Black, a sales associate for the development and real estate firm Detroit Urban Living, says having a range of lofts available, be they raw, soft, luxury or loft-condo, offers buyers the ability to live in sync with their needs and wants.
Black also points out that lofts offer buyers nearly endless customization opportunities.
“A loft is a lot like an artist’s canvas,” he says. “It can be made into almost anything the person who lives there wants it to be.”
Lofts generally offer more customization than houses, because they are often sold using white-box pricing — an East Coast-term that means the price includes only the white walls and plumbing. From there, the resident can opt for as many or as few add-ons as he or she wants.
Although the basic elements – concrete floors, white walls and windows – comprise exactly what a loft is to some buyers, Black notes that most residents choose to exercise some creativity in their new spaces, adding features like custom floors or glass tile. For example, he says, a future resident of The Carlton, a 51-unit loft condominium project in Brush Park that Detroit Urban Living is developing, has added a small recording studio and bamboo floors to his unit.
Whether they are modeled after the Bohemian Movement in 1970s-New York, or given the flavor and modernity of 21st century posh living quarters, developer Brian Giles says lofts are really starting to take hold in Detroit’s real estate market.
Giles, President of Giles Real Estate, LLC, spent the last 10 years developing lofts in Chicago’s South Loop and sees similarities between downtown Detroit and the Chi-town area before it was redeveloped.
“Going around Detroit, there are so many old buildings that have maintained the structural soundness that is required for redevelopment,” he says. “The city is set up so perfectly for it. And, unlike Chicago, Detroit has a supply of vacant industrial buildings and warehouses just waiting to be turned into lofts.”
Links
www.detroiturbanliving.com
http://www.loftsofmerchantsrow.com/
Lofts at New Center:
http://www.crosswindsus.com/michigan/detroitLoftsNC/
Garden Lofts @ Woodward Place: http://www.crosswindsus.com/michigan/detroit_garden_lofts_woodward_place/
200 Riverplace:
www.farbmanliving.com
Photos in order:
Wright Kay Building
Lamar Loft Condominiums
Grinnell Place
Austin Black, Detroit Urban Living at Grinnell Place
All Photographs Copyright Dave Krieger