The "Z" development parking garage will be a unique art and retail experience downtown

The so-called "Z" development in downtown Detroit, is starting to take shape, so to speak.
 
The five-story, 535,000-square-foot Z-shaped parking garage that zig-zags across a block of downtown Detroit adjacent to Greektown is on track to be completed by the end of December, and as part of this parking structure's construction plan – which will add 1,300 parking spaces to downtown Detroit – the 33,000 square feet of space on the street level will all be for retail.
 
"We have a general philosophy when building a parking deck," says Dan Mullen, Vice President of Development for Bedrock Real Estate, which is developing the property (all part of Dan Gilbert's master plan for downtown). "It has to have ground floor retail. It's really important to us to activate the area."
 
As the development progresses we will see more and more differentiation between the storefronts. Each retailer that signs on – and a few already have, though Mullen and the Bedrock et.al. team are tight-lipped regarding which – is able to develop their own storefront according to their own vision, whether they want to use reclaimed wood or metal or a different color scheme. "It really looks like we're going to have a great contrast of storefronts," Mullen says." The 33,000 square feet of space is not being partitioned off into pre-set spaces, allowing retailers to commit to only as much square footage as they need. Each storefront will have its own street entrance as well as an entrance from the garage.
 
The garage is also an attraction in itself. Bedrock, working closely with downtown Detroit art gallery Library Street Collective, plans on making the garage "exciting" and "dynamic," providing people with a unique experience from the second they pull their cars into the garage. The walls will be decorated with graffiti art from artists from around the country. They are currently working on their "art plan" for the interior of the parking deck, deciding which artists they'll be working with and so on. "If it's a parking deck we can still make it interesting," Mullen says. "We want this to be a unique experience you can't get anywhere else. We want people literally saying, 'You have to go downtown just to park in this garage.'"
 
They will also make improvements to the alley behind the building with ample lighting and stamped or colored concrete, "activating" this space as well.
 
The "Z" garage will be ready for its first cars before the new year, while retail tenants will start opening starting next spring. This project is led by Neumann/Smith Architecture, which oversees most of Bedrock's developments.
 
Source: Dan Mullen, Vice President of Development for Bedrock Real Estate
Writer: Nicole Rupersburg

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