Walk downtown and you might get shocked. On lower Woodward you’ll see the trendy and always packed Oslo sushi restaurant. Outside you’ll see new wide sidewalks with landscaped flower gardens. You’ll see buildings cleaned up, windows replaced, residential/commercial developments in the works.
Down the street you’ll see the new landscaped park and fountain in front of Compuware headquarters, near a Borders bookstore. You won’t be alone. There are people walking downtown. Strolling. The broken glass is mostly gone. New street lights are up.
After years of neglect and inertia, with buildings boarded up and abandoned and only a mural of undersea life to liven lower Woodward, changes are taking place. There’s still a long way to go, but flanked by the relatively new Comerica Park and Ford Field to the north and Compuware headquarters to the south, graced by parks on either end and new restaurants and bars in between, dreams for Detroit’s downtown are slowly coming to fruition after more than a decade of discussion and development.
Back in 1996 Greater Downtown Partnership consultant Diane Van Buren Jones dubbed a downtown development area, “the necklace district.” It was a way of identifying the semicircular strands of streetscape cascading from Grand Circus Park, like a necklace, to Campus Martius. Jones envisioned the redevelopment of office buildings in the district as “jewels” that would eventually glimmer as features of a newly revitalized residential and commercial area. But movement has been slow, until recently.
Spurred by the national spotlight that will shine on Detroit for July’s Major League Baseball All-Star game and January’s NFL Super Bowl, downtown development and demolition have occurred with urgency. The noise and congestion of street improvements along Woodward, Washington Boulevard and other streets is perhaps the most visible indication that something big is going on. However, the demolition crews at the Madison-Lenox Hotel site and inside the Statler Hilton are reminders that there’s another side to Detroit’s redevelopment story.
Ray Parker is one of the people making things happen. Nearly 20 years ago, Parker looked at the Wright Kaye Building on Woodward and wondered why the vacant warehouses above the former retail stores hadn’t been converted to lofts, as had been done in other cities. He ended up doing just that, creating lofts for urban pioneers and including an office for his commercial and residential real estate business, RFP Associates.
Since then, Parker has continued to develop and purchase properties downtown. He says some people had unrealistic expectations that major developments like the Renaissance Center would more quickly spark the revival of the city.
But the impact of the Renaissance Center and Compuware are just taking hold. GM is putting the final touches on its grandiose front and back entrances and landscaping, and each month witnesses more pedestrians on the streets as workers venture from GM and Compuware for lunchtime walks.
Other developments are playing a role. The local chapter of the American Institute of Architects commended the Detroit Opera House in 2000 for its restoration of the former Grand Circus Theater.
Walking across Broadway, a once dark, empty street of old office buildings, one finds a block in transition, with the bustling Small Plates restaurant and Detroit Brewery Company in the center. The proposed Post Bar construction remains stalled, and the adjacent Broderick Tower and Whitney Building on the Park remain empty.
Brian Hurtteinne, principal of BVH Architecture, is a partner in a development team that has renovated the Kales Building on Park Avenue to market-rate apartments. The Kales, formerly headquarters of S.S. Kresge, Co., offers 117 rental units (eventually to be sold as condominiums), 60 percent of which are now occupied. On the first floor, the Kales will feature a retail store and coffee shop. There is also a 2,500 square-foot fitness center for tenants. The Kales offers tenants – largely “young urban professionals” in their 20s – “a great view” with abundant windows, Hurtteinne says.
The project took about five years to complete. It was aided by Hurtteinne’s longtime familiarity with Detroit. For over 20 years, he has been an advocate of historic preservation and urban development in the city. As an architect in private practice for seven years, he lives above his office in Corktown.
Much is left to be desired downtown, Hurtteinne admits.
“It obviously needs more buildings like the Kales and Merchant’s Row,” Hurtteinne says. Merchant’s Row, across from the Compuware building, is leasing 157 loft apartments on two blocks, with retail development below.
Parker has the misfortune of having to look at the vacant United Artists Building and the daily demolition of the Statler from his office in the Michigan Building. He believes that all but a few buildings in the district would qualify for redevelopment, including the now demolished Madison-Lenox Hotel.
“If you secure a building properly, it can be held onto indefinitely,” Parker says. He criticizes the city for not being more assertive with building owners who are not developing their properties. “The Wurlitzer Building (on Broadway) is one in my mind. I sold that (to the current owner) 15 years ago. He’s turned down some pretty good offers on the property over the years and has not fixed it up,” Parker says.
Hurtteinne adds that responsibility lies with the city and property owners to state their intentions for the buildings. “People moving into downtown need to know what’s going to happen. That’s the biggest drawback---building owners who don’t make decisions about their buildings.”
Ultimately, the hope for downtown comes from pedestrians – those living, working and entertaining downtown. And one can’t help but notice, people are, again, walking downtown.
All photographs copyright Dave Krieger