Little Caesars to Build 8 Story Downtown HQ

[Jason]

SmithGroup is definitely a big corporate office, but [[without commenting on this specific building) they're the best firm in Detroit and if someone came to me and told me that they were building an office building and wanted to hire a firm HQed in Detroit [["HQed" because I think the group that does office projects is not located in the Detroit office) that's who I'd recommend. There's going to be a consistent minimum quality. I also think that it's really nice that they're an integrated architecture and engineering firm. It might not be something you can tell from just looking at a building but having in house engineers that the designers regularly work with and have access to is really beneficial.


For this building, and all other buildings, I get the sense that the Ilitches are very "involved" in the design process because it seems like certain elements seem to be common across all their projects regardless of architect.

As far as I'm concerned it's not what I would have done but no one is asking me.


Also about art deco, while having a big budget helps, you could build an excellent art deco building today with a normal highish end office building budget, and a pretty good art deco building with a lower budget. The architect would just need some discipline and creativity.

[MSUguy]

The district Detroit posted this update on their twitter page

[Scottathew]

It looks a lot smaller footprint than what I thought it would be, but they certainly got the street-wall and height right. Perhaps the basement will be smaller than the footprint of the building.

[gumby]

It looks a lot smaller footprint than what I thought it would be, but they certainly got the street-wall and height right. Perhaps the basement will be smaller than the footprint of the building.

Looks pretty deep. Might be a subbasement.

[Scottathew]

Has anyone else noticed that window placement on the new Little Caesars HQ building has come to a grinding halt?

They've been stuck like this for what seems like at least a month, perhaps several.

[401don]

Has anyone else noticed that window placement on the new Little Caesars HQ building has come to a grinding halt?

They've been stuck like this for what seems like at least a month, perhaps several.

Read CassCorridor's posts No. 30 & 39 in the Hudson Site Construction thread.

[Scottathew]

Read CassCorridor's posts No. 30 & 39 in the Hudson Site Construction thread.

Thanks Don! I'm going to bring his comments to this thread:

Right now, as everyone has said, we're just tearing out the parking garage. We also are rigging up some temporary lights to put on the fence along Woodward. I'm an electrician and doing mostly disconnecting existing electrical and doing temp work. I'm bouncing back and forth between the Hudson's site and Little Caesar's World HQ. That job, which was suppose to have 4 floors turned over by April, is way behind. The lighting in that building is the most complicated [[and expensive) I've ever seen. It's turnover date has now been pushed back to November. Right now we're building out the beer garden on the 4th floor and the bar, that you can see from Woodard, on the second floor.

It's the weather. The glass guys are being super cautious because there is no other glass like that in the world. They told us they weren't setting pizza glass with winds over 10mph. I'm going to take a close up of it. It's just crazy seeing it up close. It's huge! The bigger problem right now is the 9th floor, the executive floor. The way the air handling units were designed they just so happen to be above Chris I's new office. They are so powerful they hum and vibrate and shake the whole 9th floor. Lol lol �� Chris is Not going to like that. They don't know what to do at this point. It's going to be an expensive change whatever they do.

[hybridy]

The way the air handling units were designed they just so happen to be above Chris I's new office. They are so powerful they hum and vibrate and shake the whole 9th floor.

wow, rookie mistake by a 150-yr old architecture and engineering firm. lack of oversight by management or no collaboration with their engineers. the LC GRC has been FUBAR for some time. SG has designed and redesigned that building so many times. likely not even a profitable project anymore

[southen]

wow, rookie mistake by a 150-yr old architecture and engineering firm. lack of oversight by management or no collaboration with their the LC GRC has been FUBAR for some time. SG has designed and redesigned that building so many times. likely not even a profitable project anymore

Yeah there are definitely elements of the building that seem like they had to value engineer things. The entire south face of the building looks awful to me and completely ignores the best views of the city.

[canuck]

Nice window treatment though. I guess they ran out of them at Home Depot [[laffs). I like that the glass looka like pizza wedges.

[canuck]

wow, rookie mistake by a 150-yr old architecture and engineering firm. lack of oversight by management or no collaboration with their the LC GRC has been FUBAR for some time. SG has designed and redesigned that building so many times. likely not even a profitable project anymore

This is probably the reason we don’t see much sculptural glass on tallish buildings in the first place. The wind doesn’t like frilly glass. They may be able to grind it down and make Special Edition mugs out of them for their bar/pizza place later on...

This reminds me of the Aon Center and First Canadian Place rehash of their white marble cladding. The Chicago Aon Center and Toronto’s HQ of the Bank of Montreal had been designed with this white Carrara marble suggested by Edward Durrell Stone. Both buildings showed severe signs of wear due to the weather. Apparently, both cities experience some variations of extreme cold and heat. Duh. Big Chunks of marble fell to the streets endangering would-be Michaelangelos.

Both buildings were reclad: Aon Center \ 60 to 80 million$ in the early 90’s and 1st Canadian at a hundred million in 2010-11.

[Atticus]

Update now that it is July 2018. No new pizza windows have been added in months, and from the outside at least, it appears no exterior progress has been made since winter either. What gives?

Also over at LCA, the uncompleted structures surrounding the Chevy Plaza are gearing up for season #2. I swear that as each day goes by, that area around the area is looking more and more like the failed Bloomfield Park.

[les bleus]

Update now that it is July 2018. No new pizza windows have been added in months, and from the outside at least, it appears no exterior progress has been made since winter either. What gives?

Also over at LCA, the uncompleted structures surrounding the Chevy Plaza are gearing up for season #2. I swear that as each day goes by, that area around the area is looking more and more like the failed Bloomfield Park.

Are you serious? The exterior work is nearly finished. They also added two more floors from the original concept along with a glass covered terrace so construction is still ongoing. The interior work is moving along quickly and should be finished on schedule.

That's just your opinion, but behind the scenes there's plenty of work being done. Cass Park was just recently cleaned up courtesy of Ilitch charities and renovations have been under way on the former Detroit Life Building from a month now.... http://www.districtdetroit.com/video...life-building/ Maybe walk around the area a bit and see for yourself, instead of believing the nonsense posted on message boards.

[Zads07]

Are you serious? The exterior work is nearly finished. They also added two more floors from the original concept along with a glass covered terrace so construction is still ongoing. The interior work is moving along quickly and should be finished on schedule.

That's just your opinion, but behind the scenes there's plenty of work being done. Cass Park was just recently cleaned up courtesy of Ilitch charities and renovations have been under way on the former Detroit Life Building from a month now.... http://www.districtdetroit.com/video...life-building/ Maybe walk around the area a bit and see for yourself, instead of believing the nonsense posted on message boards.

Do you work for Olympia? EMU Steve?

[Scottathew]

Are you serious? The exterior work is nearly finished.

I'd say he's very serious. From an outside perspective [[the only perspective I have), it's been months since any significant progress has been made. The pizza windows have come to a halt.

I walk by LCHQ around once a week and take a picture. I've compared pictures and there's been little to no progress, especially for the windows.

Some of the windows have seemed to be marked with painters tape to identify issues.


I'm not in love with what the Ilitch's have done to the city with their empire of gravel lots; they have a lot to prove. I hope that they prove me wrong.

[EGrant]

What a symbolically Ilitch project.

[SpartanDawg]

I am one of the illitches biggest fans. I have always cut them slack. I was so excited for the arena and surrounding projects. but ENOUGH is ENOUGH.

This is pathetic. their LC HQ has had work on it done if you go through their webcam. not sure what's taking them so long to finish the facade, but its still ongoing. the detroit life building is also being renovated to their credit. and at least the school of business is done.

having said all that. the two building they built shells for around their arena and have just left empty is embarassing. what they're trying to do to the cass/henry block is pathetic. their lack of development on the eddystone is AWFUL!!! that's what's making me the most mad at this point. they need to hurry up and get their stuff together. their good will with the residents of the city has ran out. put up or shut up. STOP LEVELING BUILDINGS FOR PARKING!!

they threw up a parking garage behind the eddystone in NO time. said "possible first floor retail".. and didn't put any in it. but they can't for the life of them at least begin installing windows in the eddystone?? pathetic!

[313WX]

I wonder if the recent trade and immigration developments have anything to do with the slow down in construction...

[Scottathew]

les, here's a picture I took on May 8th, 2018. I don't see anything different.

[401don]

If casscorridor's earlier post regarding having to fix/replace the HVAC system on the top floor, due to vibration, etc. is correct, it seems they would want that done before installing the remaining windows. No excuses for lots of the other work but I can't believe they wouldn't want they're own hq completed asap.

[1953]

If they had stuck with the original, more traditional design, they'd have an occupied and attractive building by now [[or a gravel lot, because the Ilitches seem to always end up with a gravel lot).

[hybridy]

If they had stuck with the original, more traditional design, they'd have an occupied and attractive building by now [[or a gravel lot, because the Ilitches seem to always end up with a gravel lot).

neo-historcism or the like is typically cost prohibitive as limestone, granite facades are high decorated and detailed. the only architect arguably doing them and doing them well today is Robert A.M. Stern, and those design are pretty stripped down. If I am Chris Illitch and I am building a global resource center as a showpiece for a corporation to attract and retain innovative + creative employees. a new historic facade covering an open amenity-filled office space would simply convey the wrong idea...

[Gistok]

neo-historcism or the like is typically cost prohibitive as limestone, granite facades are high decorated and detailed. the only architect arguably doing them and doing them well today is Robert A.M. Stern, and those design are pretty stripped down. If I am Chris Illitch and I am building a global resource center as a showpiece for a corporation to attract and retain innovative + creative employees. a new historic facade covering an open amenity-filled office space would simply convey the wrong idea...

Did you know that only about 10% of the original design was going to have a "neo-historcism" look? The other 90% of the building skin would be modern. That original design would have shown that the LC building was part of the Fox Building complex, and was a clever approach to tie them together.

But the LC building design added a few floors, so it no longer made sense to use that partial old design, since the building heights were going to be different from the original schematic.

Also... the original Fox building is covered in white terra cotta, and not stone. So no stone work detailing would have been required. They could just have created a mold of the existing Fox Building ornate terra cotta, and cast it to create identical detailing on the new building. But that is all a moot point now.

Ironically, if they had stuck with the original design [[no pizza glass), the damn thing likely would have been done by now...

[corktownyuppie]

If casscorridor's earlier post regarding having to fix/replace the HVAC system on the top floor, due to vibration, etc. is correct, it seems they would want that done before installing the remaining windows. No excuses for lots of the other work but I can't believe they wouldn't want they're own hq completed asap.

I'm not an Illitch loyalist by any means, but it's laughable to think that the Illitch organization is dragging their own feet on a construction project for their own headquarters.

I would accept the argument that the Illitches are dragging their feet to get any construction project *started*.

But once you start a construction project, every day wasted just makes the project more expensive. Not to mention that a halfway constructed building exposed to the elements adds an extra dimension of risk. A building under construction is like someone getting opened up for surgery. The number of negative outcomes and the amount of uncertainty gets huge while you're in the middle of a procedure. You stay open as long as you need to do get the job done, but then you close up and put in stitches as soon as you can.

I'm not arguing that you should have faith in the Illitch's goodwill. You can probably have have faith in the Illitch's desire to act in their own self-interest.

[MrMichigan]

https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2018/10/16/little-caesars-headquarters-detroit/1651522002/

DetroitYes is shouted out in this article. It also states that many of the pizza-shaped windows were cracking immediately after installation.