Quote Originally Posted by swingline View Post
Mike, you're using a strawman argument. Nobody is demanding a skyscraper on the site. But when the developer is enjoying subsidized land acquisition and other public financing for its project, the public should get a building that contributes to its site equally as much as the building previously located there. A six-story stick built on that site violates too many urban design principles to count.

Additionally, Type III construction buildings like this are commoditized products with relatively short useful life spans. Such buildings are usually limited to rentals because many lenders will not finance these buildings as condos. They don't hold value.

No other peer city in the country has such a building on such a prominent site. Why should we be any different, especially on a publicly-owned site? Would you be ok with the same kind of six-story product on the Hudson's site? A developer could make a fortune on such a deal.

Sure, a larger [[10-15 stories) building on the Statler would be more risk for a developer. The site properly demands as much.
First, thank you for taking me back to college. I haven't heard "strawman argument" since a sophomore Logic class. Maybe I need to revisit and change my argument

Secondly, from the start of the proposed building announcement, I've denounced the design and have called for a more robust building to be built there, if you'd like to call it that. So were on the same page with that 100%. That design sucks, period.

My argument was more so in response to the posters statement the Dan Gilbert was off base in saying downtown is not showing signs of incredible demand in real estate due to the "city settling for a 6 story building" on the spot. The land has been on the market for almost a decade with no takers. We are finally coming to a point where new construction may start making sense now, and yes, perhaps if they waited a few more years, a better, bigger building proposal would come along. But to this point, it was the most viable/financially secure proposal we are aware of that was floated on the property, and the city, seeing an opportunity to develop the entire site and add 200 sorely needed residences, hopped on it. Maybe the city should have had different requirements in its RFP that would have had a more prominent building put there. I don't know.