Hudson's Site Building Thread

**Metro25** · May-16-20, 08:20 AM

Originally Posted by bigboat

They have started to drill caissons they forgot about and are now catching up.

They never 'forgot', if you watched the videos they never stopped drilling for the mid-rise portion, they still had some left. Your entire comment is misinformation.

**Zacha341** · May-16-20, 08:43 AM

For sure not much. Trying to pay down the balance!

Originally Posted by 401don

What's in your wallet?

Nothing anymore.

**Gistok** · May-16-20, 11:57 AM

Originally Posted by Metro25

They never 'forgot', if you watched the videos they never stopped drilling for the mid-rise portion, they still had some left. Your entire comment is misinformation.

Yeah... gotta agree! This enormously complex project probably has so many checks and re-checks that it would make our head spin....

**Atticus** · May-16-20, 01:34 PM

Originally Posted by bigboat

They have started to drill caissons they forgot about and are now catching up. They are back to their old work style of having 4-6 construction workers in the pit. I'm still surprised that it is taking so long to get above street level, discounting the 2 month covid-19 shut down. I would estimate Bedrock has at least a $100 million invested to get to this point in construction. I'm sure that has to be some sort of construction loan involved also that has to have at least some sort of interest payment. Maybe Dan Gilbert is having 2nd thoughts about getting involved in such a large renewal project. The Detroit market will be even more depressed now with our covid-19 pandemic economic residuals.

I am cautiously optimistic that for the first time in my lifetime, it won’t be Detroit [[metro area) that suffers significantly more RELATIVE to most other metro areas in the country. Obviously the COVID situation is still going to be an economic hit here and to most everyone, but the severity of it will hopefully not be significantly worse here compared to other large Metro areas.

Much of that obviously depends on how our state and local leaders play their cards over the next few months, but again, for the first time in my lifetime it feels like Detroit was dealt a hand that wasn’t necessarily a loser. Hopefully it plays out that way.

**bigboat** · May-16-20, 02:48 PM

Originally Posted by Metro25

They never 'forgot', if you watched the videos they never stopped drilling for the mid-rise portion, they still had some left. Your entire comment is misinformation.

Basically, the gist of my comment was, I was kidding about the they forgot to drill some of the caissons. Sometimes there is a little too much seriousness on this site.

**bigboat** · May-16-20, 02:49 PM

Your comment did not fly over my head, but I did not think it warranted a comment.

**EGrant** · May-16-20, 05:40 PM

Ah yes, I forgot about the trolls who love to post nonsense about this project for giggles. It's just a joke! Haha! Moving dirt around! Etc.

Feels good to have a little slice of pre-COVID internet in my life.

**MrChrome** · May-20-20, 06:49 PM

I am concerned. No progress on the tower side. On the block side, they are covering up the exposed rebar.

**SpartanDawg** · May-20-20, 06:57 PM

Originally Posted by MrChrome

I am concerned. No progress on the tower side. On the block side, they are covering up the exposed rebar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9dAsBFvsyU

what are you talking about? There's plenty of real work getting done on both tower and block literally from today.

**JK313** · May-20-20, 07:42 PM

Still working on the block side, but I haven’t noticed as much progress on the tower side since they resumed work. Seems like they’re using the area they cut out to store rebar for the caissons on the block side they’re still drilling. They have to be getting close to done with drilling though, right? First they said end of January, then end of March before they had to shut down.

**JK313** · May-20-20, 07:47 PM

Also thought I’d link this older article I stumbled across today. It provides some insight into the slow progress on the Monroe and Hudson sites as well as the financing aspect of some of Gilbert’s projects.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.fre...amp/2207973001

**EGrant** · May-21-20, 05:54 AM

Crain's Detroit had a podcast last week with the head of Sachse, who mentioned that it will take 30-60 days for their projects to ramp up productivity. I'm not sure if they are working on this specific project, but it is probably applicable.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas...=1000474571646

**M. Brown** · May-21-20, 12:14 PM

I think some of the reason why it looks like there is less activity than before is that it looks as though the rebar is being made offsite now which took up a lot of space with many bodies on it. I would assume this is for social distancing.

**Metro25** · May-21-20, 07:14 PM

It looks like activity has ramped up today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPJZnQYT0Co

**bigboat** · May-22-20, 06:22 AM

They took away the drilling driveshaft, maybe for repair as they have been working on drilling a caisson hole for a couple of day's and had to stop many times. Maybe they encountered more chunks of the old Hudson's foundation again. I have read many perspectives on the delay of this project and the same with the Monroe Block development. It all comes down to market demand. Several other development projects downtown/midtown have either been scaled way back or much delay has slowed their completion. The demand for office and or apartments/condos is just not there in downtown Detroit, unfortunately. Many developers had hoped otherwise and it has not happened.
If there was sufficient demand for high priced apartments and office space, the Monroe Block's and the Hudson development would be much further along. For one item of concern, they just cannot get financing without some sort of commitment from tenants.

**JonWylie** · May-22-20, 07:35 AM

Originally Posted by bigboat

They took away the drilling driveshaft, maybe for repair as they have been working on drilling a caisson hole for a couple of day's and had to stop many times. Maybe they encountered more chunks of the old Hudson's foundation again. I have read many perspectives on the delay of this project and the same with the Monroe Block development. It all comes down to market demand. Several other development projects downtown/midtown have either been scaled way back or much delay has slowed their completion. The demand for office and or apartments/condos is just not there in downtown Detroit, unfortunately. Many developers had hoped otherwise and it has not happened.
If there was sufficient demand for high priced apartments and office space, the Monroe Block's and the Hudson development would be much further along. For one item of concern, they just cannot get financing without some sort of commitment from tenants.

Do you have any actual knowledge or is this all just guessing?

**ParisianLesion** · May-22-20, 09:19 AM

Originally Posted by bigboat

They took away the drilling driveshaft, maybe for repair as they have been working on drilling a caisson hole for a couple of day's and had to stop many times. Maybe they encountered more chunks of the old Hudson's foundation again. I have read many perspectives on the delay of this project and the same with the Monroe Block development. It all comes down to market demand. Several other development projects downtown/midtown have either been scaled way back or much delay has slowed their completion. The demand for office and or apartments/condos is just not there in downtown Detroit, unfortunately. Many developers had hoped otherwise and it has not happened.
If there was sufficient demand for high priced apartments and office space, the Monroe Block's and the Hudson development would be much further along. For one item of concern, they just cannot get financing without some sort of commitment from tenants.

This is almost entirely incorrect. The demand, particularly for apartments, is and has been pretty stable and I can point you to any number of reports that show downtown can absorb another 3,000ish units of supply [[this of course, being before COVID). Although there are a number of inter-related variables at play, the single most driving factor has been increased construction costs due to a lack of sufficient construction labor. Now, these increased costs require higher rents to cover those costs and profit - to which there may not be demand at a certain price point but this is not a demand problem, it is a supply problem. All of this has been fairly common knowledge for anyone in or adjacent to the industry for some time now.

**Metro25** · May-22-20, 09:45 AM

Originally Posted by bigboat

It all comes down to market demand.

But it's not demand, how many times does this have to be corrected? You people make these points like it's 2003 and office space and buildings downtown are still vacant, they're not. The city has a lower office vacancy rate than Chicago, Hotel vacancy is also extremely low, apartments in central Detroit constantly sell out. This is not a lack of demand issue, so please stop peddling this nonsense.

**bigboat** · May-22-20, 01:58 PM

Originally Posted by Metro25

But it's not demand, how many times does this have to be corrected? You people make these points like it's 2003 and office space and buildings downtown are still vacant, they're not. The city has a lower office vacancy rate than Chicago, Hotel vacancy is also extremely low, apartments in central Detroit constantly sell out. This is not a lack of demand issue, so please stop peddling this nonsense.

OK, then why was the Monroe Block development stopped after nothing was done and we have been told it is in for re-design. The Hudsons development is also delayed and now even scaled back as there were concerns the income that would come in could not support such a large investment. The foundation is almost completed and that does not change much between an 800' tower and a 680' tower. They have not touched the tower portion since work resumed, I would think the next phase could be started with different construction workers.

**JK313** · May-22-20, 05:12 PM

There’s definitely demand for office and residential in downtown, the demand just isn’t strong enough to support highrise construction for either with current construction costs and rents. I don’t really see how this can be argued. If there was, these 2 projects wouldn’t be moving so slow and there would be more like them under way.

**Scottathew** · May-22-20, 06:31 PM

I've seen no evidence of progress on the tower side post-COVID 19. There has been activity on the tower side, but it's assembling and storing rebar that is for the block side.

**stinkytofu** · May-22-20, 10:38 PM

Originally Posted by JK313

There’s definitely demand for office and residential in downtown, the demand just isn’t strong enough to support highrise construction for either with current construction costs and rents. I don’t really see how this can be argued. If there was, these 2 projects wouldn’t be moving so slow and there would be more like them under way.

Correct.

**401don** · May-23-20, 07:10 AM

It was fortunate for Bedrock they didn't try to move forward with Monroe Block simultaneously. Nobody knows if this work-from-home thing will become a trend enough to influence a significant portion of office demand.

**stinkytofu** · May-24-20, 04:31 PM

Originally Posted by 401don

It was fortunate for Bedrock they didn't try to move forward with Monroe Block simultaneously. Nobody knows if this work-from-home thing will become a trend enough to influence a significant portion of office demand.

I'm curious how this shakes out. Frankly, this will quite possibly have big negative consequences for downtown's across the country.

This has basically just accelerated WFH which had already been starting up. Then you have companies like Twitter now saying employees can WFH forever and Facebook also having progressive WFH policies going forward.

Obviously that'll impact office demand. Specifically in Detroit it'll be fascinating. Gilbert obviously has an image of his companies as young and hip... and he sees what other big tech is doing. He may want follow them.

However... Gilbert has massive real estate investment downtown and undoubtedly having many employees home will have significant ramifications. Now he's basically paying himself with Rock tenants, but if those offices need less folks then he'll just have much more unused office space downtown in general.

**Atticus** · May-24-20, 07:31 PM

Originally Posted by stinkytofu

I'm curious how this shakes out. Frankly, this will quite possibly have big negative consequences for downtown's across the country.

This has basically just accelerated WFH which had already been starting up. Then you have companies like Twitter now saying employees can WFH forever and Facebook also having progressive WFH policies going forward.

Obviously that'll impact office demand. Specifically in Detroit it'll be fascinating. Gilbert obviously has an image of his companies as young and hip... and he sees what other big tech is doing. He may want follow them.

However... Gilbert has massive real estate investment downtown and undoubtedly having many employees home will have significant ramifications. Now he's basically paying himself with Rock tenants, but if those offices need less folks then he'll just have much more unused office space downtown in general.

Some office space could always be converted to residential. The whole WFH is likely to gain steam now simply because this situation proves it can work for a lot of jobs, and frankly because a lot of workers want it.

That being said, the COVID situation will go away at some point. And when it does, urban living and lifestyle will return. There is a growing number of people who prefer the walkable urban lifestyle. And many of those people may choose to WFH, while still residing in greater downtown. For that reason, long term I would bet more on the residential space and less on the office space demand. And even if the current office space is held equal, there is still plenty of room for growth long term for residential.