Quote Originally Posted by Atticus View Post
The Hudson Block is simply a much better quality office facility than the RenCen is, or could be. GM is getting a state of the art facility. That fact itself is good for the company, good for Detroit, good for Michigan. Yes it would have been better if some out-of-state Fortune 500 company was lured to relocate to the block, but that wasn’t realistic. Short of that, this is probably the next best thing.

As for the posts about how renovation of the RenCen side towers to hotel/residential being too cost prohibitive.., I am old enough to have heard very similar things said about the Book Tower, Metropolitan Bldg, David Whitney, etc. But those happened, and on a square foot by square foot comparison, a hypothetical RenCen conversion to hotel/lodging will cost a lot less than restoration of those historic jewels.
Just to be clear, I don't think it's impossible that it will ever happen. I think it's impossible now with current rents and interest rates, and it will probably take a while.

The Book Tower was basically shut down in 2007, so it was 15+ years before it was re-occupied. The two situations are not very similar, but it wouldn't be surprising if it took that long to get a conversion done.

Look at the Hudson's tower itself. How long has that taken, depending on when you start counting from? 25 years since the implosion, at least 7 years since the initial design. With incredible governmental support/subsidy and historically low interest rates.

I'm sure there's a future for the RenCen; I just don't know what it is or how we get there. Apparently GM and Gilbert will do some kind of investigation into what can be done; I'll certainly be looking forward to finding out what they come up with.