Lafayette Building's top two floors subsiding?

[PQZ]

If Kbacks away, do nothing and wait for another developer to come along.

They already put up a fence to deal with that so called hazard.

So what if there are a few window frames are twisting? Those windows can be replaced a few years down the road, if not tomorrow. How much are a few replacement window frames from Habitat? A thousand bucks? If not, how much to just board it up? You get people breaking into occupied buildings too. So what? It happens. Just because that happens doesn't follow that the building must be, henceforth, demolished. As for the facade hazard, I remember a poster giving a quote from a previous thread to fix that problem not too long ago for $35,000, if it was to be resolved as opposed to maintaining the status quo with the fence around the property.
http://detroityes.com/mb/showthread.php?t=106 Post #7
B.
Facade Renovation Cost:
$35,000
Mothballing Cost:
$24,400
Total Cost:
$59,400
C. Starting and Completing Work
Façade Renovation 30 days
Mothballing 30 days

D.
E.
F. UNIT PRICE SCALE
UNIT PRICE NO. 1
The cost of removing unsafe slate colored façade addition from lower part of building, removing graffiti, vegetative growth, and visible dilapidation debris.
30 x 10 Cubic Yard Dumpsters $7,000
3 Scissor Lifts $4,500
6 Masonry Workers @ $15.00 x 4 weeks $14,400
6 General Labors @ $10 x 4 weeks $9,600

UNIT PRICE NO. 2
The cost of installing treatments to windows for appearance, security system, and mothballing the building for future development.
4 Window Installers @ $15 x 4 weeks $14,400
Security System $5,000
Materials $5,000

I can't even begin to describe how far off base that estimate is. Who ever dreamed up that up is sadly sadly mistaken.

The boarding of about 200 windows and reframing and re-plywooding of the first floor frontage at Metropolitan ran about $125,00 - $135,000. And that was simply cosmetic work.

When a window blows out of the Lafayette and slices through a customer leaving one of the coneys, you can be the one that says to the family: So what? When a 30 foot section of brick spalls off and crushes fans on the way to a game, you can stand in front of the media and say: So what?

[PQZ]

PQZ, the *entire point* of this discussion is that DEGC won't even do the responsible thing and hire an architect and engineer IN ORDER TO DETERMINE what kind of mothballing measures are necessary. Maybe you can put dollar figures on made-up bullshit scope of work based on nothing in reality, but I can't.

What you're proposing is identical to totalling a car for a few dings even before having a mechanic and auto body shop prepare an estimate. I presume you were never an insurance adjuster in a past life, were you?

Now, where are these architectural and engineering feasibility studies?

I have been around enough buildings and have directly contracted enough work renovation, demolition and mothballing work that I can make educated estimates at costs. You may not be comfortable with your own knowledge, but I certainly am with mine.

[kraig]

I'm sorry, kraig. I don't understand the thrust of this new insult. You'll have to explain it to me.



Sounds like it doesn't have any prospects. It's not exactly an architectural prize, is it? And if the acoustics in there are as bad as they say, it would probably be too much work to improve them. Then again, developing a corporate headquarters on the recreation-oriented riverfront would have been a bad idea. And, with Comerica largely in Texas, we'd probably have another largely empty hulk if they had razed and developed it. Maybe all that stalling was for the best in the end.

Or maybe if we had demonstrated to one of our largest corporate citizens that its needs outweighed the need to keep an abandoned building and let that corporation build where it wanted. That corporation would have made a bigger investment into its corporate headquarters. Possibly, a large enough investment that it wouldn't have moved. But hey, we still have Ford Auditorium, just sitting there.

[kraig]

If Kbacks away, do nothing and wait for another developer to come along.

They already put up a fence to deal with that so called hazard.

So what if there are a few window frames are twisting? Those windows can be replaced a few years down the road, if not tomorrow. How much are a few replacement window frames from Habitat? A thousand bucks? If not, how much to just board it up? You get people breaking into occupied buildings too. So what? It happens. Just because that happens doesn't follow that the building must be, henceforth, demolished. As for the facade hazard, I remember a poster giving a quote from a previous thread to fix that problem not too long ago for $35,000, if it was to be resolved as opposed to maintaining the status quo with the fence around the property.
http://detroityes.com/mb/showthread.php?t=106 Post #7
B.
Facade Renovation Cost:
$35,000
Mothballing Cost:
$24,400
Total Cost:
$59,400
C. Starting and Completing Work
Façade Renovation 30 days
Mothballing 30 days

D.
E.
F. UNIT PRICE SCALE
UNIT PRICE NO. 1
The cost of removing unsafe slate colored façade addition from lower part of building, removing graffiti, vegetative growth, and visible dilapidation debris.
30 x 10 Cubic Yard Dumpsters $7,000
3 Scissor Lifts $4,500
6 Masonry Workers @ $15.00 x 4 weeks $14,400
6 General Labors @ $10 x 4 weeks $9,600

UNIT PRICE NO. 2
The cost of installing treatments to windows for appearance, security system, and mothballing the building for future development.
4 Window Installers @ $15 x 4 weeks $14,400
Security System $5,000
Materials $5,000

What's this for? A couple of houses on Mack and Bewick?

[EastSider]

So what if there are a few window frames are twisting? Those windows can be replaced a few years down the road, if not tomorrow. How much are a few replacement window frames from Habitat? A thousand bucks? If not, how much to just board it up?

Assuming you want to use historic tax credits in any restoration work on the building, you can't just go and pick out any old window from Habitat and call it a day.

I think the main point is that spending money to mothball the structure is a good gamble. Sure it costs $1.4 million to demolish, and then it's over. And, at current market rates, maybe that sounds like a good deal to you. But what will the building's value be in 10, 20, 30 years? Could be more, and most certainly, if it is mothballed, will not be less.

The building's value is determined only by the amount of rent it brings in. Not by anything else. You can't go to a bank and ask for a commercial loan and expect them to approve it based upon the age of a building, the design or the architect. They will look at your sources of income and decide from there.

[Detroitnerd]

Or maybe if we had demonstrated to one of our largest corporate citizens that its needs outweighed the need to keep an abandoned building and let that corporation build where it wanted. That corporation would have made a bigger investment into its corporate headquarters. Possibly, a large enough investment that it wouldn't have moved. But hey, we still have Ford Auditorium, just sitting there.

So you're saying that if the auditorium had been razed [[who would have paid for this?) and the city had OK'd Comerica's plan to build a headquarters on the riverfront, it would have stayed? There are a few problems with the scenario, though:

1) There's no way to say that smoothing the way for Comerica would have kept it here. In fact, I've seen some studies that show that no matter how well a municipality treats a company [[over and above the baseline of providing services, etc.), they'll still leave if they feel it's more profitable to be somewhere else. We can call corporations "corporate citizens" all we want, but they're self-interested, publicly unaccountable and don't necessarily have any long-term committment based on sweetheart deals.

2) In general, we in Detroit have done everything we could for our companies here. Want to get rid of this green space for a factory? Go for it. Want us to reroute transit? Done. Want to build out over the street or have us wipe away the old street grid? Done. Want tax abatement? Done. Well, what has that gotten us? I'm not saying I'm a fan of some of the emotional, stubborn, divisive antics on City Council [[please don't lump me in with them), but that sort of cozy do-anything-for-you attitude toward our companies has allowed them to be lazy, sluggish, defiant, destructive and, ultimately, to leave when they're done.

3) If we'd had a big corporate campus on the riverfront, that would certainly have been in the way of the Detroit Riverwalk. It's 20 years later, and one sensible move has been to free up our shoreline for pleasure-seekers. In that sense, I guess I'm kind of glad that there's not a huge presence there to be an obstacle to the new plan.

Anyway, to return to whether the Ford should have been demo'd, it's obvious that not every building will have a place in the future, but it's a lot easier to repurpose an office tower than it is to repurpose an auditorium.

[Detroitnerd]

The building's value is determined only by the amount of rent it brings in. Not by anything else. You can't go to a bank and ask for a commercial loan and expect them to approve it based upon the age of a building, the design or the architect. They will look at your sources of income and decide from there.

Well, check Detroit's per-square-foot commercial rates for 2039. What are they? Don't know? Of course you don't, because nobody does. You're basing this on your theory that Detroit is slowly dying, but that isn't science. It's your own personal guess.

[EastSider]

Well, check Detroit's per-square-foot commercial rates for 2039. What are they? Don't know? Of course you don't, because nobody does. You're basing this on your theory that Detroit is slowly dying, but that isn't science. It's your own personal guess.

It's not a guess. It's based upon looking at Detroit for the last 60 years. Everytime we think it can't get worse...it does!

Think Detroit's not dying? Is the population increasing? Is crime down?

http://freep.com/article/20090731/CO...kills--no-jobs

Time to break cycle of no skills, no jobs
Low level of literacy adds fuel to employment crisis

Margaret Williamson, executive director of ProLiteracy Detroit, the city's largest adult-reading program, has seen the problem building for years.

"It's tragic," she said. "You see them, they come in to us after they've been to Work First and they're so dejected because they cannot even get into a job-training program."

She said Detroit has about 365,000 residents age 16 and older who read below sixth-grade level. That's more than a third of a city that is losing residents every year.

"Think about this," Williamson said. "If you open up every closed school and ran them 24/7, you don't have enough buildings or ... staff to remediate that level of people."

[Detroitnerd]

You can extrapolate data all you want, but you can't definitively prove what the city will look like in even 10 years.

Of course, you can do things that ensure the city will die, but you can't say what it will look like for sure. So, again, it's just a guess. Unless, of course, it is your unspoken desire.

[kraig]

So you're saying that if the auditorium had been razed [[who would have paid for this?) and the city had OK'd Comerica's plan to build a headquarters on the riverfront, it would have stayed? There are a few problems with the scenario, though:

1) There's no way to say that smoothing the way for Comerica would have kept it here. In fact, I've seen some studies that show that no matter how well a municipality treats a company [[over and above the baseline of providing services, etc.), they'll still leave if they feel it's more profitable to be somewhere else. We can call corporations "corporate citizens" all we want, but they're self-interested, publicly unaccountable and don't necessarily have any long-term committment based on sweetheart deals.

2) In general, we in Detroit have done everything we could for our companies here. Want to get rid of this green space for a factory? Go for it. Want us to reroute transit? Done. Want to build out over the street or have us wipe away the old street grid? Done. Want tax abatement? Done. Well, what has that gotten us? I'm not saying I'm a fan of some of the emotional, stubborn, divisive antics on City Council [[please don't lump me in with them), but that sort of cozy do-anything-for-you attitude toward our companies has allowed them to be lazy, sluggish, defiant, destructive and, ultimately, to leave when they're done.

3) If we'd had a big corporate campus on the riverfront, that would certainly have been in the way of the Detroit Riverwalk. It's 20 years later, and one sensible move has been to free up our shoreline for pleasure-seekers. In that sense, I guess I'm kind of glad that there's not a huge presence there to be an obstacle to the new plan.

Anyway, to return to whether the Ford should have been demo'd, it's obvious that not every building will have a place in the future, but it's a lot easier to repurpose an office tower than it is to repurpose an auditorium.

The plans for the Riverwalk had been in place and dormant for decades. It was the corporate citizenry of General Motors, with its big corporate campus on the riverfront, and Detroit Renaissance that finally got the ball rolling. How dare they?

[Detroitnerd]

The plans for the Riverwalk had been in place and dormant for decades. It was the corporate citizenry of General Motors, with its big corporate campus on the riverfront, and Detroit Renaissance that finally got the ball rolling. How dare they?

Well, yeah, once they finally got somebody with a fairly decent understanding of design to head up the real estate division. That guy Cullen was pretty sharp, and not above drinking in the neighborhood. I ran into him once at Beaubien Street and it was a pleasure.

Why are you so darn confrontational, kraig? You seem to think you have me all figured out or something.

[Retroit]

You all need a Beer Summit!

ObamaBidenGatesTheCop

[davewindsor]

I can't even begin to describe how far off base that estimate is. Who ever dreamed up that up is sadly sadly mistaken.

The boarding of about 200 windows and reframing and re-plywooding of the first floor frontage at Metropolitan ran about $125,00 - $135,000. And that was simply cosmetic work.

When a window blows out of the Lafayette and slices through a customer leaving one of the coneys, you can be the one that says to the family: So what? When a 30 foot section of brick spalls off and crushes fans on the way to a game, you can stand in front of the media and say: So what?

You don't need to board up 200 windows. Just 4-5 near the top of the inner courtyard. The windows fronting the sidewalks look fine.

Why would the windows fronting the sidewalks blow out of the Lafayette hitting a customer from one of the Coneys? Based on what? Someone removing a window and throwing it at people on the street? The only window hazard I saw was from the leak that caused damage in the inner courtyard which is not gonna blow 40+ feet horizontally onto the sidewalk. The rest of the windows looked fine as I observed them from the sidewalk.

A thirty foot section of brick is gonna fall off the Lafayette and hit people on the street? Yeah right. Do you have an engineering report to verify that? Are you an engineer? That building is solid as anything. It's been there for almost a hundred years and was built to last unlike most of the buildings built today. The only hazard is that glued on slate near the bottom which would cost nowhere near the demo price to remove.

[Detroitnerd]

Retroit: Finally, something we can all agree on!

[kraig]

Well, yeah, once they finally got somebody with a fairly decent understanding of design to head up the real estate division. That guy Cullen was pretty sharp, and not above drinking in the neighborhood. I ran into him once at Beaubien Street and it was a pleasure.

Why are you so darn confrontational, kraig? You seem to think you have me all figured out or something.

I'm just going with the flow. I've noticed that there are a lot of people that can dish it out, but can't take it. Oh well.

[kraig]

You don't need to board up 200 windows. Just 4-5 near the top of the inner courtyard. The windows fronting the sidewalks look fine.

Why would the windows fronting the sidewalks blow out of the Lafayette hitting a customer from one of the Coneys? Based on what? Someone removing a window and throwing it at people on the street? The only window hazard I saw was from the leak that caused damage in the inner courtyard which is not gonna blow 40+ feet horizontally onto the sidewalk. The rest of the windows looked fine as I observed them from the sidewalk.

A thirty foot section of brick is gonna fall off the Lafayette and hit people on the street? Yeah right. Do you have an engineering report to verify that? Are you an engineer? That building is solid as anything. It's been there for almost a hundred years and was built to last unlike most of the buildings built today. The only hazard is that glued on slate near the bottom which would cost nowhere near the demo price to remove.

It is possible that a window that shatters at ground level could cut someone at ground level. I don't know why some of you think that 2+2= We need to pay for an expert's opinion. One person is going to pay an engineer to say one thing and the other is going to get a physicist to say the opposite.

[EastSider]

That building is solid as anything.

Do you have an engineering report to verify that?

[davewindsor]

It is possible that a window that shatters at ground level could cut someone at ground level. I don't know why some of you think that 2+2= We need to pay for an expert's opinion. One person is going to pay an engineer to say one thing and the other is going to get a physicist to say the opposite.

The only problem with that theory, Einstein, is that the windows are boarded up at ground level.

Do you have an engineering report to verify that?

An engineering report was done when the building was originally built that said it was solid. If you're now claiming otherwise, you need to disprove it with a contradictory and more recent engineering report.

[kraig]

The only problem with that theory, Einstein, is that the windows are boarded up at ground level.



An engineering report was done when the building was originally built that said it was solid. If you're now claiming otherwise, you need to disprove it with a contradictory and more recent engineering report.

Oh, well that changes everything. After all, everyone knows that once a window is boarded up in Detroit it stays boarded up. I mean no one, absolutely no one, has ever torn boards off of abandoned buildings in Detroit.

Besides, instead of arguing with me you should be thanking me for stepping in. I may kid around with Ghettopalmetto a lot. But judging from the exchanges that you were having with him earlier, Ghettopalmetto is lucky that he's not in jail for violating the Emancipation Proclamation Act. Because he owned your ass. As a matter of fact, we haven't heard from RSA 313 in a while. Do we need to bail him out for owning you too.

[davewindsor]

Oh, well that changes everything. After all, everyone knows that once a window is boarded up in Detroit it stays boarded up. I mean no one, absolutely no one, has ever torn boards off of abandoned buildings in Detroit.

Besides, instead of arguing with me you should be thanking me for stepping in. I may kid around with Ghettopalmetto a lot. But judging from the exchanges that you were having with him earlier, Ghettopalmetto is lucky that he's not in jail for violating the Emancipation Proclamation Act. Because he owned your ass. As a matter of fact, we haven't heard from RSA 313 in a while. Do we need to bail him out for owning you too.

And, before you can tear off the boards from the main floor, you have to climb over the chain link fence. Not considering the fact that there's people walking around there all the time and people in looking out the BC that would probably pull out their cell phone and call the cops when they see you trying to climb the chain link fence.. I dare you to try what you hypothesize and provide pictures to prove it. But, I think you'd be too chicken to test what you claim you could do.

Consider yourself pwned.

As for bringing Ghetto back into this, get a clue. His past dozen e-mails have been about saving the Lafayette, which is the same goal as mine. So, why would I start arguing with him again instead of you? You're the one being a whiney b-itch about not wanting to see buildings with a little character preserved.

[kraig]

And, before you can tear off the boards from the main floor, you have to climb over the chain link fence. Not considering the fact that there's people walking around there all the time and people in looking out the BC that would probably pull out their cell phone and call the cops when they see you trying to climb the chain link fence.. I dare you to try what you hypothesize and provide pictures to prove it. But, I think you'd be too chicken to test what you claim you could do.

Consider yourself pwned.

As for bringing Ghetto back into this, get a clue. His past dozen e-mails have been about saving the Lafayette, which is the same goal as mine. So, why would I start arguing with him again instead of you? You're the one being a whiney b-itch about not wanting to see buildings with a little character preserved.

I've stated before that I would like to see the building preserved. On this thread and others. I've also stated that I understand where the DDA/DEGC is coming from, that's all.

As far as your dare is concerned. Good luck finding anyone on this website that's against trespassing in abandoned buildings more than me. If I could convince the DEGC to spend the 1.4 million to tear down some of the Packard Plant before the Lafayette Building, I would do so in a heartbeat. So I think I'll pass on your dare. Now I will dare you to look at the first two or three pages of this thread. That way you can refresh your memory of getting your ass handed to you by GP and RSA 313. That was some funny stuff.

[davewindsor]

I've stated before that I would like to see the building preserved. On this thread and others. I've also stated that I understand where the DDA/DEGC is coming from, that's all.

As far as your dare is concerned. Good luck finding anyone on this website that's against trespassing in abandoned buildings more than me. If I could convince the DEGC to spend the 1.4 million to tear down some of the Packard Plant before the Lafayette Building, I would do so in a heartbeat. So I think I'll pass on your dare. Now I will dare you to look at the first two or three pages of this thread. That way you can refresh your memory of getting your ass handed to you by GP and RSA 313. That was some funny stuff.

It wasn't handed to me by anybody so I don't know what you're blabbing about. And this is not a joke. The Lafayette's gonna get demo'd without due process. Where's the engineering report that it's unsafe? Where's the public hearings for input from the public? The DEGC is running a tyrannical reign of the destruction of.still reusable historical buildings and wasting a lot of taxpayer dollars in the process. How could you possibly find that funny?! If you think the stuff that's going on here is funny, take your negativity to the chocolate sauce site.

[kraig]

It wasn't handed to me by anybody so I don't know what you're blabbing about. And this is not a joke. The Lafayette's gonna get demo'd without due process. Where's the engineering report that it's unsafe? Where's the public hearings for input from the public? The DEGC is running a tyrannical reign of the destruction of.still reusable historical buildings and wasting a lot of taxpayer dollars in the process. How could you possibly find that funny?! If you think the stuff that's going on here is funny, take your negativity to the chocolate sauce site.

So now you're concerned with the Lafayette Building? That's funny, all you posted about early on was the World Trade Center. However, I can understand you not remembering. All of those blows to the head during the ass whipping you took from Ghettopalmetto and RSA 313 probably gave you a concussion.

[davewindsor]

So now you're concerned with the Lafayette Building? That's funny, all you posted about early on was the World Trade Center. However, I can understand you not remembering. All of those blows to the head during the ass whipping you took from Ghettopalmetto and RSA 313 probably gave you a concussion.

I think you're delusional. And, I was always concerned with the Lafayette. It's a beautiful building worth saving and buildings like that won't be built again.

[kraig]

I think you're delusional. And, I was always concerned with the Lafayette. It's a beautiful building worth saving and buildings like that won't be built again.

That's the best that you can come up with? The only thing dealing with you is going to get anyone is complacent and unprepared for the true heavyweights. You may want to stick with the featherweight division. I think there are some threads on ant farms and sponge bob that you may find are better suited for your level of intelligence. One final word of advice. Little pussycats shouldn't try to stomp with the big dogs. Now go on kid, scram.