There's a strong demand for units right now, and I think future demand will depend on how attractive of an urban environment downtown and midtown are.
A parking garage on the Library Street side would ensure that the area around the library would be a parking garage no-man's land. To the south of the library you'd have the Compuware loading bays, to the SE you'd have the back end of the Compuware garage, to the east you'd have this new garage, and to the west, whenever anything gets built there, you'll more than likely have loading bays there too [[as the design of the Hudsons block building will favor Woodward at the possible expense of Farmer). Broadway would be dominated by large parking garages.
If a well designed mixed use building is built there instead, you'd have several contiguous blocks of quality urban environment [[with the exception of a small number of small surface lots), as well as more residents to add to the vibrancy of the area. And the more appealing the area is, the more demand there will be to live there.
It's true that people need to park somewhere, but an area can only handle so many parking garages before it looses the ability to be as vibrant as we'd like, and I think that site is the tipping point.
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