Ficano Administration Thinking About Buying Back Old County Building

[Kathleen]

Can you believe this??

The Ficano Administration is Thinking About Buying Back Old County Building

From DeadlineDetroit.com

[kenp]

They need to keep buying and renovating buildings because thats how they make their money. Or at least on of the ways

[artds]

I've never been inside, so I don't know how practical this use would be, but I always thought that building would make for an attractive court house

[downtownguy]

I successfully fought a traffic ticket there and got divorced there [[not so successful). It used to be a gorgeous building inside. For the last year, I've been wishing Dan Gilbert liked it as much as I do.

[mikeg19]

I don't get it. Wayne County sold it to consolidate staff into the Guardian Building, as well as the fact the building was outdated and in need of renovations. So they bought the Guardian, dumped twice as much into it to renovate it as they initially thought, and now they want to buy it back? Where is this money coming from? Isn't the city about to financially implode? How can you justify selling the building and almost immediately [[according to the stories timeline) enter into talks to repurchase it? Wouldn't the building need a massive renovation as well?

[Neilr]

When the firm of Smith, Hinchman & Grylls restored/renovated the Wayne County Building they published a beautifully done commemorative book to mark its reopening [[Suzy Farbman, James Gallagher, 1989). Here are several pictures from that book.

[Johnnny5]

How can you justify selling the building and almost immediately [[according to the stories timeline) enter into talks to repurchase it? Wouldn't the building need a massive renovation as well?

According to the article Wayne County was leasing the building after selling it back in the 1980's [[It's been vacant since Wayne County terminated the lease a few years ago). If they do decide to buy it I hope they use their position to force a drastically discounted price, I doubt there would be other parties that would have a serious interest in that building.

[313WX]

All of Wayne County needs one huge enema.

[rex]

Ficano administration should be thinking about buying lawyers and paying off judges instead

[canuck]

This is another example of the treasures Detroit needs to protect and promote in order to compete with other cities on the continent. It is easy to forget that a lot of the great early 20th century architecture happened in cities with a critical mass that are now taken for granted. There werent as many big rich cities as there are now. Therefore Detroit is still chock full of treasures that need to be promoted to potential tenants that appreciate the grandeur of that era.

The city's potential is in its past glory as well as in its forward looking. In fact, part of the problem with Detroit may be that folks learned to not look back and only thrust forward, pedal to the floor onto new outlying towns and such, forgetting the impressive mark their forebears left on the city. There was a time when architects used every trick in the book to make a statement of opulence from a rich, ancient vocabulary. Nowadays, we are content with standardized dimensions and materials that repeat ad infinitum. This kind of building is anything but that and many skills were brought together to complete it.

In a sense, this may be good news that the city is interested in buying back the bldg. It may be a signal that the downtown is getting more attention from investors and that the city wants to showcase its architectural assets.