Looks like this will be happening over the next several weeks. Also, MooseJaw downtown has had excellent sales numbers so far.

Detroit's best-kept retail secret soon may not be a secret at all.

Dan Gilbert's Rock Ventures LLC is nearing completion of its retail plan for Detroit and is expected to begin releasing elements of it -- if not the entire plan -- in the next couple of weeks.

Local developers and architects are involved in the plan, which will create space in the buildings to be used by a blend of national retailers and local boutique shops and be designed to draw shoppers from across metro Detroit.

The plan is likely to involve the properties thatQuicken Loans Inc. founder Gilbert owns or controls near Grand Circus Park and Campus Martius, including frontage on the east side of Woodward Avenue and the former Hudson's lot north of Compuware Corp. headquarters.

Renderings of the retail concept -- shown by Gilbert at multiple public appearances -- include store-fronts for national retailers such as Apple and other uses such as a walkup grocery store. The plan will incorporate some of the alley space behind the buildings along Woodward Avenue, Gilbert said at Crain's Idea conference in March.

He described the retail strategy as part of a "big bang" development plan he has for Detroit. The plan calls for bringing retail and residents to the buildings he has purchased and others downtown at the same time.

Gilbert said he hoped to create the larger plan before signing leases with retailers.

Sources say Gilbert has engaged a New York firm to complete a study that includes an inventory of available retail space in the central business district. Any announcements on the retail strategy are a couple of weeks off, said Paula Silver, vice president of communications for Quicken Loans.

But Rock and its real estate development arm, Bedrock Real Estate Services, are already making retail moves in the downtown area.

The two this month began work on a new parking garage in Detroit's central business district that will include 33,000 square feet of ground-floor retail.

The 535,000-square-foot, "Z-shaped" retail and parking development, which will zigzag from the corner of Broadway and East Grand River Avenue to the corner of Library Street and Gratiot Avenue, is expected to be completed by December 2013. Southfield-based Neumann/Smith Architecture is architect on the parking project, and Rich & Associates Inc. in Southfield is consulting on the structure's design.Colasanti Construction Services Inc./Sachse Construction, a joint venture of Detroit-based Colasanti and Birmingham-based Sachse, are the construction managers.

Bedrock is also bringing temporary pop-up stores to Woodward for the holidays. It recruited Madison Heights-based outerwear retailer Moosejaw Mountaineering and Backcountry Travel Inc. to open a pop-up store at 1275 Woodward Ave.

And it played a role in bringing the Somerset Collection CityLoft, a pop-up with a variety of merchandise from the upscale Troy mall, back to Woodward for the holidays after its success the past two summers and during the 2011 holiday season. This season's stores will include retailers like Pottery Barn and Eddie Bauer plus local artists.

Other holiday popups are also in the works for the 1200 block of Woodward, Silver said. Taking dedicated space on the same block is an expanded Detroit Shoppe, plus trolleys, holiday entertainment, and holiday lights.

Bedrock and Gilbert are putting together attractive deals that take some of the risk out of coming downtown, said Moosejaw CEO Eoin Comerford.

Moosejaw, which opened in early November for a Thursday-Sunday run through Dec. 22, had an "incredible" first weekend, he said.

In comparison to Moosejaw's three new stores in Natick, Mass.; Boulder, Colo.; and Kansas City, "our little popup store in Detroit actually had the best sales last week of all the new stores in only three days, and it's half the size."

"If we continue to see those kinds of results, we'll definitely make it permanent," Comerford said.

Sherri Welch:
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, swelch@crain.com. Twitter: @sherriwelch