Meet Fernando Palazuelo; Packard Plant Site Saviour Number 3 [Now owner!]

[Lowell]

So who is Fernando Palazuela? Now that suitor #2 Mr. Hults is yesterday's news, it's time to move on and web vet Sr. Palazuela.

He seems to have decent credentials from what I have briefly discovered. He also seems far more colorful than numbers 1 and 2. What can you find and what do you think?

Running a Google image search for our savior number 3 I find the following.


The picture is captioned "Palazuelo atop the Crillon. He plans to restore the area restored several buildings at the junction of Nicholas Avenues Piérola, Tacna and Wilson." [via Google Translator. I recommend surfing with Chrome when search him as it will offer translator for the Spanish pages]

From this article he sounds perfect for something like a Book Tower renovation. Could he possibly contemplate keeping and repurposing some of the existing Packard structures?

From the article:

Crillón: the slow awakening of a giant

The building that housed the Lima downtown landmark will reopen become an office complex. It is part of a larger project of Arts Express, the company that owns the property, to resurrect the area of ​​Lima.

"The Crillon was the largest hotel in Peru. If the Sheraton, Marriott or Westin are now 280, 300 rooms at most, the Crillon had more than 600. Currently is not much point in keeping a hotel of that size in the center of Lima, so we have turned everything into offices, "says Palazuelo. But that's not all: the side of the former hotel, in a land occupied by a house that for years has only the facade, will build a new 20-storey third tower. They are still deciding whether offices or apartments built there.

Whenever Arts Express has purchased a building in the historic center has been for the interest you have felt for its architecture and its history. In the case of Crillon has been no different. And, as a tribute to all the memory that the building kept inside, they will install a small museum on the right of the entrance. There you can see some of the dishes from the legendary establishment, restaurant menu cards hotel and Sky Room, posters adorned the walls and pictures-photos-many illustrious people who went through there.

[MikeyinBrooklyn]

Thanks, Lowell. I am interested in this guy. The translation reminds me of an episode of the sitcom NewsRadio. The station owner wrote his autobiography, which flopped. It was then translated into Japanese and became a big hit there. Then it was retranslated back into English, and the converted idioms made no sense. Probably funnier in the show than in this post...

[Django]

I'm getting the feeling these millionaire re-developers are putting down their $5000 to get in the auction dont have a clue as to what the Packard is these days, only seeing how much sq footage they can get at a crazy cheap price. When it comes time to pay up they do the research and see a pic of the place.

MikeyinBrooklyn, I had to look that episode of News Radio up. Heres a clip. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMZtdLra24E

[Cliffy]

The one bad thing I read about today is that this guy had to leave Spain because of his economic woes and filed for bankruptcy recently.

[MikeyinBrooklyn]

I'm getting the feeling these millionaire re-developers are putting down their $5000 to get in the auction dont have a clue as to what the Packard is these days, only seeing how much sq footage they can get at a crazy cheap price.

First, thanks for that great clip.

I agree that the Packard might not be the romantic restoration that it might have been 10 years ago, and Palazuelo [[or anyone else) might not be able to do more than demolish much of the site. There is substantial decay and more than cosmetic destruction. But even a full demo is better than the current state, if not the project of our dreams. Palazuelo has toured the site and has reno/demo experience, so I imagine he has informed and critical thoughts in his head. This should be interesting to watch. I doubt he has a master plan at this point; I am sure he needs engineers to visit each structure on the site first to determine what makes sense to save, what doesn't. I hope in six months he has some sort of master plan to announce.

[Gistok]

The one bad thing I read about today is that this guy had to leave Spain because of his economic woes and filed for bankruptcy recently.

Spain is in much the same financial woes as Detroit... but much bigger!! So I don't think that this guys problems there are so much of his doing, as they are of the general Spanish economy.

[Lowell]

Interesting interview here:

Architect hopes to rehabilitate downtown Lima with affordable office rent

I notice that he is an architect too. Interesting team note...

The [Arte Express] team is made up of Peruvians between 23 and 30 years old. Except for me — I’m older.

Clearly Sr. Palazuelo is far more clear-headed and visionary than our first two. I'm starting to cheer for him.

...We are marathon runners. We do no sprint, we run long distances — we are prepared for profitability in the long and medium term, not in the short term. We are recovering the center of the city, rehabilitating buildings, respecting history…

What are your long term projects?
The conversion of the Rimac River bed [[near the Plaza de Armas) into an urban area, with roads, parks and 5,000 houses. Instead of having the river made into a dump, we must recover it. We are also talking with the municipality to build an underground parking lot under the Plaza San Martin.

[Lowell]

Video Interview. My primitive Spanish can't follow all the details, but his passion for history and art comes through. Also he has a clearly Spain Spanish accent.

He is known for his Arte Express "Living Around Art" and seems to be in the Lima art scene. Here is an interview from Limagris.com, an art scene publication in Lima.



More videos on Sr. Palazuela here: http://www.youtube.com/results?searc...y=arte+express

[downtownguy]

Donald Trump's companies filed for bankruptcy in 1991, 1992, 2004 and 2009. Palazuelo addresses his bankruptcy in yesterday's Freep.

According to Spanish news reports, several of his Spain-based development corporations declared bankruptcy by 2009 after accumulating a debt of nearly 7 million euros.

In a recent e-mail, Palazuelo attributed those troubles to the severe crash of the Spanish economy. He said he repaid all of his creditors by liquidating assets, including his personal collection of 20th-Century art and his former residence — a 13th-Century Spanish “palace” that he rehabbed.

The Freep also did a good interview with Palazuelo on Oct. 31. I posted the link in the Hults thread, but I'll repost it here if you didn't see it. The link also includes a video companion to the interview [[in English). The guy doesn't seem too crazy or eccentric so far as I can tell. Although, you gotta wonder where he gets the time:

Family: Married with five children, a sixth due next month. The two oldest work for his firm, the middle two attend Harvard University, youngest is 2 years old.

Freep Interview
http://www.freep.com/article/2013103...S06/310310112/


To top it off, he's got a personal interest:

A native of Spain, Palazuelo fondly recalls how his great-grandfather owned a Packard car.

[Lowell]

^"If I am able here to open an office, I will be living in the Packard Plant. Yes [nervous chuckle] believe it. ... You have to be with all your soldiers, with all your army, in the first line of the battle."

Here is the direct link to the Freep Interview video.

"It's going to be a battle."

"Slowly slowly create kind of [a] new town."

[downtownguy]

^Interesting... in that interview he says he will live in the Packard plant.

For peace and quiet? He's probably had his fill of crying infants in the middle of the night.

[Gistok]

Interest article from the Miami real estate reporter clone of Charlie LeDuff...

http://mfi-miami.com/2013/11/fernand...-of-wasteland/

[401don]

The plant and demolition work is so monumental, combined with the fact that nothing seems worth saving, makes me wish he had taken on a more reasonable task, one that we could see progress a lot sooner - The Tiger Stadium site, the Book Building, Brush Park, etc.

[DetroiterOnTheWestCoast]

^"If I am able here to open an office, I will be living in the Packard Plant. Yes [nervous chuckle] believe it. ... You have to be with all your soldiers, with all your army, in the first line of the battle."

Here is the direct link to the Freep Interview video.

"It's going to be a battle."

"Slowly slowly create kind of [a] new town."

Interesting interview. Plus he's handsome and has great teeth.

A couple of things stand out to me. His belief that the east side could be the next mid-town, and his focus on a long-term approach.

Regarding the former, I have long been a proponent of concentrating re-development in the CBD and midtown, in order to get some semblance of a functioning core. Once there is a functioning core the efforts can spread from there. But I have not really thought about where the "next" area might be. It's interesting that he thinks its on the east side.

Regarding the latter, the Packard would be such a massive undertaking that its nice to see an acknowledgement that this would be a long process of many steps. Maybe he really does have a rational plan.

Personally, I'd rather have a European take this on than an American. American business is focused on little more than next quarter's profits. Someone whose continent was rebuilt after WWII might see the possibilities in Detroit better than we can.

[MikeyinBrooklyn]

I like him. I'll like him more when the money arrives in Wayne County.

[Lowell]

I would think his Peruvian team would have some appreciation of the Packard Site. They are from the land of Machu Picchu after all.

An interesting approach would be to keep segments as a ruins park, secured and tourable, while the beginning evaluations and developments proceed. It could provide some revenue while attracting potential customers to the site.

Controversy and ruins porn aside, the Packard is a stunning and breath-taking site loaded with cultural and historic meaning. Its massive demise and abandonment is a huge message alone.



To watch it emerge back into some new form of life while keeping pieces of its past would be just as remarkable.

[Django]

Fernando and Uncle Allan at the Packard would be roommates? I love it. Im rooting for this guy as well.

[MikeyinBrooklyn]

Lowell, I completely agree about the mixture of meanings at the site. There are elements of tragedy, hope, art and commerce. Seeing some sort of revival, in whatever form, will be wonderful.

I am not sure how preserving ruins would occur. The buildings there are not the Acropolis. They are deteriorating much too quickly, and somewhat unpredictability, to ever be safe to tour on the inside. Can you imagine what the insurance premiums would be? I would also have concern about how a deliberately maintained ruin would affect the value of any renovated areas.

I think creating an "Industrial Detroit" extension of the DHM would be a cool idea. Renovating a space inside the plant, with exhibits, pictures and relics from Detroit's industrial past. That could be a way to show the history & architecture of the city's auto plants, and other industries, too. Kind of like The Henry Ford, but focused specifically on the rise and fall of the plants.

[DetroiterOnTheWestCoast]

I'm very curious as to how much of the complex even is salvageable. I have absolutely no basis for any estimate, and haven't even seen the sight since sometime in the early 1980's when I happened to be driving along East Grand Blvd.

[MikeyinBrooklyn]

I think engineers will have to spend a good deal of time at each and every structure before we know what is worth salvaging. I would bet most buildings could be saved, but the expense for some will make it more sensible to demo. Once the money is transferred, I would imagine sending in engineers/architects and commissioning a study of the site's environmental challenges will launch. That work probably would take well into next year. An actual project plan would be put together after that.

[mark.vandorn]

The Tiger Stadium site

Let it go. Maybe a 100 people care about that site. Time to move on.

[mark.vandorn]

All of you and all of the Detroit media are dreaming that any significant development will take place. It's just an old factory left to rot in a wasteland and it happens to photograph well. It's not really that serious.

[MikeyinBrooklyn]

All of you and all of the Detroit media are dreaming that any significant development will take place. It's just an old factory left to rot in a wasteland and it happens to photograph well. It's not really that serious.

I don't know what will take place there. None of us do. But it is hard to imagine anyone bidding on the site just for the land, considering how much work would need to be done just to make it a clear plot of land. And leaving it alone while owning it is sure-fire big money loser, between taxes, insurance and maintenance costs. I don't know why someone would bid without the intent to redevelop it in some way. I guess we'll need to wait awhile before we know if you are right or wrong, Mark. But I have noted that you are on record as saying it will not be redeveloped. In ten years, I hope you do not have cause to say "See I told you so." But if you do, feel free to.

[MikeyinBrooklyn]

This worries me. International wire transfers are easy and can be done almost instantly from any major bank.

http://www.freep.com/article/2013111...ando-Palazuelo

[Hermod]

This worries me. International wire transfers are easy and can be done almost instantly from any major bank.

http://www.freep.com/article/2013111...ando-Palazuelo

Not if you give them the wrong bank routing number.