Renderings For New Midtown Building Revealed

[jw101]

WOW. Midtown can't stop! The proposed building to replace the iconic "Hammer" skyscraper have been revealed. Apparently, it's being proposed by John Ferchill. Here it is:




Isn't it awesome?! Wow, first the new hotel/lofts, then the LTU building, then the Midtown Professional Building, now this? Midtown is eating downtown alive.

[Armin]

Haters submitting posts about how bad this sucks in THREE....TWO....ONE.....

[WPitonya]

From this angle with The Ellington in the background, it looks like they may possibly re-introduce Selden Street into the grid between Woodward and John R; this would be an excellent choice!

[313WX]

I guess so long to another high rise building...

[Richard]

Haters submitting posts about how bad this sucks in THREE....TWO....ONE.....

lol I think they did a nice job mixing old with the new,a lot of positives,curbside pedestrian friendly,the use of vintage lighting,a streetcar.

I guess if you have to build new this would be a nice example.

[stinkytofu]

Minus the glass top thing...that building looks a lot like the old PWC building next to Ford Field [[which I'm guessing is looking for tenants?).

[rb336]

It looks like it might have parking on top, I like the sidewalk cafe.

[southen]

seems rather suburban. i hope they can do some nice things at the street level to integrate it into the area.

id really love to see a site plan though. this building sits perpendicular to woodward but isnt close to covering the length of the block. the article mentions an additional small retail building, but that isnt pictured. based on this rendering we are removing a tall structure and replacing it with a park or surface parking... which doesnt do much for midtown and whats been happening in that area. i hope any future buildings include some ellington style residential but that might be wishful thinking.

[casscorridor]

I understand replacing the two story building that currently houses Subway [[even though poor Subway has bad luck with their buildings being demolished). But the high-rise should not be demolished. It is an area landmark and gives a nice diversity of height to Woodward where most of the new buildings top out at a max of 5 floors. I also do not understand the perspective of the rendering. It appears there is a big whole between the Ellington and this new structure, which means it does nothing to close the gaps that currently exist and just replaces on building with another. Nothing to get excited about. Actually, I am very disappointed and, to me, this is a huge bummer.

[casscorridor]

also, the current high-rise does not prevent Selden from being reopened.

[detroitpride313]

I'm not really a fan of modern architecture, but I like this building.

Does anyone have a link to the original article this came from?

[Gistok]

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Sorry to disappoint your trolling... but this is a much nicer building than the LTU "big box" building which has all the charm of a Walgreens....

Here's a link to an article...
http://www.freep.com/article/2013121...S04/312150034/

[drjeff]

What is the rationale for tearing down the existing building?

[stinkytofu]

Sorry to disappoint your trolling... but this is a much nicer building than the LTU "big box" building which has all the charm of a Walgreens....

Here's a link to an article...
http://www.freep.com/article/2013121...S04/312150034/

To each his own. I actually like the LTU building...think it looks nice and fronts the street well. This building I think is really bland...something you'd see off 696 in Farmington Hills.

[stinkytofu]

Anyone know when that other medical office building across from MSU on Woodward is supposed to break ground? I have a hunch that might be a doomed project.

[Detroitnerd]

What is the rationale for tearing down the existing building?

Well, I'd argue that it's all about the money.

We have demolition contractors in the region who exist to tear down buildings. They've been well-subsidized by the public sector over the years and so that's one well-funded tool we definitely have in our toolbox.

Also, building from scratch is ... more profitable. Everybody has a chance to make money. The architects, the site excavators, the people who make prefab exteriors, the drywall hangers, the electricians. Everybody gets some sugar.

Also, to retrofit the building to a new purpose, we'd need intelligent people working for firms that do repurposing, refitting, reuse. And we don't fund those sorts of companies here in southeastern Michigan. Because there's so much more profit to be made knocking stuff down and building from scratch. Repurposing a building would cost only a fraction of it, and we need to provide busywork for the demolition and construction contractors until ... the end of time.

[Gistok]

To each his own. I actually like the LTU building...think it looks nice and fronts the street well. This building I think is really bland...something you'd see off 696 in Farmington Hills.

... and the LTU building doesn't???

[stinkytofu]

... and the LTU building doesn't???

Not as much as this one. We'll respectfully disagree.

[dtowncitylover]

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I've observed and come to the conclusion that my fellow DYesers are a very, very discriminating group when it comes to new construction. Nothing will make them happy.

[Detroitnerd]

I've observed and come to the conclusion that my fellow DYesers are a very, very discriminating group when it comes to new construction. Nothing will make them happy.

Really? I thought that most people in Detroit just applaud wildly when ANYTHING goes up, because, as you know, we're all just supposed to swoon when developers propose building ANYTHING in Detroit.

Anybody is allowed to criticize a $100 million movie, but criticize a piddly $60 million building as "lacking imagination" and all of a sudden you're worse than Kwame Kilpatrick and L. Brooks rolled together, scaring away investors and bringing everybody down.

[DetroiterOnTheWestCoast]

What is the rationale for tearing down the existing building?

The Freep article states that Ferchill tried to save it to use as dorms for Wayne, but that it was not economically feasible.

IMHO, the building that is bland and suburban is the ugly one being torn down. Looks to me like it should be somewhere in the vicinity of Northland. This new building is shorter but has a much larger footprint. Since the article mentions a second smaller retail building, I presume that would be in the space between this building and the Ellington even though its not on the rendering?

[DetroiterOnTheWestCoast]

I've observed and come to the conclusion that my fellow DYesers are a very, very discriminating group when it comes to new construction. Nothing will make them happy.

Some people will only be happy when Albert Kahn is resurrected and begins designing again.

[SpartanDawg]

Ok I know they said the garage and retail will be on the north side of the property [[so to the left of the building in the rendering) but all I see is a surface lot along Woodward.

I like the building design but I think street wall is more important here... If they have another parking lot right on Woodward I'm not gonna be happy

[motz]

So hold on, everyone is fighting for an office building that looks like vintage boom Southfield, is set back from Woodward and doesn't look, by any stretch of the imagination, like a historical building? Seriously, this building has a buffer between itself and Woodward and really doesn't look that great. It just happens to have been in Midtown for a long time. The only part about this I will miss is the hammer and the nail.

And to anyone arguing that all that they are building in Midtown is 2-4 story buildings... Midtown isn't downtown. It doesn't need to be downtown. It has its own identity. I, for one, am excited to see all of the new development, regardless of how modern or not 1970s-Southfield-Office-Building it looks.

[Sharnelle]

Agree with the suburban comments, and it could be anywhere, IMO.

Is it too much to ask for the design to say something about the identity of a revitalized Detroit? Or reflect the city's industrial roots, updated in some way?