Movement on the Women's City Club Building

[Lowell]

I love this building. My uncle life-guarded there in the 20's. If I had Dan Gilbert bucks I would have bought it for my downtown residence. I think it would make a great boutique hotel.


^Women's City Club in 2000.

The Women’s City Club building on Park Avenue downtown has a new owner with a likely mixed-use conversion on the way.

But Eric Larson, president and CEO of Bloomfield Hills-based Larson Realty Group and the new owner of the William Buck Stratton-designed building, said those plans aren’t set in stone.

Larson, also CEO of the Downtown Detroit Partnership, is still deciding how to use the 75,000-square-foot building.

Aside from mixed-use with residential and retail, he said he is “looking at a bunch of different concepts, ranging from hotel to [social] club” and others.

Larson said the deal to buy the building — which was constructed in 1924 at 2110 Park at West Elizabeth Street north of Grand Circus Park — for an undisclosed amount closed Friday.
Full article at Crain's >>

[DetroiterOnTheWestCoast]

I note that the Crain's article and current street view show new windows. When was that work done? Those banks of windows on the second and third floors must provide a lot of light.

[Pam]

I remember attending a lot of concerts there in the early 80's. [[location of the first Clutch Cargo's) Wish I had paid more attention to what it looked like inside.

[Gistok]

I don't know anything about when new windows were installed... but this building is one of those buildings that has always baffled me as to alterations over the years [[as do the old Michigan Mutual Building on W. Adams, and the Towne Apartments).

But based on this historic postcard image, it looks as though this building has always looked this way without major renovations, except windows....
http://detroiths.pastperfect-online....2012020123.JPG

I would never have guessed that this was a 90+ year old building. But the fact that there is a lot of Pewabic Pottery in and to a lesser degree "on" the building... that it should have struck a chord that this is a William B. Stratton [[husband of Pewabic founder Mary Chase Perry Stratton) design.

Based on the Wikipedia entry... I would guess that the new windows were installed this century... under Chuck Forbes ownership....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_City_Club

[mikeg19]

Maybe I'm in the minority, but I hate the chopped up windows on this place. It makes it look like a jail. But hey, just my opinion.

[bassab]

The new windows were installed by Forbes when the building was occupied mostly by the DPD [[including the DPD discipline section), sometime around 2007-08. Other than the windows, not much else was updated. The DPD sections moved out shortly thereafter to a building owned by a friend of former mayor Kilpatrick.

[DetroiterOnTheWestCoast]

The building looks a bit odd to me, because of how the top three floors are so different from the bottom three, and how the back portion on the side differs from the front. But that's just my preference; we all have our more or lesser favorites. I am glad to hear there might be new life for it.

I just noticed that the peaks on the three front sections were also reconstructed at some time; the top is no longer squared off. I think it looks better now with the less boxy facade.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%...lubDetroit.jpg