It's official! Gilbert locks up redevelopment of old Hudson's site

[MikeyinBrooklyn]

City did what it had to do to maintain the property as the owner at that point. By the time it was demolished, Hudson's was a death trap waiting to happen. My dad was DFD working at Squad 2 behind the Fox during the 90s and he said the only building that would flat out terrify him if they had to respond to a fire was Hudson's.

While imploding Hudson's was heartbreaking for those of us who both remembered the shopping experience and loved the massive, beautiful old building, it was necessary on so many levels. The city could not afford to maintain it in any form, really. It was both a physical danger as El Jimbo noted; and a gigantic, decaying, graffiti-covered, pigeon and rat infested sign of failure, abandonment and blight. Much of what has happened since downtown would have been prevented by the former Hudson's. Sadly, if the building were around today, with today's market conditions, it would have a future [[AMAZING LOFT APARTMENTS). In reality, though, today's market conditions could not have come into existence with the 28-story monument to blight in the middle of downtown. I don't know how much money has been lost on the site by the city; but nothing could have been gained had Hudson's remained.

[dtowncitylover]

Also when will the last few paragraphs of any article about this stop being about the history of Hudson's? Seriously, let's move on!

[401don]

Full details at 3:00 today:

http://www.freep.com/story/money/bus...bert/83585792/

[gthomas]

Full details at 3:00 today:

http://www.freep.com/story/money/bus...bert/83585792/

New Highrise!! Skyline changer hopefully, can't wait to see the rendering. Hopefully it includes a anchor national retailer/mall. Excited!

[tkelly1986]

We may not see renderings today, but what are the chances we hear details? As in, an office tenet for the 250,000 sq feet? [[which would be between 1,000 - 1,500 people). I assume there will be street level retail, but that will not make up the entirety of the commercial square feet.

[dtowncitylover]

We may not see renderings today, but what are the chances we hear details? As in, an office tenet for the 250,000 sq feet? [[which would be between 1,000 - 1,500 people). I assume there will be street level retail, but that will not make up the entirety of the commercial square feet.

I don't know but check it: If Somerset wants a space downtown why not eventually move into this new project? Ask for 100,000-125,000 square feet of a retail space in the building and be the anchor to downtown retail as their own department store "Somerset & Co". All a dream, of course.

[mikeg19]

http://www.freep.com/story/money/bus...bert/83585792/

Says on Freep full details of plan to be revealed. So we might at least here specs, I highly doubt any renderings though. Will need to keep an eye out this afternoon.

[Junjie]

Note that they are now talking about a high rise [[~20 stories, though if I remember correctly there's a hard cap on what the underlying parking garage can support around 18 or so). Meanwhile all of our year-old renderings show a squat box about six stories tall. I wouldn't be surprised if everything we have seen was basically a single phase of concept work for the lower floors. You know Gilbert wants to make a huge splash when he finally shows the visuals.

It's time to add some glass to the skyline.

[tkelly1986]

This may sound crazy, but rumors abound that he wants to do a high-rise of 70 stories...taller than the Ren Cen. Obviously this would require a major rework of the parking garage.

[Scottathew]

This may sound crazy, but rumors abound that he wants to do a high-rise of 70 stories...taller than the Ren Cen. Obviously this would require a major rework of the parking garage.

If that were announced, I may literally shat myself.

I highly doubt it would be that tall, but I'm really hoping for more than 20.

It wouldn't surprise me if he guts the garage, even if it can support 20 stories, he may not like the column placement or other constraints the existing structure has.

[Junjie]

This may sound crazy, but rumors abound that he wants to do a high-rise of 70 stories...taller than the Ren Cen. Obviously this would require a major rework of the parking garage.

Eesh. It'd be fun to drool over, and who am I to tell Dan Gilbert he can't make something a success, but honestly I'd rather have 15 stories on the Hudson site, 35 on the Monroe block and 20 on the Statler site [[or whatever). Spread it around to fill in downtown. I'd worry that 70 stories would suck a lot of the oxygen out of the room as far as demand for additional renovations and infill.

[1953]

I support 80+ story buildings on the Hudson's site, the Monroe Block, and on other key sites around downtown.

[Junjie]

I support 80+ story buildings on the Hudson's site, the Monroe Block, and on other key sites around downtown.

Soon Detroit will have its own Stand Against the Shadows branch...

[Hypestyles]

I support 80+ story buildings on the Hudson's site, the Monroe Block, and on other key sites around downtown.

Might as well make it as big as possible, it can have lots of office and residential space, with the retail on the first couple of levels.

[MSUguy]

. I'd worry that 70 stories would suck a lot of the oxygen out of the room as far as demand for additional renovations and infill.

Not necessarily it all depends on how you build it. Compuware and One Detroit Center are are similar in total size around one million sq ft, but very different in height. With residential you can build on much smaller floor plans. 432 Park and Central Park Tower are great examples of very tall and very narrow buildings. 432 is less than half the size of the ones in Detroit..

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/432_Park_Avenue


http://therealdeal.com/issues_articl...monster-tower/

[Onthe405]

Not necessarily it all depends on how you build it. Compuware and One Detroit Center are are similar in total size around one million sq ft, but very different in height. With residential you can build on much smaller floor plans. 432 Park and Central Park Tower are great examples of very tall and very narrow buildings. 432 is less than half the size of the ones in Detroit..

IMO, projects like 432 Park are uniquely Manhattan-esque, and would be difficult to imagine as commercially viable in a city like Detroit---where land is so inexpensive & plentiful, it's basically at a surplus. "Skinny skyscrapers" like 432 are expensive to engineer/construct and can serve only one purpose: residential. The square footage on each floor is too small for more profitable mass commercial leases. Allegedly, some wealthy potential owners even passed on 432, because [[despite the view), the square footage of one floor was far too small to meet their needs.

The required pricing for each residence in order to pay for such a costly project would be a tough sell in the Detroit real estate market---actually in any market outside of a handful of US cities.

Another footnote regarding 432 Park is that it is currently the tallest building in the US. Like many other skyscrapers, One World Trade & Willis [[former Sears) "cheat" by including the spire [[non occupy-able space) in the total height of the building. Willis is 1,354 to the top floor, 432 Park is 1,396.

[Bham1982]

IMO, projects like 432 Park are uniquely Manhattan-esque, and would be difficult to imagine as commercially viable in a city like Detroit---where land is so inexpensive & plentiful, it's basically at a surplus. "Skinny skyscrapers" like 432 are expensive to engineer/construct and can serve only one purpose: residential. The square footage on each floor is too small for more profitable mass commercial leases. Allegedly, some wealthy potential owners even passed on 432, because [[despite the view), the square footage of one floor was far too small to meet their needs.

The required pricing for each residence in order to pay for such a costly project would be a tough sell in the Detroit real estate market---actually in any market outside of a handful of US cities.

Another footnote regarding 432 Park is that it is currently the tallest building in the US. Like many other skyscrapers, One World Trade & Willis [[former Sears) "cheat" by including the spire [[non occupy-able space) in the total height of the building. Willis is 1,354 to the top floor, 432 Park is 1,396.

Yes. The economics of the skinny supertall residentials only really makes sense in Manhattan. You need tremendous psf sales prices to justify the massive engineering costs and lost common/elevator space on the higher floors.

Just to illustrate, these supertall towers can justify up to 8,000-9,000 psf in sales prices. That's insanely expensive. The most prime parts of Chicago get maybe 1,000 psf. If Chicago is nowhere in the universe of where the supertall economics work out, you can see that smaller cities won't be getting such buildings anytime soon.

432 Park is about to be surpassed by two taller residential supertalls- 111 W.57 and Central Park Tower. CPT will be the tallest residential tower on earth.

Technically not a supertall, but these are the types of prices on the extreme high end of new construction- a $250 million condo at 220 Central Park South.

http://therealdeal.com/2016/05/05/22...he-sky-photos/

To compare, the best office building in Michigan, One Detroit Center, recently sold to Gilbert for around $100 million. So that's a million square foot trophy office tower for less than half the price of a Manhattan apartment.

[Gistok]

This sort of says it all from the Freep article about "innovative designs".....

---
"At the Barclays Center arena in Brooklyn, those reddish exterior panels have dripped wet rusty drops onto the walkways below. Iron workers have had to replace hundreds of bolts anchoring the panels to the structure when engineers found they were weaker than needed.But such issues might be expected when architects push against the limits of accepted technology and practice. Even Frank Lloyd Wright drew complaints now and then about leaky roofs in his buildings."
----

The Disney Center for the Arts in Los Angeles [[a Gehry design) had to redo the shiny finish on that venue because the highly reflective surfaces on the building were causing the sun to heat up nearby buildings with the reflective sunshine... and caused skyrocketing heating bills for Disney's neighbors... that had to be fixed.

Yes Frank Lloyd Wrights houses had many "innovative" problems such as leaky roofs and lack of closet space... and heaven forbid if you were much over 6 ft. tall.

Mies van der Rohe's innovative Farsnworth House in the boonies of Illinois... was found to be almost unlivable.

Utzon's Sydney Opera House is not usable for grand opera [[only the smaller shows). It's acoustics are so-so, and it's not even in the top 20 opera houses list for best venue to perform in. And the costs to replace the tile roof and other problems runs into the hundreds of millions of dollars.

A lot of "innovative architecture" = "maintenance nightmare".

[bust]

This sort of says it all from the Freep article about "innovative designs".....

---
"At the Barclays Center arena in Brooklyn, those reddish exterior panels have dripped wet rusty drops onto the walkways below. Iron workers have had to replace hundreds of bolts anchoring the panels to the structure when engineers found they were weaker than needed.But such issues might be expected when architects push against the limits of accepted technology and practice. Even Frank Lloyd Wright drew complaints now and then about leaky roofs in his buildings."
----

The Disney Center for the Arts in Los Angeles [[a Gehry design) had to redo the shiny finish on that venue because the highly reflective surfaces on the building were causing the sun to heat up nearby buildings with the reflective sunshine... and caused skyrocketing heating bills for Disney's neighbors... that had to be fixed.

Yes Frank Lloyd Wrights houses had many "innovative" problems such as leaky roofs and lack of closet space... and heaven forbid if you were much over 6 ft. tall.

Mies van der Rohe's innovative Farsnworth House in the boonies of Illinois... was found to be almost unlivable.

Utzon's Sydney Opera House is not usable for grand opera [[only the smaller shows). It's acoustics are so-so, and it's not even in the top 20 opera houses list for best venue to perform in. And the costs to replace the tile roof and other problems runs into the hundreds of millions of dollars.

A lot of "innovative architecture" = "maintenance nightmare".

Some innovative architecture has led to maintenance nightmares, true. Add Calatrava's Valencia Opera House to the list for its tiles. Though what a marvel to behold. Opera houses are among the few types of buildings to warrant such [[design, not financial) extravagance.

http://www.dezeen.com/2014/01/02/san...-and-sciences/

However certainly not all innovative architecture has these issues. I think the freep does SHoP a bit of a disservice with its criticisms of the Barclays Center. I don't like living near it, but as stadia go I don't mind its design. The bolts were not the architects' mistake. A subcontractor didn't follow directions and used the wrong size. And while I noticed some rust stains on the sidewalks, they're cleaner and flatter than most in the vicinity. As anticipated, like a new pair of jeans stops giving color after a few washes, the issue seems to have faded over time.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/02/ny...arly-days.html

...So at least in this case I think it's unfair to say the design has caused any maintenance nightmares. Unrelated to that, I prefer its "hunkered-down, hunchbacked, brooding sight" to the gaudy flash we'd have if it were designed by Gehry as originally planned.

[mikeg19]

If DG wants a 70 story building, I'd much rather see that erected elsewhere. Put it on the Monroe Block or on Grand Circus Park with a cluster of skyscrapers. It's tough to picture anything in that spot over 25-30 stories.

[tkelly1986]

So we now have the potential of another $500 million - $1 billion play announced today. If that happens...

[Mackinaw]

There is nothing wrong with a tall development there as long as it interacts with the street well. Empire State Bldg. is surrounded by 5-20 story buildings but you have to look up to notice anything unusual.

The most important thing is a well executed, well constructed development ASAP, and an end to the unsettling, gaping hole downtown.

[tkelly1986]

Has there been any word from the DDA meeting this afternoon? Did anyone go that has updates?

[tkelly1986]

http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article...r-hudsons-site

No new information really besides the 700 additional parking spaces number and the 24 retail spots.

[401don]

http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article...r-hudsons-site

No new information really besides the 700 additional parking spaces number and the 24 retail spots.

4 years to build sounds like a long time for this size of project. I was hoping for 2-2.5.