Quote Originally Posted by bust View Post
I agree with everything you wrote with one difference: I think a development half as tall that fills the entire block would probably be much better.

Some people get excited by tall buildings, but haven't we learned anything from the Ren Cen? For many it would feel good for it to no longer be Detroit's tallest building. But let's not repeat its mistakes. The proposed design improves upon it, greatly. It doesn't repeat all of them. But let's not flood the market with too much square footage like the Ren Cen did. Now, like in the late 70's, Detroit has no shortage of unused and underused real estate. Let's build something great that leaves open today's opportunities to develop and refurbish more of downtown, horizontally. A project too large could suck those opportunities dry. There are too many dead zones downtown for an egotistical exclamation point. For all the reasons Junjie said, and others, I think tax credits for a project like this one make a lot more sense than for a sports arena. But if too many tax credits result in a building misguidedly too big then then let's not shoot ourselves in the foot twice.

I wish this project fantastic success. But not at the expense of the rest of Detroit.
But the RenCen was built outside the downtown core in a very suburban way of development, ie parking deck and those damn buttresses that made it near impossible to enter from Jefferson. As well the inside, though a "mall", was, and still is, confusing for many to navigate. This Hudson development seems to be almost exactly opposite from any of that.

As been said this also includes a housing component which makes a huge difference. So this probably won't have nearly the amount of office footage that the RenCen has.