Any News on the Book Tower's future?

**night-timer** · June-21-17, 01:44 AM

The title kinda says it all. Does anyone know what Dan Gilbert plans to do with his downtown tower since he purchased it?

**mikeg19** · June-21-17, 06:26 AM

They are working on the exterior and have been for awhile now. Cleaning it and rehabbing some of the architectural detail. There has not been any official announcement on what exactly will go into it besides the standard "office/retail/living space" boilerplate.

**Atticus** · June-21-17, 01:01 PM

Rumor is the exterior fire escape has to remain with the remodel, as there is only one interior staircase. Obviously the escape structure will need to be rehabbed, but it is an interesting exterior "decoration".

**K-slice** · June-21-17, 06:36 PM

I've heard from sources that that everything below the tower will be commercial and the tower itself all residential. I don't think anything is set in [[lime) stone though so however true this is currently, they could so something totally different.

**Gistok** · June-21-17, 09:36 PM

Did someone say "rickety fire escape"?

**mikeg19** · June-22-17, 06:05 AM

Originally Posted by Atticus

Rumor is the exterior fire escape has to remain with the remodel, as there is only one interior staircase. Obviously the escape structure will need to be rehabbed, but it is an interesting exterior "decoration".

I would have assumed it needed to remain. You wouldn't want a disaster from fire like that London tower block just experienced. I wonder if Dan has a plan to jazz it up though. Maybe turn it into a huge translucent slide to the bottom.....

**1953** · June-22-17, 08:45 AM

I was eyeing the fire escape yesterday, wondering how the contractors will erect scaffolding enough to clean that side of the building, since the escape blocks their general ability to do so. Anyone know how this can/will be done?

1953

**ParisianLesion** · June-22-17, 10:25 AM

According to Bedrock, and I apologize, I can't seem to locate the link [[perhaps it was on their Twitter feed), the plan is to remove the fire escape, clean the side, and rebuild the fire escape. As far as whether the f.e. will be completely new or not, I don't know, but there are certainly large sections that are not salvageable.