Detroit center of innovation to he built in the district Detroit

[hybridy]

This render shows a taller building wrapping around Bookies and it's surface lot. What's that all about? Actually 2 highrises are shown west of Cass.

[Satiricalivory]

Just render art filler. Wouldn't put too much thought into it. They don't even have a cleaned up book tower in there.

[kuuma]

I am hoping that the park south of the site is just a rendering placeholder and that they aren't planning on putting another park there. You have Beacon across the street and Grand Circus two blocks away. That area needs density and buildings. This is a good start but if this is all that ends up getting built it will be a couple of new buildings surrounded by a parking desert.

I kinda like a little campus quad there. it's definitely not an events park like Beacon, and gives the new design and the Grand Army building some space to breathe, and contibutes quite a bit to the college campus aesthetic. Assuming everything else inside Cass/Woodward/Fisher/W.Adams will eventually be filled in with new developments [[hopefully mostly mid/high-rise mixed use spurred by an influx of students), it shouldn't feel like too much park space.

[Satiricalivory]

I am hoping that the park south of the site is just a rendering placeholder and that they aren't planning on putting another park there. You have Beacon across the street and Grand Circus two blocks away. That area needs density and buildings. This is a good start but if this is all that ends up getting built it will be a couple of new buildings surrounded by a parking desert.

The park will probably get built as seen there. It'll be a physical placeholder for an expansion years down the line likely.

[hybridy]

https://urbanize.city/detroit/post/u...ckham-building

The Rackham Building in Detroit's Cultural Center is one of those places that many people look at and wonder, 'What's going on with that building?' Now we have a better answer. The University of Michigan Board of Regents approved a $40 million renovation plan for the building, with plans to house many UM initiatives in the city.

The plan is to consolidate programs that are currently leased around Detroit, including the Detroit Center and an office for undergraduate admissions, programs within the A. Alfred Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, College of Engineering, LSA, and the School for Environment and Sustainability. Plans also include classrooms, multipurpose rooms, and maker spaces for 500 students.

[southen]

The park will probably get built as seen there. It'll be a physical placeholder for an expansion years down the line likely.

The Ilitch family has been using surface parking as "placeholders" for decades now. I have my doubts they give up a revenue stream for a park when everything they have ever done points to surface parking and dragging their feet on development.

[southen]

This render shows a taller building wrapping around Bookies and it's surface lot. What's that all about? Actually 2 highrises are shown west of Cass.

Same generic glass buildings they used in the Gratiot renderings to give more of an urban feel. They don't appear in the northward looking rendering so my guess it is done to help mitigate the isolated nature of the project.

[DetroiterOnTheWestCoast]

Invariably when we have these treads about proposed developments, there are comments about “renders.” I recently came across this statement on some architecture related site:

Render is a verb, not a noun. Rendering is a noun, not a verb. Someone can render an image, but the finished product of that process is a rendering.

Seems the use of “render” instead of “rendering” isn’t just jarring to me.

[jcole]

Invariably when we have these treads about proposed developments, there are comments about “renders.” I recently came across this statement on some architecture related site:

Render is a verb, not a noun. Rendering is a noun, not a verb. Someone can render an image, but the finished product of that process is a rendering.

Seems the use of “render” instead of “rendering” isn’t just jarring to me.

[Gistok]

Very very pleased that the Moose Lodge Building will be incorporated in some fashion into this large block. Looks like they're "greening" the roof.

What makes this development so nice is that DTE has been doing a wonderful job on their campus, and having both sides of Grand River in that area be developed really enhances this partly neglected part of downtown.

I do hope that this project gets going... Stephen Ross is in his 80s... and no spring chicken.

[Gistok]

Gilbert may be playing a critical role in reviving downtown/midtown, but I've suspected for a long time that he's a very difficult person to work with.

Anecdotally speaking, you are correct. I know a former forumer here who went to high school with Gilbert, and she mentioned that he always seemed to her to be the type that is difficult to work with.

[401don]

The Ilitch family has been using surface parking as "placeholders" for decades now. I have my doubts they give up a revenue stream for a park when everything they have ever done points to surface parking and dragging their feet on development.

Pretty sure the Ilitch family believes a landscaped parking lot IS a park.

[Burnsie]

Pretty sure the Ilitch family believes a landscaped parking lot IS a park.

Don't forget the other bonus features of pavement and lighting!

[Satiricalivory]

FYI they're also still raising funds other than the 100 million Ross pledged so explains why they're not groundbreaking tomorrow.

[Danny]

You guys realize it's December 2021 right? A bit over a year from now groundbreaking from announcement seems pretty standard. How is this a "red flag"?

The Illitch's were deeply forced to have the Eddystone Building finish pronto after the HBO Documentary film about incompleteness some of the buildings surrounding Little Caesar's Area.

[Detroit]

Why must we start a new thread every time there is some new update on these stories?

Just to piss you off, duh.

[Hypestyles]

hire Detroit residents for the construction jobs. there's less excuses than ever to not be more proactive in this, instead of paying fines.

[Satiricalivory]

The Illitch's were deeply forced to have the Eddystone Building finish pronto after the HBO Documentary film about incompleteness some of the buildings surrounding Little Caesar's Area.

Okay? Good thing the Ilitches aren't developing or financing this project.

[JonWylie]

Not really sure what to make of this, but there's some more "concepts" associated with this project and "The District"

Expanded Detroit Center for Innovation vision includes hotel, parks, community space | Crain's Detroit Business [[crainsdetroit.com)

An updated vision for property around the proposed Detroit Center for Innovation includes a new hotel, commercial and residential space on under-developed District Detroit land.

If billionaire developer and Detroit native Stephen Ross and the Ilitch family are able to fulfill the new vision, it would bring a sizable chunk of the area to life with new construction that has largely eluded it to the degree initially promised — minus a handful of new buildings outside of Little Caesars Arena — in the nearly eight years since the District Detroit was unveiled.

Anchored by the $250 million Detroit Center for Innovation, a University of Michigan graduate school campus focused on research and innovation, the updated Ross/Ilitch plan would bring a long-envisioned new hotel to the unused land south of the arena, new office and retail space on the Woodward-fronting surface parking lots for Comerica Park, more commercial development along Columbia Street and affordable and market-rate residential space along Park Avenue.

Some of the development unveiled today — the Woodward project [[originally residential), the hotel on Henry Street and a community space over I-75 [[long envisioned as retail) — has conceptually been on the Ilitch family's Olympia Development of Michigan's real estate company's drawing boards, Crain's has previously reported, although none of it has gotten off the ground..

[mikeg19]

Not really sure what to make of this, but there's some more "concepts" associated with this project and "The District"

Expanded Detroit Center for Innovation vision includes hotel, parks, community space | Crain's Detroit Business [[crainsdetroit.com)

If you keep putting out new renderings every 48 months, you never have to build anything....

[TheDapperMaleDetroit]

If you keep putting out new renderings every 48 months, you never have to build anything....

Can you repost the article for people who are not a paying member of Crains Detroit Business?

[JonWylie]

Can you repost the article for people who are not a paying member of Crains Detroit Business?

I posted an excerpt, can't post the whole thing though, sorry. I'll see if I can pull some photos

Here's the Freep version.

Stephen Ross, Ilitches release renderings for new Detroit projects [[freep.com)

[EGrant]

Kirk Pinho pointed out on Twitter that it is five years to the date that Olympia announced 686 housing units with a bunch of splashy renderings. Only one building in those renderings was completed.

Reading the actual article, these plans don't seem like plans at all, but rather "conceptual" ideas for what they might do. I'll admit, they do look nice, but I doubt we'll see most if it built.

[Gistok]

Wow!! Look at all that "proposed" development!!

I propose that they first finish the Detroit Life Building, the Blenheim Apartments, and a building behind the Fine Arts facade. And then there's the Henry St. Historic District, and all of the other empty historic buildings that the Ilitches own.

We've been tricked so many times by the Ilitches, that if Stephen Ross can get things going... more power to him... but I'm not holding my breath!

[southen]

I'll believe it when I see it. It is nice to see Ross's quotes on Detroit and how he wouldn't be involved if he didn't see it happening, but he and Related haven't been able to speed up progress on the innovation center at all. Crazy that the land they are using is completely vacant and they can't start construction until next year.