Bloomfield Park - What were they thinking?

[reddog289]

While reading Detroit Dads post, I do remember when the Fountain Walk, Plymouth Road, and kinda the Bloomfield Park deals when they started. I heard alot of advertising for the then opening stores,attractions, etc out in Fountain Walk. Then heard it refered to as Novi's New Downtown. But wasn't Novi building a fake downtown on Grand River just East of Novi Rd at the same time? As for the Plymouth Rd Corridor in Livonia if I had to say any place that might be considerd a Downtown in Livonia other then Farminton and 5 mile, That would be the place I myself would call Downtown Livonia.
Yet having only seen a little bit of the Bloomfield Park project, I am amazed of the size of this failed project. It just make me shake my head and think about what my Dad tells me "We are a wasteful society".
The ruins of Bloomfield Park are some of the saddest ruins I have seen.But yet one of the biggest oxymorons too. It seemed to have been built to draw business away from other office parks, areas and yet it is empty as many of the places it wanted to empty.Now it is a ruin, Kinda like the overbuilt Michigan Central, Yet at least the MCS got used.

[softailrider]

Johnlodge... I was trying to find where it mentions that the elements have already destroyed this structurally. I couldn't find it.

It looks like at least some parts of this complex could survive for several seasons open to the elements [[I know... not good in our freeze/thaw cycle)... just look at many of the abandoned buildings that are rehab-able in downtown Detroit... such as the United Artists Building, which has been without heat and partly open to the elements since 1974.

Just wondering....

I'm no expert but it seems to me when they built the U.A Building it was really over built, not like the crap they're putting up today.

[Johnlodge]

Johnlodge... I was trying to find where it mentions that the elements have already destroyed this structurally. I couldn't find it.

It looks like at least some parts of this complex could survive for several seasons open to the elements [[I know... not good in our freeze/thaw cycle)... just look at many of the abandoned buildings that are rehab-able in downtown Detroit... such as the United Artists Building, which has been without heat and partly open to the elements since 1974.

Just wondering....

I couldn't find it either, I think it was in the archived article you have to pay for now. I'm positive I read it at one point in one of the articles on that cited thread. Anyway, that doesn't necessarily make it true, but I think the difference with the UA Building and the like is that they were completed at one time, and this structure was left in a state it was never meant to be left in for any prolonged period. Perhaps structural steel left exposed for too long, beginning to corrode? The same article had a quote from L. Brooks where they asked him what could be done with it, and he said spending a few million to tear it down.

[Johnlodge]

Alright, I spent the $3 for the article because I had to see what I was thinking of.

Its incomplete theaters and fountains and marble-clad foundations offer mute testimony to the boom that was - a giddy era of cheap money fueling wild-eyed real estate speculation that collapsed in a heap of lawsuits. What's left is a colossal 21st-century ruin and questions about what will happen to the buildings and site.

"I don't see anyone coming to the rescue," says Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson, who was an early advocate of the project but believes developers who tell him "that it's beyond redemption."

Its future? "A couple hundred million dollars to knock it down and take it away," Patterson says.

Calls to the developers - Bloomfield Hills developer Craig Schubiner, Cleveland-based Development Diversified Realty and New York-based Coventry Real Estate Advisors - were not returned. Schubiner has sued the other two developers, who have argued that changing market conditions caused the project to collapse. After a flurry of frenzied building, construction abruptly ended in November 2008.

"It would be a great set for a futuristic movie in which life on Earth had ceased to exist," says Rockland Richardson, a Pontiac video specialist who drives by the site on his daily commute. Paul Riemer, whose family's Riemer Floors fronts the abandoned project, stares out the store window at a construction fence, saying: "It's killing us. It looks like Bosnia."

Claimed by the elements

A condominium tower that's partially finished has graceful proportions, a few framed windows and balcony trusses that have rusted through. Having weathered two Michigan winters uncovered, open to damage from rain, hail, sleet and subzero temperatures, even what's been built is deteriorating.

From May 3, 2010
The Detroit News

There's more to the article, but I don't want to post the whole thing here, obviously. If you want it you can PM me. This is the only part that somewhat deals with the viability of doing anything with the place.

[luckycar]

I thought about a movie being filmed there.It could be an action film,lots of bang!Blowing it up on Hollywoods dime is a win for Pontiac.Then just haul away the debris.Or maybe a great paintball arena.Anyhow,it looked very nice with snow falling this morning

[Gingellgirl]

An article published earlier this year on this project indicated that because of the state it was left in, the elements have already destroyed it structurally to the point of being unsalvageable. Unfortunately, the story is no longer available for free. The article was linked to from here:

http://www.detroityes.com/mb/showthr...loomfield+park

Yeah. Fucking brilliant.

You can still access it thru Yahoo:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/detroitnws/detroitnws_ts1920

[Johnlodge]

You can still access it thru Yahoo:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/detroitnws/detroitnws_ts1920

You're 4 days and $3 too late.

[begingri]

The Incredible Husk: 175 liens and 60 law firms later, Bloomfield Park creditors may settle for 14 cents on the dollar

One of the largest real estate foreclosure battles in Michigan history could settle for just under 14 cents on the dollar in a proposed deal for more than 90 contractors to walk away from mounting litigation and unpaid balances for work on the failed Bloomfield Park development.

The half-finished husk of a planned $350 million, 18-building, 700,000-plus-square-foot mixed-use development has weathered three Michigan winters on the Pontiac-Bloomfield Township border, ever since its owners halted construction in November 2008 because of ongoing financial disputes and the global lending crunch.

Today, 103 companies have 175 liens on the property totaling more than $48 million for unpaid balances on their contracts -- but much of that is considered redundant because some general contractors and subcontractors or suppliers filed liens on the same unpaid services or materials. All told, attorneys believe a little over $25 million is actually owed.

An additional 24 companies have had their liens dismissed by agreement or court order since the shuttered development landed in litigation in early 2009.

But most of those who remain are expected to inform an Oakland County judge today that they are completing a settlement with San Francisco-based Wells Fargo Bank NA that will discharge the liens for a collective payout of around $3.5 million -- just 1 percent of the original project value -- subcontractors and attorneys told Crain's last week.

The liens are a key obstacle to Wells Fargo taking possession of the development from a receiver in a lawsuit before Oakland County Circuit Judge Wendy Potts to foreclose on the property after the landowners defaulted on a $40 million loan balance.

Wells Fargo hasn't announced its plans for the site once it takes possession, but construction experts say it would be difficult to finish in its current form because of the deterioration in exposed building materials.

The 90-acre project site, once meant to house more than 1.7 million square feet of retail, office park and condominium living space, is assessed at a total market value of just under $12.3 million for 2011, according to the Bloomfield Township Assessor's Office and the Oakland County Equalization Division, which handles assessing services for Pontiac. Meanwhile, project developer Craig Schubiner of Bloomfield Hills-based Harbor Cos. and his co-owners on the project, Developers Diversified Realty Corp. of Beachwood, Ohio, and New York-based Coventry Real Estate Advisors, are alleged to owe more than $65 million to Wells Fargo and the construction lien holders.

Continued at: http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article...-on-the-dollar

[[If you don't have a subscription to Crain's, Google the headline and you can read the rest of the article for free.)

[Bham1982]

Sounds like 14 cents too much for this POS turkey.

Bloomfield Township did everything right in this debacle. Unfortunately the idiot developer took advantage of silly Michigan annexation laws, and Pontiac will have to demolish this back to its original state.

[3WC]

Bham, I think you're simply wrong. I owned real estate in Bloomfield at the time and had a lengthy record of commercial real estate development [[for whatever that's worth today, if anything) before I cashed out. Schubiner got royally screwed by the idiots running the Twp at the time. I was not involved in the deal but I spent some time lobbying the Twp to revive its oringinal support for the project. What happened was rampant bureaucratic incompetence. I along with may others predicted at the time that if the Twp persisted in what many considered its illegal opposition it would end up with a suburban ruin for many years. I hope nobody ever develops or tears it down, as a memorial to the stupid Twp Board. They ended up with what they deserved all along.

By the way, Schubiner made a tactical deal with Pontiac [[applauded my most developers who were following the project carefully) only to counter an illegal deal the Twp made with Bloomfield Hlls, which for a time threw another roadblock in front of the development, and was a major factor in killing it.

[1KielsonDrive]

And to think they're considering letting this guy loose on a development in Detroit and one in A2.

[Novine]

"Schubiner got royally screwed by the idiots running the Twp at the time. I was not involved in the deal but I spent some time lobbying the Twp to revive its oringinal support for the project."

Sounds like revisionist history to me. Are we supposed to believe that if the Township had greenlighted everything Schubiner requested, the development would have been completed before the economy tanked and that would have saved it? What proof do you have of that? In what world would that amount of commercial and residential space been absorbed in a couple of years to generate the income to keep that development from tanking?

[Bham1982]

This project makes no sense in any economy, IMO.

This was a very grandiose project, and would seem like wild overreaching even in the best metro locations.

But this specific location is just awful. Yes, it was technically Bloomfield Township, but it's not a good area, and is Pontiac schools. There is no desirable housing north of Square Lake Road in Bloomfield Township. It's mostly just junky retailing.

The retail seemed really wildly ambitious, but it was the housing that was really just insane. They planned half-million dollar condos in what is basically a junky redneck neighborhood.

This project is the equivalent of Donald Trump announcing one of his towers for Dixie Highway in Waterford. Just absolutely crazy, and has no rational justification, even in the best of economic cycles.

[1KielsonDrive]

Schubiner is preparing to re-develop the Georgetown Shopping Center on Packard Road in A2. I hope the AA City Council has performance bonds, reeeeaaly big ones, or whatever it takes to ensure he'll complete the job.

[mauser]

They should turn it into the worlds largest skate [[board) park - it would make millions.

[mauser]

Maybe some paintball in there too.

[mauser]

How about a parking structure/train station/commissary for the [[hahahah) high speed rail system from Pontiac to Detroit ?

[softailrider]

This project makes no sense in any economy, IMO.

This was a very grandiose project, and would seem like wild overreaching even in the best metro locations.

But this specific location is just awful. Yes, it was technically Bloomfield Township, but it's not a good area, and is Pontiac schools. There is no desirable housing north of Square Lake Road in Bloomfield Township. It's mostly just junky retailing.

The retail seemed really wildly ambitious, but it was the housing that was really just insane. They planned half-million dollar condos in what is basically a junky redneck neighborhood.

This project is the equivalent of Donald Trump announcing one of his towers for Dixie Highway in Waterford. Just absolutely crazy, and has no rational justification, even in the best of economic cycles.

We have friends who live over on Ward Rd in Bloomfield Twp. That area is way North Of Square Lake Rd. The housing is very nice there, If I remember correctly, every house on their street is well kept and great shape. It certainly isn't Country Club Lane in Bloomfield Hills, but, It's a really good, secure area - not "junky" or "redneck" in the least.

[Autoracks]

Exactly. Pontiac would be a different place if the complex at 1200 Telegraph was never built. When did that place get built? Does the county have any presence in downtown Pontiac any more?

I have often thought the same thing. Downtown Pontiac would have been busy, perhaps more restaurants. The entire dynamic of atleast the downtown area would have been different.

[Bham1982]

We have friends who live over on Ward Rd in Bloomfield Twp. That area is way North Of Square Lake Rd. The housing is very nice there, If I remember correctly, every house on their street is well kept and great shape. It certainly isn't Country Club Lane in Bloomfield Hills, but, It's a really good, secure area - not "junky" or "redneck" in the least.

You're right, and I should have been more specific.

Bloomfield Township along Telegraph north of Square Lake is junky. Pontiac schools, and most folks don't even know that section is actually Bloomfield Township.

There are, however, some parts of Bloomfield Township north of Square Lake, and West of Telegraph, that are quite nice. Not suprisingly, they are West Bloomfield or Bloomfield schools.

So basically, the school district boundaries are the guideposts for prosperity. The township and city limits don't matter much.

[Lowell]

Amazing. Talk about taking a bath...

Final Bloomfield Park claims settled; lien holders to get less than $4 million

All contractors, subcontractors, material suppliers and service companies with liens on the failed $350 million Bloomfield Park development will settle their claims and walk away for less than $4 million, after a recent deal with Wells Fargo Bank NA

[hybridy]

scary how much some of those contractors will lose out...so what happens to the site next?

[softailrider]

Rumor has it that, there's a deep pockets developer looking at that property, deciding which if any, of those buildings can be salvaged. There has been some activity lately at the site. Obviously, this could amount to absolutely nothing.

This information comes from a spy who works across the street at Carl's.

Take it for what it's worth, which ain't much.

[hybridy]

Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson says a deal is in the works to transfer the 90-acre property from bank foreclosure into the hands of a private developer.

From The Detroit News: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/2...#ixzz24EgoYBX1

[Bham1982]

Hopefully the alleged "developer" will have a wrecking ball ready to put this monstrosity out of its misery.

Maybe Brooks can pitch in some cash to return this site back to its original natural state.