Official Page of Detroit Skyscrapers Rehab/New Construction Development!

[animatedmartian]

i know im going to get some jabs for this, but just making an observation...and correct me if im wrong, but has anyone felt that the projects that have been proposed for detroit [[even rehabbed buildings or add-on projects to existing buildings) don't really possess a "wow" factor like many proposed projects you see in cities like chicago or miami. downtown miami is going through a MAJOR turn-around [[google Miami WorldCenter and Brickell CityCentre). I know money has alot to do with that "wow" factor, but its like come on detroit planners. is it that detroit has a really really strict guideline on what it will allow to be built, which is what makes the proposals so bland?...compared to other cities? Heck, even the proposed 657 ft tower to be built in Cleveland looks "wow" compared to anything being proposed in detroit. sorry for the rant. let the attacking begin.

Generally the more attractive the architecture looks can be a sign of how lucrative the local real estate market is. Manhattan has one of the strictest regulations on what can be built, but they still manage some pretty high profile projects. So 99% does have to do with money and how much it costs relative to how much people will actually pay.

That 657 foot tower in Cleveland will eventually cost $300 million dollars to build. The last time Detroit built something that costed over $300 million [[$412 million when adjust for 2014 inflation) was Compuware's HQ. Of course, one of the main reasons that Compuware is half the height of Cleveland's tower is because it's wider than it is tall. If Compuware was 30 stories but had the same footprint, it would have cost twice as much to build. But I'm pretty sure even then, Compuware wasn't a company capable of supporting something that expensive.

Either Detroit needs a lot of wealthy folks to want to move downtown or a very large and profitable corporation wants to move in before anything has any amount of "wow" factor to it.

[ABetterDetroit]

Generally the more attractive the architecture looks can be a sign of how lucrative the local real estate market is. Manhattan has one of the strictest regulations on what can be built, but they still manage some pretty high profile projects. So 99% does have to do with money and how much it costs relative to how much people will actually pay.

That 657 foot tower in Cleveland will eventually cost $300 million dollars to build. The last time Detroit built something that costed over $300 million [[$412 million when adjust for 2014 inflation) was Compuware's HQ. Of course, one of the main reasons that Compuware is half the height of Cleveland's tower is because it's wider than it is tall. If Compuware was 30 stories but had the same footprint, it would have cost twice as much to build. But I'm pretty sure even then,
Compuware wasn't a company capable of supporting something that expensive.

Either Detroit needs a lot of wealthy folks to want to move downtown or a very large and profitable corporation wants to move in before anything has any amount of "wow" factor to it.

Time will tell. Developers from anywhere including other countries develop based on market conditions, demand, cost etc. I can assure you that none of those developers build with cash, they sell the plan to the commercial loan guys and they finance based on risk, return, track record of developer etc. I will venture to guess that if we had stood in grand circus park a few short years ago and someone would have said that those big empty buildings on the edge of the park on both sides of woodward would be completely renovated and occupied we both would have said "wow".