Historic Detroit Hotel to be razed for new stadium (Wayne: leases, taxes)

[jonnynonos]

The thing with business is that any given business tends to have very low profit margins due to competitiveness in the free market.

How much are you, as a consumer , willing to spend to finance such a renovation, as opposed to staying at a new, clean, Comfort Inn somewhere for half the price?

Wealthy people are often willing to give a one time write off, but nobody is going to open a business that is positioned to lose money or barely make money.

I needed a hotel recently and was going to stay in the Marriott in the Ren Cen. Very expensive so I stayed somewhere else.

On the other hand, if you can make money, anyone would open it.

But the bottom line is profit margins are low.

One particular issue with an olde hotel is the rooms are much smaller than are desireable now.

Thus you are looking at a massive renovation.

[animatedmartian]

The decision to demolish had very little to do with costs of renovation. Far larger buildings in Detroit have been renovated and turned into hotels and residential buildings.

[usroute10]

Originally Posted by animatedmartian

The decision to demolish had very little to do with costs of renovation. Far larger buildings in Detroit have been renovated and turned into hotels and residential buildings.

Yes, the majority of the residential units and maybe about 1/2 of the hotel units in the midtown/downtown areas that have come online in the past 10 years or so have been renovations/restorations of older buildings

in Downtown, building such as:
Kales Buildings
Lofts of Merchant Row
Doubletree Suites Residences at the Fort Pick Shelby Hotel
Westin Book Cadillac Hotel
the Albert (in Capitol Park)
**Plus, there are recently announced redevelopment of the Wurlitzer and Metropolitan Buildings
**The only new buildings in downtown in the past 10 years are parking garages and the casino-hotels!


in Midtown,
Crystal Lofts
55 West Canfield Lofts
The Elmore
Davenport Apartments (still undergoing a STUNNING restoration)
The Strathmoore
...and many other older buildings

JONNYNONOS, are you aware of the Cass Plaza building? Please look at this Google Maps streetview of this WRECK. This building is undergoing redevelopment right now. If a developer can somehow convince lenders that this building's renovation is economically viable, then I KNOW Mr. Ilitch could have done the same with both of those hotel/apartment structures.

Lastly, Ilitches first excuse to demolish the Hotel Park Avenue was due to Homeland Security concerns. What ever happened to that specious claim?

That family is not on the up-and-up. They have owned a plethora of buildings on Park Avenue, Grand Circus Park, and the parking lot moonscape in the northwest corner of downtown for years and have not renovated ONE BUILDING. One of the buildings they did own was the Grand Army of the Republic. They sold that building and immediately work began on it by the new owner, and it now contains one of Detroit's most unique new restaurants, and another will open in the next few weeks

.

[brodie734]

The Ilitches were hoarding land for an arena in GCP/Foxtown, that was the plan when my father worked for Olympia back in the mid-90's and from what I've heard from connected people, was the plan right up until the late 00's when they decided that they had to be ON Woodward to get value for money. So yes, they've hoarded properties. But don't forget that their Fox restoration was basically the first domino on the road from "will the last person in Detroit turn the lights out" to where we are today... before that, everyone was more or less content to just let downtown rot (just think, the MCS was still in use in 1988). Plus, honestly, it's not like there was high demand for residential and retail space downtown before the past half decade. If Ilitch had attempted to turn those buildings into something in 1995, they'd have been wastes of capital. And it's not like the family owns a dozen companies they can plug into a couple of floors in every building they own just to spur more business like Gilbert.

Bluntly, there have been far more important buildings torn down in the name of progress to sit here and cry over a few abandoned buildings being torn down in Detroit. The past is nice, history is great. But every historical site can't and shouldn't be preserved. If they hadn't torn down the Bastille, we wouldn't have the July Column.

[usroute10]

Originally Posted by brodie734

Bluntly, there have been far more important buildings torn down in the name of progress to sit here and cry over a few abandoned buildings being torn down in Detroit. The past is nice, history is great. But every historical site can't and shouldn't be preserved. If they hadn't torn down the Bastille, we wouldn't have the July Column.

Detroit doesn't have great weather, it does not have rolling hills or mountains or any really unique geographic features. It is a flat and featureless place. It has unbelievable decay, abandonment, blight, along with a terrible public school system and a high violent crime rate. Detroit has LITTLE to allure people to it. But what Detroit does have more so than most other cities are those old classic, irreplaceable buildings like the Park Avenue Hotel that give this flat, featureless, and unattractive city a sense of history and importance and grandeur.

We have enough vacant lots and old buildings to restore the old, build new on the vacant lots, and have a built environment that is one of the most dynamic in the United States.

You say don't cry over a few abandoned buildings, but buildings like the Book Cadillac and Hotel Fort Shelby were once in the shape as the Park Avenue Hotel but people with vision didn't let them get demolished, and today they are thriving hotels.

[animatedmartian]

It's not even about crying over lost architecture. The fact is that some many other developers have found ways to renovate and bring all these old vacant properties back into use and all of them have less power than Ilitch. But Ilitch chooses not to renovate properties. He simply demolishes them outright.

[jonnynonos]

Not all of those businesses are profitable.

[animatedmartian]

Originally Posted by jonnynonos

Not all of those businesses are profitable.

Again, it's not about profitability. It's about what one particular developer wants, and this particular developer didn't want no old buildings in his development.

[WayneCounty]

Originally Posted by usroute10

Detroit doesn't have great weather, it does not have rolling hills or mountains or any really unique geographic features. It is a flat and featureless place. It has unbelievable decay, abandonment, blight, along with a terrible public school system and a high violent crime rate. Detroit has LITTLE to allure people to it. But what Detroit does have more so than most other cities are those old classic, irreplaceable buildings like the Park Avenue Hotel that give this flat, featureless, and unattractive city a sense of history and importance and grandeur.

We have enough vacant lots and old buildings to restore the old, build new on the vacant lots, and have a built environment that is one of the most dynamic in the United States.

You say don't cry over a few abandoned buildings, but buildings like the Book Cadillac and Hotel Fort Shelby were once in the shape as the Park Avenue Hotel but people with vision didn't let them get demolished, and today they are thriving hotels.

I'm pretty sure a hockey arena is going to bring in more people than some run down building surrounded by miles of parking lots. Honestly, the Eddystone/Park Ave hotels are in simply deplorable shape and really are just an eyesore. Had they been maintained since the 1960s maybe we wouldn't have to be tearing them down today?

[animatedmartian]

Originally Posted by WayneCounty

I'm pretty sure a hockey arena is going to bring in more people than some run down building surrounded by miles of parking lots. Honestly, the Eddystone/Park Ave hotels are in simply deplorable shape and really are just an eyesore. Had they been maintained since the 1960s maybe we wouldn't have to be tearing them down today?

Eddystone is going to be renovated. It's just Park Avenue coming down.