The hotel's fortunes fell on hard times during the onset of the Great Depression, and throughout the next 50 years had several owners with ambitious hopes to renovate the deteriorating building. The hotel ultimately closed its doors in 1984 when the City of Detroit decided to completely redevelop the hotel into a much smaller scale to turn higher profits. But most of the prospective developers who attempted to restore the property dropped out citing poor economic conditions and soaring construction costs as primary inhibitors.

The most recent—and first successful—attempt is being made by Ferchill, which specializes in renovating historic structures. The company has stood on solid ground with its plans to create a 455-room hotel known as the Westin Book-Cadillac.

"This really required a tremendous amount of patience, effort and teamwork by every party involved," Cherney says. "I recognized from the very beginning that it wasn't going to be easy, but rather something special both in terms of structure and historical significance."

Cherney says that despite the difficulty in tax credit paperwork and historic designation red tape, the most challenging part of the deal was obtaining the project's first mortgage. The deal was looked at and passed up by more than 60 lenders, and was finally picked up by New York City-based iStar Financial Inc.

"This was something that everybody told me I shouldn't bother with; they said it was crazy, too complicated, too much work, and I really felt from the day I spoke with the developer that I wanted to get this deal done," Cherney tells GlobeSt.com. "I wanted to complete this because no one else could--I like the underdog, and this was an underdog. It's very special to me to have gotten it done because I watched everybody fight to get this done."