DETROIT-Dan Gilbert, the chairman and founder of locally based Quicken Loans, showed again today how he’s ready to take over the city. Gilbert announced during a grand opening of a renovated building that he is about to purchase the city’s historic Federal Reserve Bank Building at 160 W. Fort St.
The Fed building was built in 1927 and used by the government all the way up until 2004, when the bank moved to another building in the city. The Fort Street site was left empty, with a number of projects suggested but never followed through. In 2008, the state approved a $1.3 million tax credit for developer FRBD LLC on a $20.2 million plan convert the building into 84 apartments with retail, but this also fell through.
A Quicken spokeswoman wouldn’t confirm if Gilbert’s purchase of the building will be more or less of the asking price of $5 million. While this amount for a 176,000-square-foot structure doesn’t seem like much, with the 31% office vacancy downtown, any new ownership and plans for vacant buildings is met with enthusiasm. The spokeswoman tells GlobeSt.com that the Fort Street building could hold office and/or retail tenants.
Gilbert was showing off the $12 million renovation of the former Madison Theater, now dubbed the M@dison building, which now includes creative tech companies as tenants. Gilbert bought the building in 2011, just months after his company moved from Livonia to the downtown, taking up headquarters space in the Compuware building in the Campus Martius section of Woodward Avenue.
With the Fort Street purchase, Gilbert’s Rock Ventures development company will own nine buildings, three parking structures and one lot downtown, with about 2.1 million square feet of office space and 3,500 parking spaces. Matt Cullen, an economic development demigod in the Detroit area and the CEO of Rock Ventures, said in a statement that more purchases could come this year. “We have a number of properties in our portfolio that we will be working to renovate and fill with job-creating businesses, while keeping a close eye on the market and making additional building purchases where it makes sense.”
Gilbert’s ownership includes the 505,000-square-foot Chase Tower, the 800,000-square-foot First National Building, the 350,000-square-foot Dime Building, the Wright-Kay building, the Lane Bryant building, the Arts League of Michigan building and a small one-story building at 1550 Woodward. Plans for these properties include office renovations, apartments and street-level retail.
The spokeswoman says that Gilbert’s hope is to jumpstart a redevelopment cycle in Detroit to breathe new life into the city. “The thinking is if we can get more people working down here, they’ll also be playing more down here, and eventually think of moving down here,” she says, referring to the dearth of residential living in the downtown. Gilbert has done his share, bringing almost 4,000 employees to the city.
Want to continue reading?
Become a Free ALM Digital Reader.
Once you are an ALM Digital Member, you’ll receive:
- Breaking commercial real estate news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
- Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
- Critical coverage of the property casualty insurance and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, PropertyCasualty360 and ThinkAdvisor
Already have an account? Sign In Now
*May exclude premium content© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
