Summer 2019
Fisher Building owners refinance loan for $36M to continue preservation efforts
July 25th, 2019
The owners of the Fisher Building have closed on a major loan refinancing to continue much-needed maintenance and preservation efforts on the historic Art Deco building in New Center. Planned work includes restoring the brass entrance doors, modernizing three elevators, renovating public bathrooms, and constructing a new conference center. The owners say the loan will also allow them to pay off all prior debt.
Open ArticleThe historic Fisher Building is a Detroit treasure
July 25th, 2019
If you’ve never explored the Fisher Building, make sure to put it on your list! This 1928 landmark skyscraper is a Detroit treasure. As always, we’d love to hear from you on places we should be checking out in your neighborhood. You can email your suggestions to Explore@wxyz.com You can also watch the entire video series on streaming devices including Roku, Apple TV and Amazon Fire TV.
In Detroit, Empty Lots Become Parks, Helping to Rebuild Lost Social Equity
June 27th, 2019
Stephanie Harbin has lived in the Detroit neighborhood of Fitzgerald since 1969 and is president of the San Juan Drive block club. When she was a child, she remembers, there were 75 houses packed onto an extraordinarily long block of San Juan. And in a story that’s been repeated across many sections of Detroit, only 42 homes remain.
Open ArticleSpring 2019
Residents Move into The Platform’s Baltimore Station 1 in Detroit’s Milwaukee Junction Neighborhood
May 8th, 2019
Baltimore Station 1, a mixed-use redevelopment of two historic buildings on Woodward Avenue in Detroit’s Milwaukee Junction neighborhood, welcomed its first residents over the weekend.
The development offers 10,000 square feet of ground-floor retail and 23 loft-style apartments, five of which are offered as affordable housing at 80 percent of area median income or below.
Open ArticleDevelopers offer peek behind rainbow mural in Detroit
May 1st, 2019
Developers offered a look Monday at the progress on a $16 million project to turn a cold storage building into a co-working space and food hall in the Milwaukee Junction neighborhood.
The first floor-to-ceiling window has been installed in the nine-story building at 2937-67 E. Grand Blvd. It will be among dozens of windows that will pour light into the long-abandoned building known for its rainbow-colored mural.
“It is a relatively small project but because it is out of the norm, it attracts a great deal of interest,” said Peter Cummings, executive The Platform, the Detroit-based development group undertaking the project.
Gathering space opens in Detroit’s Fitzgerald neighborhood
April 29th, 2019
The 4,000-square-foot building at 7426 W. McNichols will be home to the Live6 Alliance, an economic development organization started in 2015 and supported by the Kresge Foundation and University of Detroit Mercy.
Open ArticleFitzgerald neighborhood takes innovative approach to reactivating vacant land
April 29th, 2019
The San Juan block of northwest Detroit’s Fitzgerald neighborhood has seen its share of ups and downs. Historically, it’s been a stable street with lots of young families and children. But over the last decade, neighbors have had to contend with the slings and arrows of the foreclosure crisis, vacancy, and blight.
Open ArticleCrain’s panel: Detroit residents’ retail needs are path to profit, neighborhood resurgence
April 25th, 2019
Open ArticleFinding a Platform for Success
April 22nd, 2019
Clarke Lewis, M.Arch ’15, and Myles Hamby, M.U.P. ’14, aren’t Detroit or Michigan natives. But as development managers at The Platform, a Detroit real estate development company, they are all in on the city’s potential, and they are working on its revitalization with insiders’ views as residents. “Detroit is one of the most interesting urban labs in the world,” says Lewis, who grew up in Pittsburgh.
Open ArticleWinter 2019
Group working to develop Detroit’s Milwaukee-Junction neighborhood
March 7th, 2019
Much of the attention on Detroit’s development boom has been centered on Dan Gilbert’s many downtown projects—Little Caesars Arena and the District Detroit—and the new hotels and restaurants popping up.But one of the many projects in progress isn’t in downtown, or even Midtown…it’s in the New Center and Milwaukee Junction area.
Open Article