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This six story building is located in downtown Saginaw and is built right up to the river. I have no idea what its original purpose was, who owns it, or what future plans are for it. I called the city about it, and they didn't have much info on it. I figured I would head to Barnes and Noble after I took pictures of it to find more info. There, I found a book with photographs of Saginaw. Apparently what was once on the site, was the "Ford Headquarters for truck and car parts" I was kind of confused, since I never thought Ford really ever had a presence in Saginaw let alone having the word "headquarters?" Well, anyway, that building was only 3 stories, but of the same architecture. A few months after it was built, it burned. All the book said, was that it was rebuilt. And this building has very similar architecture as the original building. I wondering if the concrete frame of the building was salvaged, and the steel frame for the 4th, 5th, and 6th floor was built new. As you will discover in my photos, the building is missing floors. I hate walking into property like this, especially when I don't know who the owner is, but there were no signs, and the door was standing wide open. I figured the best research, would be found by going in
To give you a perspective of where this building is, you can just see it along the river at the right side of the photo. After Bay City, renovated a vacant warehouse along the river, I'm thinking this city is holding onto to this building in hopes of it too being turned into condos and lofts.
Well... the door was open. Funny thing is I pulled myself up that seven foot wall in front of a bunch of Japanese tourists that I didn't see standing on the bridge behind me. There was a lot of pedestrian activity downtown with a convention going on, and a visit by a bunch of Japanese tourists from Saginaw's sister city.
Basically, the only thing I got out of this building was that it was used, or being used for storing junk.
Like boats with holes in it. Broken elevators too.
For an industrial building, it had some nice woodwork around the doorways.
The 2nd floor
Looked the same as the 3rd
3rd floor again. This is where you will enter my loft apartment. The kitchen and dining areas will go back by that red brick wall. To your left, you can see across the river. I'm dreaming.
Freight elevator shaft. For the building to be converted, the stairwell would have to go in the space, because of width requirements. The elevator would go where the current stairway is.
The 4th, and kind of the 5th and 6th floors. I have no idea where they went. The floors were concrete since some areas had remnants of it left. But it appears they were deliberately removed. Possibly to create a high warehouse ceiling?
This is where condo or loft conversion becomes a bit difficult. Those beams are kind of low. The bottom of them is about seven feet off the ground. With HVAC and other utilities running across the ceiling, residents wouldn't have much headroom. I wonder if this is why the building hasn't found a seller yet, if it's even sale.
I suppose the brick portion could be removed, and the ceiling height increased to about 16 feet. The top floor has standard ceiling height from what I can see. A developer could build half floors in the area with the higher ceilings.
That area up there has a high ceiling!
View of alcove from the 4th floor.
Heavy steel doors for the elevator shaft.
The basement. This would probably never be used. It's below the waterline of the river. In fact, since the building is right on the water, the back basement wall is acting as a dam, and is leaking. You can see this basement has already been flooded many times
That's it. I hoped you liked it. Any thoughts?
