Hip boutique Aloft Hotel slated for David Whitney Building

Louis Aguilar | The Detroit News

December 12, 2011

Downtown Detroit's surging hotel scene is much closer to getting to get its first boutique hotel — a genre of small, trendy lodgings that often become local hangouts — at the elegant David Whitney Building in Grand Circus Park.

The state's first Aloft Hotel, part of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, will join the redevelopment of the Daniel Burnham-designed David Whitney that is expected to open by July 2014 with 136 loft-like rooms. The hotel, to be named Aloft Detroit at the David Whitney, will have what Starwood officials describe in a statement as its signature "pioneering initiatives in pop culture, design and technology." That includes a "re:mix lounge" and "w xyzbar" that have helped Aloft hotels earn TripAdvisor's 2011 "Top 10 Trendiest Hotels in the U.S." and "Top 10 Trendiest Hotels in the World" rankings lists.

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Developer says Whole Foods deal shaping up

Laura Berman | The Detroit News

July 14, 2011

Months of speculation about Whole Foods opening a store in Midtown Detroit are moving swiftly toward fact. On Tuesday, former Detroit Symphony Orchestra president and real estate developer Peter Cummings confirmed to me that he's negotiating to sell the Austin, Texas-based organic supermarket chain a 1.92-acre parcel he owns on Mack between Woodward and John R.

The site — directly behind the Ellington Lofts and Starbucks — includes a vacant lot and a Chase bank. The bank, now open only for ATM service, would be torn down to make way for the store and parking.

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Final route announced for $500M Woodward light-rail project

By Tom Greenwood | The Detroit News

June 29, 2011

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Under the agreement, the 19-stop rail system — informally referred to as the "hockey stick route" because of its shape — would run from the old State Fairgrounds at 8 Mile south to Congress and then west to Washington Boulevard.

From there it would then move north to the Rosa Parks Transit Center, just north of Michigan Avenue. The rail system will then loop south on Washington to Larned and then east to Woodward and back north to 8 Mile.

The final route will vary from its original proposal, which saw the system running solely on Woodward from Hart Plaza to 8 Mile. Additionally, the new route would have the trolley system running down the center of Woodward, but nearer the curb on Washington Boulevard.

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Makes me feel like buying a Chrysler:

Detroit Import Link

There is at least one rail operator who has expressed interest in using MCS as a stop on the Midwest HSR line (go to page 26 to see what SNCF says about the importance that historic stations play).




Absolutely false! In addition to the station being a stop on the MWHSR line, here are other things that a renewed Michigan Central could be used for:

Ground level--Specialty train travel (rail-to-cruise service, new Auto Train route to Florida, special trains that operate seasonally, and international service), rail museum, rail park for viewing passing trains, fast food outlet, a restaurant dedicated to MI-based foods, gift shop, customs office for international travel

2nd floor--Shopping center/grocery store, a moderately priced restaurant

3rd floor--Upscale restaurant, shopping centers, specialty art gallery/museum

4th floor--Convention center

5th, 6th floors--Hotel

7th, 8th, 9th floors--Office space, private development

The other floors could be demolished. A parking deck could be built outside of the station. As for other uses, the Ann Arbor commuter rail project could eventually make a stop there, and the station can be a mini hub for local transportation.


The fact that the city has marked a building that is a part of the NRHP for destruction is way beyond criminal. Either a landmark is historically protected, or the designation is an entire joke and the NRHP has no significance.

The city and state would first have to show interest in funding a lease for the rail line to the station, because they no longer use that rail, just to even begin to talk of reusing the station for passenger rail service

A proper use cannot be found for the Michigan Central Station, and it will have to be imploded if Stanley Christmas's lawsuit is unsuccessful.

Although I worked for the Free Press on the business side, I too had been a college journalist. In college we considered the Free Press during the reign of Kurt Luedtke (another Grand Rapidian) to be one of the greatest of American newspapers. A writer's paper it was called. So to work there a few years later, even if it wasn't on the news side, was like dying and going to heaven.

The kind of shabby Art Deco building made the whole experience something like what used to be pictured in grainy nineteen-thirties newspaper movies. By the time I worked there though the stereotypical rough reporters that you'd see in those movies, who had started as fifteen year-old copyboys and had worked there way up, were almost all gone and instead the newsroom was populated by mostly middle-class people with journalism degrees from good schools. Instead the crusty Runyonesque characters were all over on the business side with me.

Kurt Luedtke left for Hollywood. Eventually the Art Deco interior on my floor was gutted and replaced with fake wood-grain cubicles from Hayworth, and the old rotary presses were stilled when a new highly automated offset printing plant was put into operation down by the river. The riverside plant which never operated as well as expected has since been torn down.

Eventually I moved on too. But for awhile it was a good ride.