Monroe Blocks - 35 Story Office Tower | 536 feet / 26 & 16 Story Residential Towers | $100+ Million

[urbanplanet17]

While this project was announced back in November 2016, a groundbreaking date of January 2018 was announced today.

The floor count isn't anything earth shattering, but if the rendering if any sign, the height may be as much as 400 ft (Cadillac Tower is 438 feet).

https://detroit.curbed.com/2016/11/30/13799958/dan-gilbert-downtown-development

 

Tony Hawk partners to bring a skate park to the Monroe Blocks downtown

https://detroit.curbed.com/2017/7/20/16002768/tony-hawk-skatepark-downtown-detroit

The Monroe Blocks—bordered by Randolph, Bates, Monroe, and Cadillac Square—will turn into an art installation and skate park called Wayfinding starting August 16. A partnership between skateboarding legend Tony Hawk, artist Ryan McGinness, Quicken Loans, and Bedrock, the park will be a temporary installation on the site until January 2018, when Bedrock plans to break ground on new office towers and residential.

[urbanplanet17]

This plan was also approved by the DDA back in November 2016, with Gilbert expected to pay exactly $3,000,001 to purchase all of the land / property.

The National Theatre facade would be integrated into the project

http://www.dailydetroit.com/2016/11/30/gilbert-unveils-100m-monroe-blocks-project-includes-two-high-rises/

 

 

 

[RustTown]

The rendering has some funky perspective.  It makes it look much taller than the neighboring One Campus Martius, but there is no way a 20-story building would be nearly 400 feet.  That'd be 20-foot floors, which is an extreme even for office floors.  I'm think it's a lot closer to One Campus Martius in height than it is Cadillac Tower.

Anyway, height aside, like the neighboring proposal for the Hudson block, the architecture is stunning.

[urbanplanet17]

1 hour ago, Lmichigan said:

The rendering has some funky perspective.  It makes it look much taller than the neighboring One Campus Martius, but there is no way a 20-story building would be nearly 400 feet.  That'd be 20-foot floors, which is an extreme even for office floors.  I'm think it's a lot closer to One Campus Martius in height than it is Cadillac Tower.

Anyway, height aside, like the neighboring proposal for the Hudson block, the architecture is stunning.

To be fair, the rendering isn't official, as an architect hasn't been hired (at least as far as we know). It was something they sketched up to garner support for the tax incentive bill. Gilbert may even decide to increase the scope of this project between now and January, given the severe shortage of office space he claims. 

All of that said, even a 300 to 350 ft tower would be fairly impressive from the ground level and is certainly reasonable with a 20-story building (see  222 2nd Avenue or One Nashville Place in Nashville as a comparison). One Campus Martius is shorter by a fairly decent margin at only a little over 200 ft.

[RustTown]

Hamilton Anderson was retained for these.  Yes, they could change, but most of the stuff proposed in Detroit lately has not been dumbed down between proposal and completion.  Not seeing why we need to be particularly skeptical right now.  I was surprised to hear this was still holding to the January 2018 ground-breaking, and I don't doubt much of what Gilbert promises because he delivers.  This isn't the 00's, anymore.

On the height, again, the neighboring One Campus Martius is 15/16 stories and is only 230 feet.  It is completely possible we're looking at something under 300 feet.  I really don't care, though, as long as it's at least as tall as One Campus Martius, and particularly when we're gearing up for a 734-foot tower a block or two away.

[urbanplanet17]

5 minutes ago, Lmichigan said:

Hamilton Anderson was retained for these.  Yes, they could change, but most of the stuff proposed in Detroit lately has not been dumbed down between proposal and completion.  Not seeing why we need to be particularly skeptical right now.  I was surprised to hear this was still holding to the January 2018 ground-breaking, and I don't doubt much of what Gilbert promises because he delivers.  This isn't the 00's, anymore.

I tend to agree. 

If the economy doesn't go into the crapper for a little while longer, I suspect we'll see more high-rise proposals (from others besides Gilbert) coming down the pipeline. The Lafayette Building site would be the next best candidate IMO.

I'm still betting on a high rise hotel or two happening as well, between the boost in tourism with Little Caesars Arena and possibly more big employers from the suburbs relocating downtown.

[urbanplanet17]

23 minutes ago, Lmichigan said:

On the height, again, the neighboring One Campus Martius is 15/16 stories and is only 230 feet.  It is completely possible we're looking at something under 300 feet.  I really don't care, though, as long as it's at least as tall as One Campus Martius, and particularly when we're gearing up for a 734-foot tower a block or two away.

Well that's the point, we're talking about the same guy who's stretching a 52 story building to 734 ft.

Gilbert has proven he likes to do big things, so there's good enough reason to be bullish on this building being fairly tall in height despite the floor count. 

[Guest]

I really like the design.  Detroit continues to pick up steam.  It would be nice to see someone other then Gilbert, but they will come along.

[RustTown]

Okay, so the plan HAS been expanded.  The office tower is now 35 stories.  Can someone change the title to reflect this?

 

New details, renderings for Gilbert's Monroe Block plan show huge ambitions

If the Hudson's site tower will rank as Detroit's tallest building, the new details available for the Monroe Block remain equally impressive: It will feature 810,000 square feet of new office space, 170,000 square feet of new retail space, 482 new residential apartments, at least 900 parking spaces — many of which will be built underground, and some 48,000 square feet of public plazas and "green" space. 

[urbanplanet17]

3 hours ago, Lmichigan said:

Okay, so the plan HAS been expanded.  The office tower is now 35 stories.  Can someone change the title to reflect this?

 

 

*Proceeds to do a jig*

Gonna call it now. This will be no less than 500ft. What's the last 500ft + tower built in Detroit?

Next up, Lafayette Block!!!

[RustTown]

Wrote the Detroit Free Press author about this, and he says he was told it'd be approximately the height of the Cadillac Tower...which it looks in the new renderings.  It certainly doesn't look like it's going to be 60-70 feet tall than Cadillac Square.

[urbanplanet17]

7 minutes ago, Lmichigan said:

Wrote the Detroit Free Press author about this, and he says he was told it'd be approximately the height of the Cadillac Tower...which it looks.  That could mean a bit taller than Cadillac Tower, but certainly not close to 500 feet.

Does that include the antenna? The Cadillac Tower *building* is about 440ft, if I recall correctly.

Assuming that information is accurate, it may not be exactly 500ft or higher, but the difference is negligible to the average joe. Not to mention, it would be much taller than what we were discussing before (~230ft).

[RustTown]

No, it doesn't include the antenna.  Cadillac Tower is 437 feet to its elevator tower on the roof/mechanical penthouse (416 feet to its main roof deck).

EDIT: And now there is another rendering out showing it well taller than Cadillac Tower.  I wish they'd just give some kind of preliminary height instead of these constantly conflicting renderings.

[urbanplanet17]

So apparently, only the Ren Cen Towers, Penobscot and One Detroit Center are taller than 500ft. That said, a slew of them (Fisher, Cadillac, Guardian, Book, David Stott, etc.) are in the 400 to 500ft range.

It would be impressive to get two of them at once.

On 8/21/2017 at 0:58 PM, Lmichigan said:

No, it doesn't include the antenna.  Cadillac Tower is 437 feet to its elevator tower on the roof/mechanical penthouse (416 feet to its main roof deck).

EDIT: And now there is another rendering out showing it well taller than Cadillac Tower.  I wish they'd just give some kind of preliminary height instead of these constantly conflicting renderings.

Agreed as far as the bolded.

That said, I'm sticking to what I said before. Given that we're talking about Dan Gilbert, I would lean towards thinking big with this one.

[RustTown]

It appears the aerial rendering was the most accurate.  The office tower will be 536 feet:

[RustTown]

In Gilbert running down his four projects for downtown, the Detroit News seems to have included a rendering of the base not seen before:

We're looking across Cadillac Square, here, into the passage to the interior courtyard of the first block of this development.

[RustTown]

Prep work has either begun or will start within the next few weeks for this site.  It will include two minor demolitions:

CoStar Group

The first major work will be excavation for a massive, 3-level underground parking garage to serve this huge development.  It will have 1,200 spaces.  Work will also be  beginning on the expansion of One Campus Martius:

...and the Book Tower has been under steady restoration and renovation for awhile.  Gilbert also recently filed for an OPRA for the commercial renovation of the lower floors of the David Stott Building, of which the upper floors have already been under renovation into resdiential apartments.  So a lot going on all at once.

[RustTown]

I'm hearing demolition has yet to start, by SHL Architects did put another rendering on their site of the office tower portion of this and another of the pedestrianized Farmer Street "alley."

[RustTown]

YES!

Groundbreaking for Monroe Blocks on track for December

The groundbreaking for the $830 million Monroe Blocks development in downtown Detroit is on track for December, according to Bedrock.

“Much like Hudson’s, it’s eerily close to the same timing a year ago,” said Joe Guziewicz, vice president of construction for Bedrock, on Thursday. “We’ll do a groundbreaking kick-off, and watch out. Work will start.”

[RustTown]

Getting some dates on this one.  Apparently, the parking lot in Block 1 will be permanently shut down Tuesday, December 4th.  Early construction work (site prep) will begin the week after.

[RustTown]

Finally broken ground.  Here are the latest renderings.  They removed the interesting covered courtyard, but kept most everything else intact.  We also find that terra-cotta will be extensively used in this complex.