Dinosaur buildings?

[hood]

I am new to this site and was browsing the forums. I seen that there are so called "Dinosaur Buildings" in Detroit that are to be rennovated or demolished before the 2006 Super Bowl. I'm just wondering what buildings are affected and will these demolitions actually end up happening. How stupid can the City of Detoit be to destroy all of these historic buildings just for a one weekend event? I'm from Lansing and we have for the most part learned from our demolition mistakes, we no longer do dumb things like that, but Detroit is going another step, demolishing landmark buildings? I'm truely amazed by some peoples stupidity, it's just really sad they have to do things like that. Also, is there anyone fighting against this plan? If so are they having any success?

[wolverine]

Yeah, this idea of demoing the major buildings downtown for an event is shocking to many. Years of history gone, just to fix a temporary situation. I'm really not sure if the Superbowl is the actual reason the major buildings are being demoed, but it likely is. However, it isn't like the city didn't try to have these redeveloped. All of these buildings have been for sale, but although the city has tried to find developers, they haven't tried hard enough. In fact, the city doesn't do as much as they should to encourage redevelopment and investment within the city. I have articles and know people who can support me on that. But back to the dinosaur buildings. They are easy targets for such discussion of renovation or demolition because they are big and stand out. I can tell you that currently, none of the dinosaur buildings that are standing in one piece right now are ready to be demolished. Most of them are now in the planning stages of renovation or else have been sold to another individual. You may by now have seen on the forum how the Madison Lennox and Statler were/are being demolished. Those two buildings were not fortunate like the rest. You're right when you said that other cities have realized the potential in their abandoned buildings. That's why you'll see many other cities in Michigan such as Grand Rapids, Flint, Saginaw, and Bay City holding onto their older more historic buildings for the sake of not turning their cities into parking lots and parking towers. Granted some of those cities mentioned are far better at redevelopment than others, but Detroit has been on the bad end when it comes to maintaining and preserving what is left.

This subject of discussion is rather broad. There's a bunch of reasons, and probably some more accurate explanations than mine as to why these buildings exist. I'm sure other forumers will have some imput that is probably better than mine. But we all agree that none of these buildings should be demolished.

[detroitfan]

The phrase dinsoaurs refers specifically to the downtown buildings that were owned by the city. These were the Statler, Book-Cadillac, Lafayette, Metropolitan, Kales and 600 Wooward. As of right now the Kales is the only one renovated and the Statler is being demlished now. All others except the Book-Cadillac have been sold and are slated renovation. The B-C is the biggest unknown right now the city found a developer, but just as work was to begin they pulled out. The city found another developer then IRS challened one of tax credits to finance the deal. The latest I've on the B-C from June on the Fab Ruins-Detroit's best sourse for news-is this

The IRS ruling from Feb '04 that stalled the project was reversed in March '05 (barely 90 days ago) After careful review for 60 days by various legal-eagle types, financiers across the nation are satisfied that the ruling allows what everyone assumed it did from their first reads.

The developer is in the process of restarting and reactivating the other financing sources, which does not happen overnight as all THEIR teams are going to want to review the ruling and be fully comfortable. Numbers also have to be tweaked as steel prices have gone down, labor prices gone up, hotel occupancy rates have changed for the better slightly, a year of RZ benefits have burned off, etc...everything needs to be recalibrated...my guess is a late autumn deal closing

Overall this has done more good for city than bad the city had been far too passive in the past about marketing. Now these building will see new that may not if the city has been insistant getting them developed by a firm date.

The Madison Lenox wasn't techincally part the dinsoaur building this was nothing politcal favor at the cost of our heritage. No other privately owned building was target for demo and given loan to do so; expect the one owned our resident, millionaire slumlord.

[Allan]

Detroit wants to demolish every one of the dirty dozen. Unfortunately for them, the estimate to do so is $28,000,000. As of the begining of this year, there were 46 vacant buildings downtown, which translated to 2.2 million square feet of space. More than half of that space was owned by the Ilitches. Since we've now lost the M-L & the Statler those numbers have changed a bit.

I've heard from three different sources that the United Artists Theater is coming down as soon as they finish with the Statler. I've also heard from two sources that the Fine Arts Building/Adams Theater is coming down within the year. I still don't quite understand how the M-L posed an "imminent threat" & the Fine Arts Building doesn't. I recently took myself on a tour of the Fine Arts Building. Unlike the M-L, the entire building is structurally suspect. The entire building is collapsing inward, and there are massive holes in the floors. The building pretty much doesn't have a roof. The floors all slope towards the massive hole that has been rotted into the floors at the center of the building, and the only real way to get around is to walk on the outside edge of the floors, cling to the walls, and hope for the best. It was entirely stupid for me to be there, and I left without getting very far, since I did want to come out of the building alive.

Today I noticed tickets on the Whitney Building, Wurlitzer Building, & 1403 Woodward. Additionally, there was a court document stapled to the Farwell Building, which essentially told Mike Higgins that he's got to either tear the building down within 60 days or begin renovations immediately.

[hood]

So Basically, Detroit has had many years to do something, their problems have been longstanding and obvious. But they chose not to for whatever reason, and now that the Super Bowl has come up they are racing to do something with these buildings. I'm willing to bet that any of these buildings that make it past the Super Bowl will go back to being ignored and will be allowed to just rot away, as they have for so many years.

[RustTown]

You don't seem to realize the incredible transformation downtown has undergone in just 5 short years, and is continuing with fervor. It's MUCH more complicated than you think it is, and isn't chalked up to just "stupid" city leaders. You have slumlords to deal with, a volatile housing and office market, retail not willing to take a risk because the downtown is still growing...

If there is any time in recent memory that these buildings will be reused, it's now.

[jsmyers]

I've heard from three different sources that the United Artists Theater is coming down as soon as they finish with the Statler. I've also heard from two sources that the Fine Arts Building/Adams Theater is coming down within the year.

There is not "they."

The 2 other buildings you mention are owned by Illitch holdings (Madison Lennox, Pizza, Parking, sports, and the Fox). The Statler was owned by the city.

The city went through an extensive process to decide if they could save the Statler. They decided they couldn't (especially while saving the Book Caddy).

As far as anybody knows, the UA and Adams are being held by the cartel because they don't know anything better to do with them. I bleieve they were accumulated when Tigers Stadium might have still have been going West of Woodward.

They might decide that they want to demo the buildings. They city might ask them to if they do become dangerous. There is some speculation that they want to now that they got the ML taken care of.

But maybe not:

http://www.urbanplanet.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=13603

http://127.0.0.1/forum/messages/5/50296.html?1122036708

It might be possible that one of those two will get demoed sometime soon, but to suggest that the demolition crew is going to move from one building to another when they are done is pretty ridiculous.