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Lee Plaza Coming down?


wolverine

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Yo, I don't like the look of that fence around it. It screams demolition. Can anyone confirm if its ready to be demolished?

I know it's lost a lot of its best architectural features. I just wish if it went down another 17 story building could go up in its place. But with that bad location, the chance of that happening is close to none. I still think the best view of the building is driving down Grand River (not grand blvd). You catch the building at angle as it rises high above NWHS's athletic fields.

Glad I got up there to snap photos while that building was still open, but safe.

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This building is nowhere near as popular with Detroit-area preservationist, as most of them would even agree that is one battle they don't want or need to fight. It's very possible this could be a demolition, and there won't be much outrage if they taking it down, as there is few reasons beyond architectural significance to justify its existence. Unlike the downtown buildings, it will take years before there would be demand in that particular neighborhood to support a redevelopment of the tower. I don't want to see it go, but it's easily one of the best candidates for demolitions of a vacant building.

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lol. Haven't you noticed, most Michiganians are like this. :) Maybe that's why we're in the shape we're in.

But, seriously, the preservation community seems to know when to pick their battles, and this just isn't one of them. The prospects of a renovated Lee Plaza in the area it is, now, are slim. This is one of the few I'm willing to concede just can't work. Not now, and maybe not even in the forseeable future. Have you ever been to the neighborhood it sits in? I'm not saying I wish death upon the Lee Plaza, but if the city decides to take it down, you won't see my crying about it.

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I agree with LMich. I'm hearing no cries from preservationists. I just can't see anything good happening to it. Not only is its specific location within a relatively unsafe area, it's next to high school.... a very big one too, which would not be popular with the residents.

A sad loss is the views. It's virtually the only building within the city that offers the BEST complete view of the Detroit skyline up along Woodward. The rest is of the hood and the school....which isn't necessarily bad, it's just not all that interesting.

B O R I N G:

boringview.jpg

Awhile back I posted a Lee Plaza thread that had a huge skyline pano. I can't find it, but if anyone does, go ahead and post it. I searched my u of m server space for it, but I don't exactly keep it very organized.

But if worse comes to worse. I really hope we don't see a wrecking ball smashing up that terra cotta facade. I'd hope that it would be salvaged along with the Lions heads and reused on a brand new building IN DETROIT.

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I'm still banking on that this is just something to secure the building from being stripped any further, or at least slow the rate of it being stripped. Usually, a place like DetroitYes would have already picked up on demolition news, and there hasn't been anything, not even rumors of a demolition. No one seems to know anything, which I'll take as a positive for the time being.

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Well I don't doubt that, but normally, preservationists break wind about these things long before they happen, whether or not if they can do anything about it. You try and tear down an abandoned home in GR and the Preservationists come out of the wood work and prostrate themselves like martyrs.

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Actually I wouldn't doubt that moving Lee plaza is possible at all. It's just a matter of the extreme cost that it would be. How far would it have to be moved to get into a respectable location?

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It is possible to move it, but with extreme costs and destruction to the city infrastructure, it would be even more practical to demolish the building and rebuild it with the same materials nearly 50 times, LOL.

Really, rebuilding Lee Plaza elsewhere would not cost as much as people think, even with reproducing the same facade.

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It's already in a prominent place. Move it downtown, and it would be lost in the sea of highrises. At it's current location, it sticks out like a sore thumb.

Photo Deleted by request of the Owner. Please make sure you have permissions to use somone's work

And a view by Allan just to show how far it is from downtown...

57088676_16dad966cb_b.jpg

Wolv, when you say move the building, you don't mean to physically move the entire 18-story structure do you? Aren't you just talking taking it apart and rebuilding it? I've never seen them move anything other than the Gem Theater, which is a Guiness Book record. I didn't know it was possible to move anything bigger than that with the technology available.

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No, I meant physically move the whole building in one piece. It can be done, as the technology we have is capable of producing machinery to move it. But attempting something like this would be a pipe dream. Who would pay for the machinery to be developed? Who would pay for the billions of dollars in damage to city roads, sewers, and powerlines to get this thing moved down Grand River. We would inhabit Mars before a Lee Plaza would even move five blocks, but Im not denying its impossible!

As far as dismantling the building...that would be impossible. It is made of steel encased in terra cotta masonry and reinforced concrete. The whole thing would fall apart, lol.

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Well, most anything is theoretically possible. I was talking about currently available machines that could do this. In theory, one could build an elevator to the moon. Do you mean we have machines available that could scoot this building downtown.

Lmich, you're getting all "Charlie and the chocolate factory" on me dude.

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