Randolph Street building collapse

[ZachariahDaMan]

http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/15761979/detail.html

My ex called me up when she heard about this on the news. I had to go get some photos.

[hudkina]

I wonder if it is still structurally sound.

[urban_izzy]

I wonder if the place is still available for lease?

[urban_izzy]

I wonder if the place is still available for lease?

[Michi]

^ You are so mean!

I bet it will have to be demolished. It looks like the floors are sagging.

[RustTown]

Yes, I can't imagine anyone putting in the money to try and save it. It would cost more money than it's probably worth to retrofit it, and you'd probably have to take apart the building and reconstruct it, anyway. What an unfortunate loss.

[wolverine]

What a shame, that's one of downtown's oldest.

[Eridony]

Oh damn, I saw your first photo and thought "I don't see anything major, it just looks like it's decaying" and then I saw the photo of the back. I wonder what caused that middle part to go but not the edges.

[RustTown]

Buildings that end up collapsing like this one ususally do sag in the center before they fall. Imagine what part of the beam is carrying the most weight. You wouldn't expect anywhere else under that kind of stress to start the fall.

[wolverine]

I know a lot of people on Dyes are speculating column failure, but I wonder about the integrity of the brick wall. It's entirely load bearing, and the sagging floors appear as though a result of the wall collapsing on top of it, causing the floor to bend. It did after all rip the whole fire escape down.

I really do value this building, but consider the space that will be here if the building is demolished. You'll have a collection of several empty lots on that corner that can be entirely occupied by a much larger building if all can be purchased. What that corner needs is a gateway building into Greektown. It isn't much right now, and the empty corner you see here is a challenging one to develop into anything spectacular.

[hudkina]

I was thinking the same thing. A nice five/ten story apartment building with ground floor retail would be nice. Maybe Greektown would lease space in their parking garage across the street so they wouldn't have to add parking to any prospective project.

[wolverine]

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/artic...0366/1408/LOCAL

The owner wants it preserved. That would be nice except you should have thought about investing that $100,000 before it collapsed. Although it makes you wonder if this even the city's business to care about this at all. I mean, look at all their dirty laundry scattered about and tell me what is structurally safe. I don't believe the integrity of several other downtown structures even comes close to matching the odd fellows bldg.

As I said previously, I hope a new larger 'gateway' building goes up on that site. Detroit's continuing loss in downtown density has already tipped my scales for even caring anymore.

[RustTown]

It doesn't matter what the owner wants, it seems. The article clearly states the city will demand it be brought down, which seems to be the most important piece of information in the whole article unless I missed something.

Could it be structurally repaired and still keep all of its historic qualities and still be feasible?

[wolverine]

Absolutely

[hudkina]

Even if they can't save the building, I'm sure they could feasibly save the facade.

[detroitfan]

That article from two weeks ago, I guess the guy satisfied the city and they the pulled the demolition order a few days later. They've working on the building ever since.

[Allan]

There has been work on the Oddfellows every day since the wall collapsed. The city rescinded the demolition order about a week ago, I believe. It was also determined that the high winds were not a factor in the wall's collapse, although I never did hear what the actual cause was.

[hudkina]

Old age?

[wolverine]

Probably poor maintenance which is the case with so many other Detroit buildings.

[Allan]

Shown left of the Hotel St. Claire, at the corner of Randolph and Monroe, is the Temple of the Oddfellows in its original configuration, before the mansard roof was removed and the top floor added on.

[wolverine]

Wow, I never knew that corner was occupied by such a beautiful building. Shame it's gone.

[Jasoncw]

wow, that was a really nice looking corner at that time.

To be honest, in the state it's in now, I don't really like that building, but looking at it back then, it was nice. The building next to it is really nice though.

[urban_izzy]

Looks like they've decided it was worth fixing up.

[andrew.w]

Sure looks to be the case. I'm guessing the "windowless option" was the cheapest and quickest way to restabilize the building. Although many potential development strategies for the upper floors of that building would probably require that windows be cut out of that wll again.

[wolverine]

It's nice they reused the old brick!