Detroit rallies, breaks ground on tower tall with symbolism
DETROIT — An 800foot-tall centerpiece is coming to Detroit’s resurgent downtown as the city continues to build momentum three years after exiting the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history.
The 58-story building dominating the skyline will rise on the site of the iconic J.L. Hudson department store, whose 1983 closing epitomized Detroit’s economic downfall.
“When we lost Hudson’s it symbolized how far Detroit had fallen,” Bedrock Detroit real estate founder Dan Gilbert said this month during a groundbreaking for the new building. “When it was imploded in 1998, it was a very sad day for a lot of people.”
But the bad times for downtown appear to be largely over. Bedrock Detroit’s $900 million, twobuilding project will include a 58-story residential tower and 12-floor building for retail and conference space.
It is one of four projects representing a $2.1 billion investment in downtown by the Detroit-based commercial real estate firm. Altogether, the projects are expected to create up to 24,000 jobs in a city that desperately needs them and generate $673 million in new tax revenue.
Mayor Mike Duggan’s office has spearheaded redevelopment programs targeting a number of city neighborhoods, but Detroit’s growth is most evident in greater downtown, where office space now is limited and available apartments are tough to come by.
A ribbon-cutting was held in August for an $860 million sports complex just north of downtown. The 20,000-seat Little Caesars Arena is the new home of the Detroit Red Wings and Pistons. It will anchor a 50-block neighborhood of offices, apartments, and shops.
A 6.6-mile-long light rail system launched earlier this year along Woodward Avenue, downtown’s main business thoroughfare.
Software maker Microsoft announced in February it plans to move its Michigan Microsoft Technology Center next year from the suburbs to downtown. In 2016, Ally Financial opened new offices downtown that the financial services company said eventually would be occupied by more than 1,500 employees and contractors.
“Bedrock building on the Hudson’s site will be an important addition to the community and the vitality and prosperity of downtown,” said John Mogk, a Wayne State University law professor whose work has included policy on economic development issues.
“It will act as an important centerpiece for continuing the overall downtown development, but much more has to be done for the entire city to feel a restaurants resurgence.”
But much work remains for a city where many residents are still poor.
Detroit’s unemployment rate was 8 percent in April, yet far below the more than 18 percent unemployment rate during the city’s 2013 bankruptcy filing.
The city’s 2016 poverty rate was just over 35 percent — the highest among the nation’s 20 largest cities and more than double the national poverty of 14 percent. A family of four is considered living in poverty if its annual earnings are less than $24,563.
Downtown construction projects such as the work at the Hudson’s site can help change that, some say.
“What a shame that anybody should be unemployed in Detroit when we have a need for skilled trades,” Gilbert said. “We like to say Detroit is located at the intersection of muscle and brains. We need brains to sort this all out (and) somebody still has to build stuff. We still need muscle.”