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There were some big successes, a few major rehab starts and several demolitions in 2023 in the realm of old and historic Detroit buildings.
One of the most striking redevelopment projects to get underway this year involves the 120-year-old Bonstelle Theatre at Woodward and Eliot Street in Midtown, several blocks north of Little Caesars Arena.
This summer, Detroit-based developer Roxbury Group launched an exterior and interior restoration for the domed theater building, which was last used by Wayne State University’s performing arts programs.
The restoration is part of a new development next door to the Bonstelle by Roxbury and Atlanta-based Peachtree Group of a 10-story, 154-room Marriott International AC Hotel. The hotel building construction is underway.
The rehabbed Bonstelle will connect to the hotel and be used as special events space. Both the new hotel and rehabbed theater could be done by next September, said David Di Rita, principal of the Roxbury Group.
Work crews recently exposed the original entrance and front columns of the Bonstelle. The front of the theater had been covered up by cinder blocks decades ago.
“Those columns are now coming back into view, with all of that beautiful detail work over the doorways,” Di Rita said. “This is in historic preservation realms, kind of a dream project. To us, it’s like opening an early Christmas gift.”
The Bonstelle dates to 1903 and was designed by the prolific Detroit architect Albert Kahn. It wasn’t originally a theater, but rather was built as the Temple Beth El synagogue.
After the synagogue relocated to a different building further north on Woodward, the old building in 1925 was transformed into the Bonstelle Playhouse. The architect for that conversion was C. Howard Crane, who also did the Fox Theatre and Orchestra Hall, according to HistoricDetroit.org.
WSU bought the building in 1951 and used it for performing arts programs, most recently for its dance program. In 2018, the university announced that it would leave the Bonstelle for its new Hilberry Gateway performing arts center. WSU still owns the Bonstelle but gave Roxbury a very long-term lease, Di Rita said.
More:What happened to all of Detroit’s massive YMCA buildings? 1 is facing the wrecking ball.
Roxbury will be restoring the theater’s balcony seats to their original design in the rehab. However, permanent seating on the main floor will be removed and the slope of the floor will be flattened to better host events.
Piquette Flats
Another major rehab that started this year is transformation of a former four-story Studebaker service center at 411 Piquette, in the city’s Milwaukee Junction area, into 161 apartments.
The Albert Kahn-designed building dates to 1920 and originally supported operations of a nearby Studebaker factory. The building has been vacant since about 2018 and was last used as medical records storage by Henry Ford Health. It neighbors the Ford Piquette Avenue Plant Museum.
The project is called Piquette Flats and the developer is Detroit-based The Platform. All of the building’s apartments will be offered at below-market rents to income-qualified occupants. The expected completion date is fall 2024.
Book Depository
Yet another Albert Kahn-designed building, the Book Depository, located at 2050 15th St. in Corktown next to Michigan Central Station, reopened earlier this year after sitting empty for more than 30 years.
The three-story, 270,000-square-foot building underwent a dramatic top-to-bottom rehab. It is now collaborative workspace for close to 80 startup companies and known as Newlab at Michigan Central Building.
The building was redeveloped by Ford, which purchased it from the Moroun family in 2018. It opened in 1936 as a U.S. Post Office, and later was a warehouse for Detroit Public Schools until a 1987 fire.
It’s neighbor, Michigan Central Station, is expected to reopen sometime next year following its own extensive rehab by Ford.
Former Detroit library branch
A stately brick building at 8726 Woodward near Boston Edison that opened around 1912 as a Detroit library branch underwent renovation this year, and is set to reopen in January as the new administrative headquarters for the mental health agency Detroit Wayne Integrated Health Network.
The Beaux-Arts-style building was once the library’s Henry M. Utley branch, in honor of a Detroit librarian. The branch closed in the 1970s. The building previously housed The Family Place, which hosted social services offices and a daycare.
The agency bought the building in 2018, and this year nearly finished a $17 million gut renovation. They refurnished the exterior, installing replacement decorative cornices where needed, and uncovered — and restored — old terrazzo flooring near the front entrance, according to Facilities Director Mike Maskey.
The agency is keeping the original wood-burning fireplaces on the building’s north and south sides, although converted them to gas. The building was last updated in the mid-1990s with a renovation that added an interior mezzanine level.
National Theatre Building facade
Dan Gilbert’s real estate firm, Bedrock, announced plans early in the year to save the façade of the Albert Kahn-designed National Theatre building in downtown Detroit and later incorporate it into a future music venue.
The theater dates to 1911 and is on the National Register of Historic Places. It opened as a vaudeville theater and later showed films for a time, before switching to burlesque shows with live music, according to HistoricDetroit.org. It pivoted to pornography in the 1970s and soon closed for good. It is located next to downtown’s popular Monroe Street Midway.
Bedrock has been planning for years to build a large development of housing and office space at the Midway site, but adjusted and downsized those plans in February.
Although the latest plan wouldn’t save the entire National Theatre building, it preserves the theater’s facade for a new 2,000-seat concert venue. This fall, workers began the careful process of dismantling the old theater’s facade and storing it.
Construction of the venue is expected to begin sometime next year. Bedrock is collaborating on the project with venue operator tvg Hospitality.
Bedrock in September razed a pair of old empty buildings behind the theater that were in the footprint of the future overall development.
One of them was a six-story building from the 1920s at 815 Bates St., known as the Pochelon Building, and the other was a neighboring four-story building at 1000 Farmer St. that was slightly older.
Midtown church demo
The old St. Patrick Catholic Church, built in 1926 and situated at 58 Parsons St. in Midtown, tucked behind the Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s Orchestra Hall, was razed in September.
The red brick Neo-Romanesque building was designed by noted church architects Donaldson & Meier and originally known as the Chapel of St. Theresa of the Little Flower. It was on the National Register of Historic Places.
The church had been vacant since holding a final mass in May 2015, when membership had dwindled to about 70 families.
The Archdiocese of Detroit recently sold the property to the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Demolition of the church reportedly was a requirement of the sale.
The DSO was interested in buying the site because of its proximity to Orchestra Hall, but wasn’t prepared to rehab or operate an empty church. The DSO has yet to determine what it will do with the cleared land.
University of Detroit Mercy teardown
A five-story office building from 1966 on the University of Detroit Mercy campus, known as the Fisher Administration Center, was demolished this fall.
The building was designed by the firm of Gunnar Birkets and Co. and built through a monetary donation from Detroit’s famous Fisher family. When it opened, the building received some criticism for contrasting with the Spanish Mission motif of the UDM campus.
But the building didn’t age well, and was considered by the university as functionally obsolete and too expensive to maintain.
Old Chinatown building demo
A long-vacant brick building from 1883 that was once part of Detroit’s second Chinatown was demolished during the summer. (The city’s first Chinatown, located around what was Third Avenue and Porter Street, just west of downtown, was razed in the mid-1950s to make way for the Lodge Freeway.)
The building, at 3143 Cass north of the Masonic Temple, was owned by the Ilitch organization’s Olympia Development of Michigan. The demolition was ordered by the city, and a last-minute effort by Detroit City Council to delay the demo was unsuccessful.
The two-story building was at one time home to the Chinese Merchants Association and other groups, including as a gathering space for cultural events such as weddings and movies.
Even though the building had been empty for years and suffered roof and interior collapse, the demolition was criticized by some for erasing a culturally significant structure.
Endangered boat club
One still-standing yet endangered historic building, whose precarious status made headlines this year, is the Detroit Boat Club on Belle Isle.
The Mediterranean-style building dates to 1902 and was the boat club’s home for decades until 1996, when the city of Detroit evicted the club for nonpayment of rent and taxes, according to Free Press archives.
More recently, the boathouse was leased out to the Detroit rowing club. The building is still owned by the city, but managed and controlled by the state.
Citing building deterioration and high estimated rehab costs, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources announced this month that it is accepting suggestions from the public on what it should do with the boathouse — including potential demolition.
The comment period is open through Dec. 31 and state officials say they expect to make a decision early next year on the boathouse’s future.
Some preservationists argue that the building is too beautiful to lose and could be saved and rehabbed.
YMCA headed for demo
One building on the eve of demolition is the long-shuttered Hannan Memorial YMCA on East Jefferson.
This five-story Y opened in 1928 and became a federal Jobs Corps training center in the mid-1970s. The federal government transferred ownership in 2005 to the Women’s Justice Center, and the city of Detroit ultimately took possession of the empty and decaying building in late 2022.
The old Y is in extremely poor condition and missing much of its roof. The city is presently abating asbestos inside the building and expects to start demolition early next year. The money for the demolition, estimated to cost $1.8 million, would come from the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan of early 2021.
Contact JC Reindl: 313-222-6631 or [email protected]. Follow him on X @jcreindl.