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A conceptual plan to put a 25-story apartment tower on the former site of Joe Louis Arena in downtown Detroit is moving closer to reality.
The city of Detroit issued a Phase II building permit Wednesday for vertical construction of the tower, which is to contain 500 housing units. The permit estimates the cost of the construction work covered by the permit at $40.3 million.
The developer, Detroit-based Sterling Group, which essentially acquired the 5-acre property from one of the city’s bankruptcy creditors, has shared few details about the project with the public.
Last summer, the firm submitted a concept plan to the city showing a 25-story, 290-foot-tall residential tower called The Louis, but it has yet to make any formal announcements or respond to media inquiries.
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In February, the city issued a partial building permit for just site preparation and foundation work for the tower, and work crews have made visible progress since then.
A city spokesman said Friday that the tower now has all necessary approvals to proceed with construction, aside from future periodic inspections. There are no updated designs for the tower since early renderings released last year that depict a tall and relatively plain riverfront big box.
The planned tower is on the city’s riverfront west of the Renaissance Center. The site was home to Joe Louis Arena from 1979 until the arena was demolished in 2019-20.
The Sterling Group reached a complex $14.1 million deal with the city in late 2019 for the site, plus the nearby 3,000-space Joe Louis Arena parking garage.
The deal bought out a New York-based bond insurer, Financial Guaranty Insurance Corp., which received future development and ownership rights to the arena site during Detroit’s 2013-14 bankruptcy. The bond insurer was given those rights in exchange for getting roughly 13 cents on the dollar for its $1.1-billion claim against the city.
That bankruptcy deal was highlighted in the newly released documentary “Gradually, Then Suddenly: The Bankruptcy of Detroit.” At the time of the deal, the future development was envisioned as a large hotel that might benefit from close proximity to Detroit’s Cobo Hall convention center, now called Huntington Place.
Sterling Group last year sold the old arena parking garage, 900 W. Jefferson Ave., to Grosse Pointe-based Foster Financial Co. for $36 million.
ContactJC Reindl: 313-378-5460 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @jcreindl. Read more on business and sign up for our business newsletter.
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