Just before Thanksgiving, plans were submitted to the city requesting a rezoning of a full city block at the northwest corner of Hoover & Greene in the shadow of Michigan Stadium for a 170-unit mixed-use development.
Proposed by Southfield-based REDICO and designed by Myefski Architects (known for the proposed Library Lot development and the under construction Hub project on Huron), this development is slated to include 170 units with 180 total bedrooms, predominantly studio and one bedroom apartments. The building will have a corner pocket park and 3,350 square feet of retail, a nice bonus in this neighborhood, essentially replacing the small commercial building there now. Parking will be provided in a two story garage below the building and includes more than one space per unit, even more than one space per bedroom given the small floorplans. It’s more parking than is needed by zoning and probably more than is even needed by market demand so the MLive commenters that come out of the woodwork to beat the parking dead horse will have to stick to articles about the Lowertown development.
The block is home to predominantly rental homes and is presently zoned half C2B and half R4C. REDICO is petitioning the city to rezone the entire block bound by Hoover, Greene, Davis and Brown to C2B to accommodate the proposed project. This seems like a great in-fill site with a unit mix that can cater to a mix of students, graduate students and young professionals. Plus a little neighborhood retail! We’ve noted recently on this blog about the ridiculously high occupancy and rents of properties near campus, studios are now renting for north of $1,400 and have gone up nearly 12% in just the last 2 years. Hopefully this one sails through the process, seems like an excellent redevelopment project and the need is obviously there.
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With most of these units being 1 bedroom and studio, do you think that the target for this project isn’t 100% student focused? Even though young professional can get into some of these developments, all it takes is one look at their website and marketing materials to see that many of them are essential off-campus luxury dorms.
Do you think we’re looking at $1400 studios here like what we see over on Main St. or possibly something more affordable with this project? Either way, I believe it’s moving in the right direction. I am a big fan of these low-rise developments, especially those with retail space included. I live on the Old West Side, and the little businesses like Jefferson Market go a long way in making the neighborhood more livable.
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This really doesn’t seem focused on the student market, at least not the undergraduate one. This will be predominantly graduate students, young professionals and anyone else. I saw statistics for 618 S Main at some point a while back, less than 2% undergraduates, about 40% graduate, rest was regular folks. Only about 10% over 40 if I recall.
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Please build apartments for non students!! We are 50 and desperately want to live downtown in a flat or apartment. Everything is for students!! 30 or 50 up community? Please??!!!
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I really don’t believe this is targeted at students per se. Likely ends up being a pretty strong contingent of graduate students and staff but that’s probably because there’s like 50,000 of them in close proximity.
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What about affordable housing? What percentage of these units will be made available at below-market rates for low-income people? I’m against any development that doesn’t have a significant set-aside to allow low-income people to live in the city.
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I did not see any mention of affordable housing but that’s not to say there won’t be a component. The issue is the State of Michigan doesn’t allow for communities to require affordable housing as part of new developments so the city is forced to try and incentivize in other ways (often with straight $$$).
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