Map of Detroit's Financial District criticaldetroit.com |
Aerial view of the Financial District nps.gov |
Seal of Oakland County, Michigan en.wikipedia.org |
The development community of Wayne County, where Detroit is located, beat the drum for "New Urbanism" and the combined experiences of Wayne and Oakland Counties demonstrate how urban flight, which began following World War II continues to the present. Across the United States, urban centers continues to lose market shares to the suburbs. While there has been some success in mitigating the bleed, the reality is while more people are heading into the cities, even more are leaving. The irony here is that this migration is going as urban tourism is thriving and where there is an appreciation of our history. It is in the urban cores where American history flourished not in farmland-turned-residential development.
One factor is that real estate development is a risk adverse industry and suburban development is pretty straight forward. No guts, no glory. The framework is established and it's simple for a developer to build specifically for the market. The economic models and pro formas are clear, smoothing the way for financing. A well-run project has a good chance of meeting the market in a timely manner. For example, a developer planning a small Hilton Hotel or a Marriott near an airport can pretty much schedule an opening day once the first construction crew arrives and be comfortable with the fact that the building will be built according to the project requirements. No brainer construction. This is true of a product type, think Westfield Malls or Caruso Properties. Mass produced buildings. Soup cans on the supermarket shelf. While your truly and my fellow preservationists may shudder at staying at hotel near the airport, there is a profitable market for it and developers know it.
Let's contrast this with the experience of building in a downtown area, where developers face a far more complex review process that involve public hearings and protracted, eyeball rolling discussions on what constitutes the right shade of blue. As well as even more mind numbing discussions on how "maybe the programmatic elements should be changed to suit the building." Please. Even worse, is that woe begone developer who suddenly discovers that the one-story building on the site of his proposed high-rise project has been landmarked. Quel horror. A developer working in a downtown area can estimate an opening date and hope that the final design remotely resembles what was planned. Cross your fingers and hope for the best. That old saying "time is money" still rings true. As you can see, urban development is far more of an exhausting process than suburban development. There is the additional challenge of integrating new and existing construction so a more pragmatic approach is essential, factoring the uncertainty of the real estate market and the limited number of interested developers.
Street view of the Financial District en.wikipedia.org |
Bankruptcy and hard times aside, a new group of civic leaders are attempting to "breathe new life into old buildings and save the history of one of America's great cities." Industry leaders have started buying buildings in the city's core, investing in redevelopment, moving employees from suburban offices to the urban location. One example is Dan Gilbert, the founder of Quicken Loans. Mr. Gilbert is to own thirty buildings with about 7.5 million square feet of space filled with roughly 9,200 employees. Another example is Daniel Loepp, CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, who in 2012 moved 3,400 employees from Southfield Michigan bringing the total number of downtown office employees to 6,400.
The Argonaut Building en.wikipedia.org |
In the context of the ongoing suburban migration, the revival of the Motor City cannot be borne on the shoulders of individuals alone. Messrs. Gilbert and Loepp have the advantage of a work force able to relocate. The historic Financial District is mainly composed of speculative office buildings built with the hopes of being occupied by businesses of all size from the traditional down sectors: insurance, financial, legal, and other related professional services. The trouble is that those and their allied professions have shrunk and no longer require sprawling downtown office space. Further, Detroit, like most cities, still has to come up with an answer to the question, what is the new downtown job base?
Penobscot Building ilovedetroitmichigan.com |
Like hundreds of buildings in the financial district and around the country, many of the commercial high-rises were built between 190 and 1930. From a preservationist point of view, these older buildings are in danger until that $64,000 question gets answered. One possibility is adaptive reuse for housing. That's one possibility. However, as John Tess points out, what if there is no downtown job base to make downtown housing sustainable? The trick is creating an around the clock mix of housing, jobs, retail, commercial, and entertainment. Some of us in the preservation nation joke that poverty and economic inactivity are good agents for preservation, true to a point. Buildings deteriorate over time, in the case of Detroit, poverty as an agent of preservation has its limits.
In january 2013, former Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar toured the city and spoke with stakeholders about the challenges facing Detroit from a historic preservation point of view. This visit led to an announcement of several National Park Service (http://www.nps.gov) initiatives promoting historic tax credits (HTCs) in economically depressed areas. In particular two initiatives stand out: first, one emphasized and expanded on the 2006 "Recommendations for Making a Good Program Better" report from the NPS Advisory Board, suggesting improving the flexibility of the HTC program. Second, was partnering with the White House Council for Strong Cities, Strong Communities (SCSC). Announced in 2011, the SCSC seeks to strengthen municipal governments' abilities to develop and execute economic visions and strategies. Typically overlooked, the partnership with the SCSC is an important and positive step in the HTC program mindset.
The central core of downtown is a historic district. These buildings, which present a unique sense of place and purpose, offer the city a very potent weapon to mitigate suburban flight. The one greatest resource for reviving these buildings is the HTC, with a number of additional local, state, and federal incentives that can be paired with historic rehabilitation. Further, there are a wide array of local, state, and federal community development incentives that can support activities within these buildings. Truthfully, even a rehabilitated building does not create demand. Former Secretary Salazar's announcement recognized the fact that the HTC program, specifically and the preservation nation must be active partners in the larger scheme of saving the urban core as a way to turn the tide on suburban flight.
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