The Dig: We bet you’re not reading this at the office – Outlier Media

Buildings have their own life cycles, and were bringing you two stories of Detroit buildings in transition. We have a personal story of a very ordinary looking building on the far eastside that is past its heyday. Still, it managed to launch the American Dream of one extended family for three generations. Then theres the story of the retro office tower, a structure watching its day in the sun fade away, even as some of us (Im talking about you, Detroit) cling to it.

A few stories in the news are worth mentioning before we get into it. Detroit City Council voted yesterday to move the Future of Health development forward. Council voted 6-3 to approve both a slightly enhanced community benefits agreement and the Transformational Brownfield Plan and subsidies.

A new report finds that title issues could mean more than 5,500 Detroit properties handed down through families dont have a clear legal owner. Thats a problem, and consider this your reminder to look into title insurance if you didnt buy your home with a mortgage that required it. Also: Write a will.

Lastly, if you havent seen it yet, Kate Abbey-Lambertz on our team recommends this essay on why the design of buildings can, and should, matter.

As always, thanks for reading.

Not really a new problem: The oversupply of office buildings is talked about as a post-pandemic problem, but Wall Street Journal reporter Konrad Putzier helps us see how the glut goes back several decades. The 2022 piece is still timely and worth a read. Putzier anchors the start of the problem in 1981 when a tax change ushered in by Ronald Reagan gave companies a big write-off for office space. Loans for offices became cheap and helped usher in the savings and loan crisis. The dot-com boom in the 1990s helped boost the office market again, but its bust did the opposite. Even so, office development continued to be subsidized, loans stayed cheap, and developers kept going for it. Yet in the last couple decades, developers completed fewer conversions of older office buildings for uses like apartments or warehouses, and supply has just kept going up. (Wall Street Journal)

Pivoting is hard: Planning to build new office towers might seem like a bad idea off the bat in an era of hybrid work, but changing direction on construction projects is difficult once theyve begun. Almost every change in a construction project costs money. The bigger the development, the more complicated its financing, and the more stakeholders that need to be brought along. This is one reason pivoting away from office space doesnt happen more often. Dan Gilbert hasnt changed the vision for his project on the Hudsons site, which will include a lot of office space. He did scale back offices in the Monroe Blocks mixed-use development downtown, but most recent plans still call for 400,000 square feet of office space. Now called the Development at Cadillac Square, the site has been put to use for entertainment and rollerskating amid long construction delays. A developer in New York City is following suit, considering tennis courts instead of a skyscraper. (American Bar Association, BridgeDetroit, Detroit Free Press, Fortune)

To convert or destroy: Developer Mike Shehadi is demolishing an old Ford Motor Co. office building not far from the Southfield Freeway rather than incorporate it into a mixed-use development planned for the Dearborn site. The reason? Expense. The University of Detroit Mercy decided to demolish the Fisher Administration Center last year for the same reason. In Midtown, a historic office building from the 60s is being turned into a hotel. The Plaza (also known as the Hammer and Nail building) was used as apartments for several years and was vacant for several years before that. Its not an old office building, but the conversion of an old Wyndham Garden Hotel in Sterling Heights into affordable apartments feels like something to celebrate. Developers eyeing dusty office buildings are focused on their wallets, but policy also plays a role: Lawmakers around the country, as well as the federal government, have started programs to make it easier to convert offices into housing. (Freep, Outlier, Detroit News, Crains Detroit Business, Marketplace, Associated Press)

A trip back in time to the Vogue Market

It started with a yellowing newspaper clipping shared on social media of three men standing behind the counter of a newly opened grocery store in 1946.

The grocery was called Vogue Super Market and was built by the Misuraca family. Its now a liquor store, but its history and present help us embrace even Detroits most nondescript buildings as full of memories and meaning.

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The Dig: We bet you're not reading this at the office - Outlier Media