Old Town Saginaw loft-style apartment building on Hamilton opened in public ceremony

SAGINAW, MI It has been four years since Saginaw native and CBS Television executive David Strouse bought the 131-year-old building at314 S. Hamilton in Saginaw's Old Town district.

Monday, Strouse held the long-awaited ceremony dedicating the renovated TheHamilton Apartments building, which will house nine loft-style apartments.

During the ceremony, Strouse anthropomorphized the building, calling it the "hero" of the story and talking of how it sheltered businesses through the years.

"Sadly, during her second 50 years, our hero received very little in return for all she had given," he said. "If this is not a resurrection, it is certainly a resuscitation. Because our hero was at the end of her rope and had very little time left."

Strouse said preserving the historic valueof the building, constructed in 1881, was the main reason he took on the more than $700,000 in renovations necessary to ready the building for renters.

"I saved it to prove to myself and others that it could be saved, and because it was the right thing to do," he said. "This building and others like it are a part of our cultural heritage. They will never be replaced because they cannot be replaced. When they are gone, they are gone forever."

A crowd gathered along Hamilton Street for the ribbon-cutting Monday. They were then invited up to tour the nine apartments on the second and third floors of the building.

John Meyer, the construction architect overseeing the project, joined the ceremony via speakerphone from his vacation in Maui, Hawaii.

"The apartments in The Hamilton Apartments are most exciting and creative in design," Meyer said."Restoration of a historic building such as this preserves and strengthens our heritageand the historic district of Saginaw."

The group wound through the two floors of apartments, whichvaried in size and layout. All thoseopen for the tour featured highceilings, long windows looking out over the river and Saginaw River and preserved elements of the historicbuilding like wooden support beams.

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Old Town Saginaw loft-style apartment building on Hamilton opened in public ceremony