Entries by Tracy Willis

Detroit Apartment Building Opens With Help From Detroit Housing Fund

Detroit city officials, along with developers, celebrated the opening of The Charlotte, a renovated apartment building with 28 units. The apartment building is the first project backed by a $75 million private investment fund that was created two years ago to aid developers in building more affordable housing in Detroit. The redevelopment cost $3.19 million […]

Soured Chicago Land Deal Upsets Public

Justin Ishbia, the brother of the CEO of Pontiac-based United Wholesale Mortgage, has reneged on a land swap deal with a suburban Chicago park district. Ishbia and his wife bought the 261 Sheridan Road property in November 2020. The property  stands between Elder Lane park and Centennial park. They negotiated a land swap deal with […]

Lansing-Based Company Announces Grand Rapids Satellite

Lansing-based Clark Construction Company announced this week that it will open a Grand Rapids office in McKay Tower. The office will house the company’s West Michigan outpost. The company has done more than $500 million of work in the Grand Rapids area in the past ten years. The outpost is expected to open in the […]

Mercedes-Benz Financial Services Celebrates New Headquarters

Mercedes-Benz Financial Services USA (MBFS) has opened its new corporate campus in Farmington Hills. The headquarters are designed to support a new hybrid workforce model. The 3-story headquarters building is located on 35 acres at 35555 W. 12 Mile Road. The new workspaces encompasses 200,000 square feet. Olympia Development of Michigan, KIRCO MANIX and Gensler […]

Demolition of Historic Detroit Theater Makes Way for Parking Lot

The Bagley Development Group has begun demolishing the historic United Artists Theater building in downtown Detroit. They are converting the attached office tower into 148 apartments. The space created by the theater’s demolition will provide parking to residential tenants. Detroit-based construction manager L.S. Brinker has partnered with Lansing-based construction manager Christman Co. to redevelop the […]

Cookie-Cutter Duplexes Could be Making a Comeback

Remember pattern book or catalog homes? Returning to classic home patterns could increase the number of multi-family units across the state, potentially adding new housing and more density while new single-family construction slows down. The Michigan Municipal League is proposing pattern-book homes that take one back to the days of the catalog homes that were […]

Meridian Healthcare To Shrink Its Detroit Office Footprint

Meridian Health is subleasing multiple spaces in downtown Detroit, shrinking its office footprint. 266,000 square feet are up for grabs in One Campus Martius building, and almost 40,000 square feet are available in the One Kennedy Square building. Meridian Health is the state’s largest Medicaid health plan. Meridian’s parent company is reducing its leased space […]

Free Legal Services for Low-Income Tenants Delayed

A program to provide free lawyers to low-income Detroiters facing eviction is being delayed. The program was supposed to start October 1, according to the Detroit City Council ordinance that was enacted over the summer. Tenant advocates are voicing concerns over the delay, although legal services continue to be available through a statewide pandemic program. […]

Detroit’s Satellite Suburbs Boom With New Home Construction

Outer-ring suburbs are booming with new residential construction and newly paved roads despite the rising interest rates that are causing the resale home market to slow. According to census data, more than 3,000 new single-family homes were ok’d to be built from January to July of 2022. New construction in satellite suburbs of larger cities […]