Results for “gilbert leong”

Re # 11. Because Gilbert is using his money to better the city. He’s buying buildings from NY based pension plans/private equity (e.g. Lehman holdings etc) that have little interest in finding tenants/cleaning them up. He’s spending millions bringing the buidlings up to code, renovating them and making them habitable again. Everyone wins from that as it provides new jobs, tax revenue and money to be spent on lunch etc.

Tell me how much a row of Gingko trees or 5 blocks of elms is going to benefit anyone except Hantz. There won’t be thousands of workers on his farms, there won’t be spinoff businesses etc. It’s taking valuable real estate and giving it away because someone is promising to mow the lawn and 30-50 years will try subdividing the entire plots and sell to developers. If the city does give it away, they should put all kinds of restrictive clauses – for example, if he doesn’t do X,Y and Z the land reverts back tot he city and they should put in a clause that prevents future subdividing of the development without the city having a right of first refusal. If at all…

Multiple thumbs up for the old riverfront UniRoyal site! It was my first thought too when the pushback over the jail site appeared. It seems like an ideal project to accelerate the entire Jefferson corridor to a sustained active development mode.

For an alternative riverfront site, how about the 20 acres on the river just east of RenCen that GM and Dan Gilbert are collaborating on developing? The soccer stadium proposal would seem to fit well with their planned mixed use model for that site.

But if the soccer stadium "must" remain closer to downtown proper (Gilbertville?) and the city’s other sports venues, how about the area west of the old Brewster-Douglas site in Brush Park? Bounded roughly by I-75 Frontage Rd on the south, Beaubien St on the west, St Antoine St on the east and Wilkins St on the north, it’s a next best alternative to the jail site. I’m not sure of the acreage, but it looks (on Google maps) more than sufficient to accommodate a pro Soccer stadium, and there is plenty of vacant/abandoned property adjacent and nearby to assemble a suitable plot for hotel, retail, office, residential, public open space, etc development. The stadium would be a great complement to what is already going on in Brush Park.

The Michigan Central locale is intriguing too (any development there would be great), but it’s US National Historic Register status would no doubt preclude any radical modifications to the structure.

@Tickle_my_Pickle: "I’m working my first 3-4 years for gilbert banking a ton of cash with low cost of living."

(1) Cold calling and selling commoners mortgages that are a higher rate than they qualify for, so you can get the biggest commish is real prestigious work, man. (2) The cost of living isn’t that cheap. The rents on these converts are out of touch with reality and you have to pay $400-600 per month for car insurance. (3) Even if I buy your theory that Detroit is cheap and you can save cash, you’re ignoring the trade off. Say you really can save some nest egg over a few years…well, you had to tolerate Detroit and all its dysfunctions in the meantime. You had to find a wife or a husband in the shallow talent pool. You were cut off from better job opportunities and networking that your friends in Chicago, GR, NYC, DC, SF were getting. I could go on.

(continued) I do not know Sarah personally, nor do I ever care to meet her; however, I did enjoy the work she did with Curbed Detroit previous to this 2-3 month period of incessant social and political commentary thinly veiled as real estate news. Maybe Sarah would feel more comfortable sharing her views in the opinion section of the Free Press or Detroit News? Because that’s the only place people would care to hear them. In theory, a real estate blog should be relatively benign and non-polarizing, yet somehow Ms. Cox has managed to transform Curbed Detroit into an utterly subjective, personal journal/burn book against Dan Gilbert, young folks moving into the city, and anyone else she considers "the man." This blog previously did an excellent job uniting the community and appreciating the unique history and beauty of our city, I hope it will return to its roots in the future. My commentary is solely based on the internet presence Sarah has projected, and if she doesn’t care for the image portrayed she has all the power to change it.

TL;DR Ms. Cox needs to improve here writing and keep her non-architectural opinions to herself. Kthxbye.

So far, it looks like he purchased all of these properties with a serious action plan. In the recent past, all the other purchasers of downtown buildings have been speculators wanting to sit, or total clowns, with only few exceptions. At this point, as someone who cares deeply about the rehabilitation of old downtown buildings, the infill of empty lots downtown, and the general preservation and upgrade of a great American downtown, I am most comfortable with Gilbert.

This is not to say that the media should be his unfailing mouthpiece. Rather, I would like to see the media hold him to account, especially if promised developments slow down (e.g., what ever happened to the Hudson Block development?! Why isn’t steel going up already). But the objective bottom line from Gilbert’s involvement thus far as been incredibly positive for downtown (and now Corktown, where the Tech Center is going up stat) and the near term prognosis is good, as he is delivering on the promise of brining in tenants.

@bobNB:

I actually don’t think the vacancy rate is THAT high. Crains reported last April that the Fisher was 81% occupied and the Kahn was 51% occupied. Lease rates probably dropped below the level that was sustainable for the old owners given their level of debt. Whoever buys these buildings will likely get a very good deal and be able to put cash into the buildings themselves.

My bet is Palazuelo will end up with it. Maybe he’ll the see the Grand Blvd corridor from the Packard to New Center as his little fiefdom, similar to what Gilbert and Ilitch have?

Residential on the upper floors of the Fisher would sell out in seconds at very high rates, given the views and the current tight market. But I think you’d have to relocate some office tenants to do that. Might still be a good idea for the new owner.

@MI60: little caesars is part of a franchise system. illitch doesnt oversee every franchise and doesnt pay everyone that works at a little caesars. he pays the people at his headquarters and pays the people that work at comerica and the joe. you are looking at 10k in employment tops and i would guess it is closer to 5-7k.

i am not talking about dan gilbert in terms of quicken loans just as i am not talking about how mike illitch treats the employees or what he does with his pizza business. where these two men can be compared is in terms of redevelopment and real estate. would you like to try and compare the two men in that regard?

i have no problem with developers going after credits, but lets not act like they are really sticking their necks out there when 2/3s of the money is coming from taxpayers (this arena) or 100% from taxpayers like with comerica park. like i said before, you have an ideology that blames the government and gives passes to business people…. fine. but illitch bears some responsibility for the condition of the part of town he has bought up over the last 30 years.

Eh, I am not such an Ilitch hater. They may not operate as transparently as Gilbert’s organization and they may seek lots of taxpayer subsidies, but that doesn’t make them any different than many other developers looking to invest in urban areas.

When many others were abandoning Detroit, and well before Gilbert arrived on the scene, the Ilitch organization was one of the few investing in Detroit. That doesn’t give the a free pass or make them immune from fair criticism, but I think it does demonstrate a long sustained commitment to the city. I also think the Ilitch organization understands that a more vibrant, redeveloping city with new residents and retail benefits their brand and interests.

Given the complexity of the deal and the amount they are investing, I am not concerned or surprised by this news. The concept of the development makes the development of the non-arena pieces critical to its success. I think its fair to wait and see what transpires.

i’ve truly enjoyed round 6,929,284,330 of internet insanity, but i don’t think it’s bad to say something like this

‘I don’t mean to be hard on people moving into the city. I think it’s great. What I find troubling is a city where abandoned storefronts are turning into boutique shops with impractical items that even many upper-middle class residents can’t afford. I see it as a clear sign of a very unstable growth. My concern is that it’s unstable. And it’s being fueled by government subsidies, easy money/credit, and people like Gilbert who take this money and use it to personally benefit with little sincere regard for residents outside his entertainment districts. The city and county are both very shortsighted. It’s easy to look at big projects and flashy new stores and restaurants and conclude that this is the savior of the city. But is it healthy and sustainable? Is it good for the people who remained in the city through the hard times? Is it what we really want in a city? Or it is just a cool place to visit for a night out or a few days and then go home?’

that’s not someone ‘preferring a depressed’ place, it’s someone worry about whether said place is sustainable/for everyone. it’s important to hear those voices.

I mean… wow, ok then! I can’t engage in a conversation devoid of intellectual reasoning, but I do genuinely hope that jackadams and others who feel similarly consider weather developers (including Gilbert, in brush park, or Quazi with the MID, or dozens of other small developers such as Marvin Beatty, Darrell Burks, Freman Hendrix, Pamela Rodgers and Sam Thomas) would be taking on the personal financial risks associated with such endeavors if not for the city’s willingness to support a major anchor development like LCA in an area that was absolutely devoid of ANY serious new investment prior to the announcement of the LCA build.

Again, I’ll point out as i did to begin with, that I think the city erred by not requiring the illitches to build on or lose the surrounding lots, because it sucks that they can and do sit on such valuable land without doing anything with it. But I’m not going to pretend like the LCA, and WSU business school developments havn’t been a massive win for the lower cass corridor and brush park, for downtown and midtown residents in general, and even for the metro Detroit region as a whole nevertheless.