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Old Posted Apr 27, 2018, 9:53 AM
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LMich LMich is offline
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Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Big Mitten
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I'm pretty sure the current facade is a totally new construction (i.e. not overhanging the old facade). It almost certainly wouldn't be as energy efficient, but I think the only way you "fix" the aesthetic problems of the current facade is to take it off and hang a glass curtain wall in its place. Turn it into a glass box and call it a day, really.

Detroit News business columnist Daniel Howes is seeing further signs of Ford's interest in Michigan Central Station:

Quote:

Daniel Mears

Evidence builds on Blue Oval’s Corktown vision

By Daniel Howes | The Detroit News

April 26, 2018

Ford Motor Co.’s potentially transformative vision for a corner of Corktown, Detroit’s oldest neighborhood, may be taking a step forward.

Even as the Dearborn automaker remains deep in talks to acquire the historic Michigan Central Depot from the Moroun family’s Central Transport International Inc., Ford is in “discussions” to buy an old brass factory at 2051 Rosa Parks, says a source familiar with the situation.

That’s adjacent to what Ford calls “The Factory,” the new Corktown headquarters at Michigan and Rosa Parks soon to house its autonomous and electric-car groups under what it calls Team Edison. Expanding Ford’s presence there developing next-generation autonomous and mobility technology would make an emphatic statement about Detroit’s revival — and the Blue Oval’s role in it.

The upshot: Ford is moving to assemble parcels that could become part of an urban business campus on the western edge of downtown. The automaker’s fully realized vision, pushed ardently by Executive Chairman Bill Ford Jr., would be anchored by a renovated train station, for way too long a symbol of Detroit’s urban and industrial decline.
Quote:
Mike Koenigbauer of Friedman Real Estate, the broker representing the seller, this week told The Detroit News the property at 2051 Rosa Parks, built in 1921, has been under contract for several months and that a potential closing of the sale appeared near. He did not offer a timeline. The building owner, Angel Gambino, was contacted several times this week but said she was unavailable to speak about the property.

A marketing brochure for the property — called “The Alchemy” — pegs the asking price at $2.5 million for two parcels. The larger, 2.75-acre site sits on the west side of Rosa Parks and features an 87,000-square-foot building that could be delivered vacant or redeveloped. The second parcel is a parking lot on the east side of the street totaling a little more than an acre.

And this week, the 28,000-square-foot Ponyride Building at 1401 Vermont in Corktown was listed for sale. Asking price: $3.5 million for the “immaculately maintained” two-story building with “unlimited potential ... in the ever popular and bustling Corktown neighborhood,” the listing says. City property records show the building’s current owner paid $100,000 for the building in 2011.
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Last edited by LMich; Apr 27, 2018 at 11:04 AM.
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