DETROIT, MI - Detroit is adding more sports names to its list of developers that already includes the likes of Jerome Bettis and Dave Bing, with an $18 million project to convert two vacant historic Woodward Avenue retail buildings into a 70-unit loft rental project. The Elliott and Pepper Shoe buildings, at 1403 and 1413 Woodward, are targeted for renovation by a partnership that includes East Lansing-based Sixty North L.L.C., whose principals are former Michigan State University and National Basketball Association players Mike Peplowski and Matt Steigenga.
Working with Sixty North is Cleveland-based 5M Group, consultants on finance and tax asset issues such as historic tax credits. That group, whose partners include New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees, has advised numerous Detroit redevelopment projects including the Book Cadillac and the Fort Shelby hotels, partner Nancy Amstadt said.
On Thursday, the partnership received approval from the Downtown Development Authority to purchase the 8-story, 112-year-old Pepper Shoe Building for $1 million, slightly less than the DDA paid when it bought the building in 2005 as part of the Lower Woodward Strategy leading up to SuperBowl XL.
The partnership already has the Elliott Building, an S.S. Kresge Co. store when it opened in 1894, under contract, said Peplowski, formerly COO for Boji Group in Lansing. He told the DDA board that testing to determine structural integrity of the two buildings would get underway soon and said occupancy could occur no later than spring of 2010. Plans call for the apartments to range from 655-square-foot, one-bedroom units to 1,127-square-foot two-bedroom units, renting for $790 to $1,350 a month.
Peplowski said the units could be sold as condominiums after historic tax credits expire, usually in about five years. Financing for the project is slated to come from a HUD D-4 loan of $10.8 million, investor equity of $3 million and tax asset credits of about $4 million, the development plan says.
Source: Detroit News