The first residential piece of the District Detroit is set to open later this year. The Eddystone, a former hotel right next to Little Caesars Arena, is now leasing for a late fall move-in date.
The historic building now has 92 apartments, with 20 percent set as affordable. Two-bedroom apartments are on the 12th and 13th floors, while the rest have one-bedrooms and studios. Rents range from $1,086 to $2,560. The residents will have a staffed private lobby, an exercise room, and a dog wash station.
Construction continues inside the building. The lobby design is meant to celebrate the era in which it was built, and move it forward another 100 years. Large arched windows frame the first floor. Traditional mahogany will be used in doors and trim. As a hotel in the 1920s, it had a trunk room behind the elevators where guests could store their luggage; leather, brass, and metal will be used in the decor in homage to that time.
Kraemer Design Group led the architecture, interior design, historic consulting, furniture specification, and procurement for the project.
Leo Mendez, Vice President of Design for Olympia, says the residential floors will have alternating light and dark color palates. The corridors have been restored with trim and crown molding. Eric Toumey, Director of Development, noted that residents will have smart home tech and secure entry with an app.
Mendez said the building had been scrapped over the years and very little had been leftover. The design team traveled to Nashville, Austin, Minneapolis, and Chicago to explore what was best in class now, while keeping the historical integrity of the time.
Olympia Development announced this week that Four Man Ladder, the team that opened Grey Ghost and Second Best, will open a 5,000-square-foot restaurant on the first level, with 82 seats between the dining room, lounge, and bar. They expect to open the restaurant in spring of 2022, and announce the concept later this year.
Many residential plans have been announced for the District Detroit, but this is the first to come to fruition. Additional developments in the works include the Women's City Club behind the Fox Theatre, a residential development at the United Artists Building, and the renovation of seven buildings at Henry Street into affordable housing. The United Artists Building will have 148 residential units, with 20 percent offered at 80 percent Area Median Income. Toumey tells us that they anticipate construction activity to start later this year or early next year on this project. The Henry Street buildings will have 170 residential units, with about half offered as affordable. They expect construction to start in mid-late 2022.
The Louis Kamper-designed Hotel Eddystone sat next to the Park Avenue Hotel; both opened in the mid 1920s. The Eddystone remained open in some form until the late 1990s. In the mid-2000s, there were plans for the Eddystone and Park Avenue to be redeveloped into luxury condos; that plan never came to fruition. The Ilitches acquired the buildings as the new arena was announced with the intent to restore both. In the end, the Park Avenue Hotel was demolished for a loading dock.
