DETROIT-As reported in GlobeSt.com, developers have helped transform Downtown Detroit by renovating dozens of historic structures into apartment communities. But big changes are underway in this remarkably tight apartment market, as the city's core becomes a more attractive place to live.

“We are now seeing a strong demand for three-bedroom units,” Robert Kraemer of Kraemer Design Group, PLC, tells GlobeSt.com. Not so long ago, “a three-bedroom unit was very rare, and even non-existent in most buildings.”

His Detroit-based firm collaborated on the recent renovation of 1214 Griswold, a former senior living facility, into a 127-unit luxury complex now known as the Albert of Capitol Park, among other projects.

The new demand from potential tenants for three-bedroom units illustrates that downtown apartments are no longer just for the millennial generation. Many older renters with families, along with empty nesters, now see the CBD's vibrant office market, which in turn has brought in new restaurants and retail, and decide they want experience downtown living.

But even though the downtown occupancy rate is close to 100%, according to a market survey by Detroit-based Broder & Sachse Real Estate Services, Inc., developers may not have many opportunities to add to that inventory.

Kraemer says downtown developers are running out of buildings that they can convert into apartments. As a result, the CBD, or at least what people consider to be downtown, has been “stretched out.” Just as in Chicago, where portions of the West Loop and South Loop are now generally considered to be extensions of the CBD, Detroit's downtown now takes in neighborhoods like Corktown, Midtown and Lafayette Park.

But an even more profound change will happen on May 12, when the long-awaited QLINE begins operating along Woodward Ave. Developers have eyed properties up and down the line, and new retail will probably settle along it as well. “That's where the next big push will happen,” says Kraemer. “We're starting to dip into neighborhoods outside the CBD.”

And as development begins stretching into these new areas, he expects the profile of developers to begin changing. So far, most of the work has been done by Detroit firms like Kraemer Design and Broder & Sachse. But out-of-state builders have begun to sit up and take notice of all the changes.

“There is a lot more national interest,” he says. And the “beauty of Detroit” is that it has an infrastructure built for a far larger population than the city now contains, an infrastructure quite able to support rebuilding efforts. “The national developers are realizing its not a hard place to work.”

And these out-of-state developers have a wider variety of experience than the hometown firms, he adds. Many will come here to develop more middle-class housing, rather than the luxury housing that has dominated in the CBD. “I think it's a natural step.”

Instant Insights /

Downtown Detroit Becomes More Appealing

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