Downtown Buildings Get Live/Work Rehab

Though it's faced hardships at getting residents Downtown for decades, Detroit has also seen more than 30% office vacancies and very little industrial activity. Retail activity is almost non-existent, and there are no national grocery chains Downtown.

However, some say residential is on its way back, with pockets of condos appearing. Some experts have estimated there will be 10,000 new housing units in the city by 2011. Novack's group is another company that has capitalized on low building costs to renovate old properties into new-use facilities. "Boydel has been aggressively buying and reconditioning buildings for the past five years," he tells GlobeSt.com.

For example, Boydel has leased out two floors in the five-story, formerly vacant Church Building. Guardian Guard Service has leased 2,000 sf of the first floor, while Mark International has leased out the third floor, and Boydel is courting the Membership Club for the second floor, Novack says. "We usually rent at $8 to $10 per sf, gross, no one can beat us on that," he says. "We're very small-business friendly."

He says the company is also renovating the six-story, 36,000-sf Blue Building, overlooking Capital Park at the corner of Grand River and Griswold, and another five-story building at the corner of Shelby and State. The firm also owns the Greektown Building, the Harmony Park Building and Russell Industrial Center Downtown.

"I think the growth Downtown has been slower than anybody anticipated," Novack says about Detroit. "But people are moving Downtown; there's the artist movement and people who want to give urban living a try. I think a lot of people are getting sick of the suburbs. Office users are looking at $16 to $20 per sf in Royal Oak, triple net, when they could live in a real city."