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Welcome to The Bright Side, the show where we shed light on the people, places and stories
that make Michigan great. I'm Richard Hosey, and today we're filming at the David Whitney
building, Detroit's latest large-scale renovation project, which will open in the fall of 2014
as a 136 room loft hotel and 105 luxury apartments.
In today's episode we'll search Detroit and beyond for historic buildings being used in
creative new ways, and we'll find out what it takes to do historic preservation.
Our first stop is Old Town Lansing at the newly restored Comfort Station. We'll find
out what historic preservation is and some examples around the state that you may recognize.
Old Town's awesome. People really appreciate the historic nature of the neighborhood. You
don't see the same type of activity going on in a strip mall. If you walk around here
on a Saturday, it truly is a neighborhood. People stop and they greet each other and
they know each other.
Historic preservation is generally about saving and protecting historic resources. People
think it's just about buildings, but it could be bridges or statues or gates or fences.
And it's about saving neighborhoods and protecting neighborhoods that are comprised of historic
properties.
Probably the first building most school children even recognize is the state capitol. I don't
know if you're aware of it, but they actually wanted to tear the capitol down and build
a new one, oh, I think about 15 years ago.
There are many, many, many historic buildings on Belle Island, Detroit. There's the conservancy.
There's the aquarium, which has recently reopened.
The Christman Building: beautifully historic. They've maintained and kept the inner circular
staircase, which is glorious, and the tile work is beautiful. But if you go into the
offices, they are very, very modern, very useable. State of the art. Triple platinum
LEED certified. The first in the world. Yeah. So if anyone says you can't use a historic
building to bring it up to current infrastructure, no no no they're wrong.
Michigan Historic Preservation Network is thirty-three years old, and we educate and
we advocate for historic preservation all over the state. We do workshops, we do job
training. We don't often stand in front of bulldozers, but we've done that once.
This is my... probably my favorite building in Lansing. It's the Network's first -- very
first -- acquisition and the first rehab that we've done, and the building is... it was
originally a comfort station along the train line. It was built in 1913 for under $30,000
in three months in the winter. Can you imagine now building anything in the winter in three
months, much less for that amount of money, and it's stood here for 100 years. For 100
years really with not much change or maintenance.
People seem to think that it's about our past and our history. Well, that's only a small
part of it. It's truly about our future. It's a whole lot less expensive to rehab a building,
particularly with the available incentives, than it is to build new. And of course, they
last a whole lot longer.
It's about jobs. When you rehab a building, you normally use local labor instead of labor
from out of the area. You use and reuse local materials.
It's about people. It's not just about the buildings.
The next feature takes us to historic homes around Detroit restored by the Detroit Land
Bank Authority.
We are in the fabulous Boston-Edison Historic District in Detroit. This neighborhood is
comprised of over 900 units, 36 blocks. It's one of the largest historic districts in the
nation and it's still in tact. You know, it's still in tact. You'd have to look really hard
to find vacant lots in this neighborhood, and that is a gem in and of itself inside
little old Detroit.
The stories you always hear about are always... everything is demolished, everything is vacant,
there's nothing there, there's no "there" there. Well, here's our "there." So we wanted
to preserve it.
In this area we rehabbed 13 homes and you're looking at two of them that we did and spent
a significant investment in. That property was bought under a mortgage foreclosure, and
this one was bought under tax foreclosure. So that's how we acquired all the properties.
A lot of people are interested in how we came to acquire the assets that we did, and pretty
much that's it. It was either a mortgage foreclosure or a tax foreclosure.
This house in particular was actually fire damaged very badly, to the extent that the
whole first floor on this side of the house had collapsed into the basement.
Families have a choice -- many choices -- to go outside the city of Detroit to get larger
homes, more elaborate homes, etcetera, in the suburbs. So we don't want to lose those
folks, and actually we want to entice those folks that are in the suburbs to come back.
The great way to do that is to save these properties that... you can't rebuild them
anymore. You're talking about a million dollars plus to rebuild some of these properties.
When I walk through and I see things like the dental molding, fabulous crown molding
that's a foot long, you know, it just excites me because it's visually stunning. You can't
get it anywhere else.
We've actually sold all of our properties in this neighborhood. So we brought in 13
new homeowners to this area.
When we do this work we want to create sustainable affordable housing. So not just earth friendly,
but friendly on the operations side for the families. We supplied all the properties with
Energy Star qualified appliances. We have a couple units here where we installed a geothermal
system. We reclaimed hardwood floors. Where we could we kept the original wood windows.
If we had to replace windows we replaced with wood windows.
So we looked at every component that we could and tried to make the smartest decision about
the end user and whether or not that product was friendly to the earth. Because we think
it all goes together. If you're going to preserve it, you can't just try to preserve it for
today or this month. You've got to try and preserve it for the next 100 years so that
this 100 year old asset continues to live on and continues to grow new generations and
new families.
Next we go to Coldwater to se an example of a historic property before redevelopment.
One, it takes time. One it takes a lot of financing. And two, if you run into an economic
situation like 2008 and 2009, that doesn't assist you either.
With essentially three facades or half a block, just the sheer size of the building itself
lends its own challenges.
This is commonly known as the Kerr building. It includes a building built by the Kerr family
in the late 1800's and a building on the other end built by the Mills family about the same
time. The middle building right behind you is a building that connected those two buildings
and was built in about 1949.
So the third story of this building was a fraternal lodge of some sort, and this was
a ballroom.
The eastern third of the building and the western third of the building were freestanding
buildings and they then spanned the building with a roof -- the two buildings with a roof
because you can then see the outdoor advertising on the exterior walls.
We can't do the buildings according to any one period because there's so many periods
going on. But, we can take it back to a typical period and that's what we intend to do. That
means outside you'll se a lot of aluminum fascia. That will all come down. But we won't
try to restore the buildings, we'll try to rehab it. So we won't be faking cornices the
way we think they were or the way we got that information from pictures. It'll be left as
is.
Downtown has a lot of traditional historic buildings, both two and three story. So we
want to maintain the buildings that we have that are older in nature for historic preservation
purposes, but also for an urban feel, an urban context. Not turning it into a parking lot
or even turning it into a single story 21st century building that would necessarily take
away from the architecture of the Tibbits or the architecture of Taylor's Stationers
across the street or any of the buildings within this two block radius.
There's a community development aspect to that of trying to maintain the urban feel
and the historical character of downtown.
Downtown Coldwater is just a matter of a few blocks and this sits in what they call a premiere
corner because it's right next to the Tibbits, which is on Hancehtt street. Since the Tibbits
has been restored, it [the Kerr Building] becomes a very likely place for a restaurant
or a brewpub. The upper two floors will be residential. We'll have about 14 units.
We've had others that have looked at it and thought of it more in three phases or three
individual buildings. Could they acquire it for just one third of the building or chop
it off and just take one building and renovate that, and as time has proceeded, even I think
that has creeped into the city's thoughts too. But with Jennifer's assistance, I think
we're going to see the full redevelopment of the building.
If you are from Flint, you'll recognize The Durant. It was one of Michigan's premiere
luxury hotels and after it closed, remained vacant for many years. Today it is active
as a center for events and urban style living.
Right now we are at The Durant. It is a residential property. We have 93 lofts in the heart of
downtown Flint. It is pretty much the staple, the monument, when people drive downtown Flint,
this is what you see.
Billy Durant opened it up I believe in the 1920's and it was a renown place for presidents,
entertainers, the Jackson Five has stayed here. It was a beautiful hotel, and then it
closed in -- I believe in the 1920's -- and was vacant until we started renovation. We
had critters walking in the lower level of the building, windows blown out. The foyer
was in devastation.
I get a lot of people coming back that had their honeymoons here and they want to see
the ballroom and they want to just see how it is now. Because for most of their life
it... it was vacant. So after they had such a special moment in their life and then having
the building go vacant, it's very nice to actually come back in and see the presence
of it now. See people walking in and out of the building and the life that it has now.
Those pillars were actually marble. They're not marble right now, but they look very similar
to the original marble.
This is the gentleman that used to be an old bellhop when it was a hotel.
We opened occupancy for residential property in August of 2010. We have commercial tenants
down below as well, so you can see our little courtyard area.
So we're going to see a two bedroom loft apartment, 1,139 square feet. So this apartment they
actually took two hotel rooms. When it was... before they started doing the renovation the
walls were here, but everything... there were lamps on the ground, there were combs. I mean,
they left everything here. So they had to come in and revamp the whole property.
You can see all of downtown from this view. And you can see towards the hospitals and
then the college on the east view.
For years people were wondering what they were going to do with this property, but there
was no way they could've... nobody had the heart to take it down. It was... somebody
had to get their hands on it and bring life back to it.
I never would've thought growing up I would have the position that I do today. I love
it. It's full of life. I mean, we've been at 100% occupancy for most of the term and
it's -- there's no way we would've allowed for it to be torn down.
Next we'll visit the iconic Bell Building in Detroit. Once a commercial warehouse, the
building is now supportive housing and services for people who want to turn their lives around.
Probably still on the streets. I would probably still be on the streets. Struggling and trying
to figure out where I'm going to go, where I'm going to stay.
Currently in the building we have 155 one-bedroom units that are currently occupied by folks
who were formerly homeless. This is permanent housing. It's not transitional housing. This
is not a shelter.
I have my own apartment now. It's really nice. I finally get to cook my own food.
I've seen this building before, before it became what it is now. And they made a big
improvement, made a big step. And I was surprised.
The Bell Building is located at 882 Oakman Boulevard and it's just one of the most well
known buildings in the city of Detroit. So the building itself was built in 1929 so it
is a historic structure. The bones of the building were very good, but, you know, it
was not occupied, so there was a lot of wear and tear. A lot of dirt, garbage, broken windows,
things like that. So we had a big job in front of us.
One of the financing sources for this was historic tax credits. So we had to preserve
the lobby, we had to preserve obviously the look of the exterior. If you look at the building
,every window has been replaced and is similar to the windows that were initially in the
building. So a lot of time and effort and resources were spent making sure that the
building continued to look the way it did.
One of the most visible aspects of the building was the Yellow Pages sign that was on the
front of the building. Unfortunately that sign was structurally unsound and we had to
take it down.
When NSO embarked on this process, it was very important to us that we be part of a
community revitalization effort. We didn't just want to find a building someplace. We
wanted it to be a community. We wanted the tenants to be part of a community.
There's a very nice sense of community at the Bell Building. The residents have really
been working together. They just started a tenant council. We've included a tenant council
in some of our meetings so we can get their feedback because ultimately, they are the
eyes and ears for the building.
Yes, I am a part of the tenant council. The tenant council is basically based upon trying
to figure out what is best for the Bell Building as far as anything that we, the tenants, may
want or want to see come to the Bell Building. And as far as people that's on the tenant
council, we try to make that happen.
In the future I see myself as being a hard working man in this society. Something I never
did before. So it'll be truly a blessing just to have.
We think that what we're doing here is what the City of Detroit is trying to do. We're
basically... we've reinvented this building just as the city is trying to reinvent itself.
History is as much a part of large, iconic buildings as the homes we live in. Restoring
a historic home can be expensive and time consuming, but it does not have to be. In
the next video, Lansing Eastside restorationist Dave Muylle shows how to preserve a home and
keep it affordable.
We're at 134 Regent Street. It's on the Eastside of Lansing. It's just south of Michigan Avenue.
Classic east side neighborhood: small houses, blue collar neighborhood.
When we walked in five years ago, it was a typical old house with plaster ceilings that
were about seven feet tall and really poor condition and the floor was covered with various
levels or layers of different types of flooring. So true historic preservation is you save
the plaster, you save every piece of the original building and there's a place for that, but
not in these neighborhoods I don't think. It's more about preserving what's useable
and then making it more serviceable, give more utility to people who really want to
live in these neighborhoods. Because at the end of the day, it's about who wants to live
in the neighborhood, who wants to live in the building, and make it so they can take
care of it and maintain it.
There wasn't anything really left in here from the original house. There's a few pieces
of trim, which of course we took down and will restore and put back in place. Most of
the framing is new, but the shell is the original shell.
This would've had wood windows. Sadly they were taken out long ago and these were put
in. I've done plenty of projects where we've restored the wood sash. I mean, that's my
preference, but I'm not going to take these out, spend $700 and opening to put a wood
window in, or else, you know, again, budget would be busted and nobody would be able to
afford it.
This particular house is going to be part of a larger scheme which is called Cottage
Lane and what I want to do is build out. We're going to put seven cottages within this site
and this will be the community room for that project.
This is a little piece of a large puzzle which is probably way beyond the scope of what we're
doing here today, but those two houses are the ones that I've restored and those are
part of the project as well. See, now that's historic preservation. All the original detail
on the trim. Where I substituted, I used like materials.
I love historic preservation because it gives this fine detail. When you look close at a
house like that, you see the fine detail. For me, that feeds my soul, but it's very
expensive and time consuming and doesn't happen often. But in these neighborhoods, it's more
important to keep preservation in mind, to keep our history in mind, but to not be...
that shouldn't be the overriding thing. It should be making it so it's loveable enough
for somebody to move here, to live here, and to take care of whatever it is that's here.
There used to be three of these beautiful craftsman style duplexes over here. There
were three of them in a row. So that's this one, and these are two that got torn down.
That's what they could have been.
The reason for keeping as much of the old houses as possible is there's a term called
embedded energy. And what that means is, when this house was built, energy was used to take
the trees down. Energy was... well, the trees needed energy to grow. Then, humans came along
with their machinery and used fossil fuels to cut them down and rip the boards and create
the building. So there's that energy is still in all those pieces of material. So it's about
keeping the energy, the embedded energy, in the building.
But it's also more cosmic, and that is we can understand that those people were just
as smart, just as important and just as thoughtful as we are. And the people that come ten years
or twenty years or a hundred years from now are the same. We're just... we're not as big
a deal as we think we are. We all think this is the most important age of ever. But we're
all just on a line here, and so I think it's our responsibility first of all to keep that
in mind, and secondly to try to quit throwing stuff away. I mean, this is the ultimate in
recycling.
And so that, you know, there's a value there. There's a value to old houses that can't be
put in a check.
As we've seen in today's episode, historic preservation is about saving the structures
that define the character of where we live. It's about using what we already have to make
our communities better.
Thank you for joining me, Richard Hosey, on The Bright Side. If you would like to find
out more about anything on today's show or watch this episode again, visit brightsidetv.com.
I'll try not to get to 45 or 46 takes you know.
That would be a record!
This is 1930 or something like that. You read about people's lives, you know, you read about
some young adorable girl who's getting married.
Lansing Eastside restorationist Dave Muylle shows us how... oh, so close.
Sooo close!
...how to preserve!
Want me to try it again?
Okay. Take two... five...
Right, exactly.
Did you go to the spring fling?
Spring fling, of course.
What's that?
Oh, whoo! Spring fling is good, excellent, very nice! You can dance, you can eat, sing,
all that. It was just... I actually had a nice time.