Here are a few of the stories we're reading this week.
New storage in New Center
A couple years ago, we covered the beautiful restoration of the Albert Kahn Building in New Center. A neighbor to the Fisher Building, the restored gem is home to 206 apartments. It also has space on the ground floor that developers wanted to lease for retail. Now, it's getting a new use - self-storage. The first and basement floors have about 25-30,000 square feet of space for 250 storage units. There is still about 15,000 square feet of retail space available on the first floor. Storage will pay the rent, of course...could this be the future for some of the empty office space in Detroit? Crain's Detroit Business Daily Detroit
Life Remodeled in Denby
Life Remodeled planned to buy the vacant Cooley High School to repurpose it into a community hub. The school board rejected the plan earlier this year, and now the group has plans for a different building. The group is acquiring the former Dominican High School in the Denby neighborhood; the site was most recently the Winans Academy of Performing Arts, owned by Pastor Marvin Winans. The community hub will have neighborhood resources, after school programs, and health services. It should be in full service by late 2025. Bridge Detroit
More on Vertical Farming
A few weeks ago, Bedrock announced their intention to build a vertical farming facility in Milwaukee Junction. The facility could grow 2.2 million pounds of produce per year, and create job opportunities for people with disabilities. Our friends at Daily Detroit chatted with the CEO of Vertical Harvest, Nona Yehia, about bringing this concept to Detroit. Vertical farming will never replace traditional farming, but could address many issues facing urban areas. Daily Detroit
