Plan to level historic Detroit building for parking causes a stir

The old Detroit Saturday Night building —  550 W. Fort St. — has become the latest flashpoint in a battle over the future character of downtown Detroit. 

As owner Emmett Moten Jr. initiates plans to demolish the building and create a parking structure in order to pay back a loan from the Detroit pension fund, historic preservationists are pushing back, hoping for an eleventh-hour intervention by the city. 

The debate, which so far has taken places via emails, letters to City Council and online petitions, will move to the real world Wednesday when the Historic District Commission discusses the possible demo.

Because the building is adjacent to the historically designated Fort Shelby hotel — which Moten also owns — the commission must give its opinion on any proposed alterations. 

What happens after the commission gives its assessment, however, remains unclear.

In August, following news that a demolition company contracted by Moten had attempted to pull a demo permit — it was denied and flagged because of the proximity to the Fort Shelby — activists sent a letter to City Clerk Janice Winfrey and the City Council requesting a historic review of the building and a temporary historic designation to stop a possible demolition.

The council, which is on recess until Jan. 7, never took up the request and so the building remains unprotected. Once Moten fulfills the requirement of presenting his plan before the HDC, a demo can likely be pulled.  

"The commission's recommendation is strictly advisory and speaks only to the demolition's potential to affect the adjacent designated local historic district (the Fort Shelby hotel)," Tim Carroll, a spokesperson for the City of Detroit wrote in a statement Wednesday, adding that he was still waiting to hear back from the Buildings, Safety Engineering and Environmental Department on what the demolition timeline can look like. 

The uncertainty of what will happen after Wednesday's meeting — and also to the building — has both historic preservationists and Moten frustrated. 

Preservationists contend the building, which was completed in 1914 to house local paper Detroit Saturday Night, is an important piece of publishing history. They also argue that Detroit does not need more parking lots. 

Moten, who purchased the building in 2007 — the same time he purchased and rehabbed the neighboring Fort Shelby with a loan from the Detroit Pension Fund —  maintains that parking has always been his plan for the Fort Shelby development. He just wasn't able to make this happen earlier because of the recession.

"This is punishment," said Moten of the current efforts to block his demolition plans. "This is using historic preservation to punish people." 

Moten, who has a long history working on development in both the public and private arena, moved to Detroit in 1978. He served as former Detroit Mayor Coleman Young's development czar from 1979 to 1988, and was vice president of Development for the Ilitch family's Little Caesar Enterprises from 1988 to 1996.  

In April 2007, Moten took on the Fort Shelby project with the purchase of three neighboring properties: the hotel (525 W. Lafayette), which has been a "historic district" since 2004; the old Detroit Saturday Night building (550 W. Fort) and a surface parking lot (500 W. Fort). 

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The three properties were purchased with a loan from the Detroit Pension Fund — a $17-million construction and permanent mortgage loan to Fort Shelby LLC (the hotel borrower) and a $14.65 million construction and permanent mortgage loan to Fort Shelby Residential LLC (the residential borrower). 

In recent years, the need for parking has become more urgent as there has been more a struggle to pay back the pension fund, he said. 

In 2016, with approval from the board of trustees of the pension board, Moten and his partners began to sell some of the units within the Fort Shelby as condos to recoup funds. But, according to Moten, selling the condos has become more difficult without corresponding parking. He says the lot behind the hotel has about 40 spots and they're already taken. 

"It's not like we're putting the lot in there for hockey and football fans," said Moten, who says city officials tried to create a compromise with him, offering a parking lot option two blocks away. But he believes this would be unreasonable for condo purchasers and would bring down the value of the units.

"This takes care of the customers," he said of new parking. "I was supposed to be doing this a while back. We need parking for our customers. The value of the property would go down (with parking two blocks away), and the lender, the General Retirement Pension Fund, doesn't get its needed payoff. They've been fair, so I want to be fair to them." 

The pushback from preservationists, Moten says, is unreasonable, specifically since he has done so much work to maintain and rehab the Fort Shelby hotel. 

"I don't go around knocking down buildings; we save buildings. Don't we get credit?" he said, adding that if historic preservationists want the Detroit Saturday Night building, they could buy it from him.

"We just didn't have the resources for a parking lot before," he said. "But now, I have to do something because I can't sell condos because I can't supply parking for condo owners." 

Francis Grunow, a concerned citizen who penned the August letter to the Detroit City Council asking for a temporary historic designation to stave off a demo as the building's historical value is reviewed, said he was unaware that the parking lot had always been a part of the project's vision. 

"I don't know how many people were aware of the plan to demolish this site of Detroit journalistic history," said Grunow. "The timing of the request to occur during council's recess certainly raises eyebrows." 

When asked for evidence to prove that the parking lot had always been a part of the vision, Moten said he had none, but suggested the pension board did.

"It was the General Retirement System of City of Detroit's understanding that the building at 550 would become parking," Rachel Partain, spokesperson for the fund, said in a statement. She added that the board did not have the original 2007 pitch at this time. 

According to Partain, the current principal balance on the Fort Shelby Residential LLC loan, on Sept. 30, was $5,875,548. The interest rate was 6.5 percent. 

"The lender is current on its terms," she said. "As each condo is sold, the borrower is making a significant payment toward the principal."

In his letter to the council, Grunow,wrote  about the historic value of the Detroit Saturday Night building: "The proposal puts in jeopardy this structure, which is the last on the block facing Fort Street, thereby further eroding Downtown Detroit's core with unattractive surface parking."

He said the debate over the demolition, planned or not, highlights a bigger issue around the city's planning and management of parking lots downtown. 

"The sentiment that we must demolish another building for parking is problematic. There are more parking spaces downtown today than at any other point in the history of the city," said Grunow.

"It only underscores," he continued, "the need for us to adopt some clearheaded policies around managing parking downtown." 

Allie Gross focuses on development, housing affordability, and income inequality. Contact Allie Gross at AEGross@freepress.com. Connect with her on Twitter @Allie_Elisabeth.