It’s such an iconic portion of Detroits skyline, but there’s been a lot of uncertainty about it’s future.
What are your thoughts and or history with the Renaissance Center? What should they do?
It would really be something if they converted 2 towers to housing. Even with the enormous price tag, the economic impact might be worth it. That would be a LOT of housing downtown with pretty excellent views etc .
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As kids we used to take the tunnel bus over from Windsor to hang around downtown Detroit. And we used to ride the elevators at the RenCen, they made this great whoosh and were fun to goof around in. The business people who were also in the elevators tolerated us, mostly.
It would be great if ALL the extra space could be turned into apartments. Imagine if people could actually work downtown as well? So, why aren’t they focused instead on luring tech companies and others to set up operations in downtown? Give them the tax breaks and let GM pay for and profit from the renos of the apartments. I don’t know how many units it would produce, but $800m isn’t that crazy if they are also able to get a few big companies to move some of their operations to downtown Detroit.
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I worked in the building from 2001-2005 until I moved to KC. I was in the 100 tower. I used to really like hitting the food court at lunch and trying all of the different resturaunts.
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My Daughter had a pre-wedding dinner and party in their room, at the Ren-Cen in 2018. It was on the 15th(?) floor.
I have balance issues. I had to get out of there early. The tower was literally swaying.
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Sure guys with construction backgrounds will know better than I am but from what I’ve read in a lot of places it’s massively expensive to renovate them because they weren’t built for residential so there’s just a ton of extra HVAC and Plumbing that you have to put in vertically and horizontally. I’m sure the codes are different just a lot of change and expense and after you spend the money to acquire the property you have to really look at how in the hell you’re going to end up making any money after that giant up front lot of cash going out the door. Especially when you may be less people are saying one of the first ones through the doors far as trying to establish a larger population based downtown and have to sell a lower amount of amenities transportation nightlife etc etc instead of into a more mature scene like converting New York City or San Francisco office hours
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If they tear down the ren cen, one of the biggest mysteries could be solved. It has been rumored that Hoffa was buried under the ren cen
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That was a good Columbo episode. The one where the murderer was going to put the body in the building foundation.
Just 1 more thing…
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