A story in the Detroit News today puts a feather in the Broderick Tower's cap: the place has reservations for 90% 90 of the apartments and the building won't even be ready for move-in till September! As young workers and students (i.e. primarily childless "urban pioneers") move downtown, the rental market can't keep up with demand. In Midtown the newly renovated Newbury Hall Building, which came on the market to renters in January, is full now. Some of the credit goes to the incentive programs that offer rent subsidies for workers moving into the city (hoods include Downtown, Corktown, Eastern Market, Lafayette Park, Midtown and Woodbridge). To date, 445 people have participated but it is unclear how many from that figure were buyers versus renters.
While all this is great news, don't expect a building boom yet.
Normally, high demand for apartments would lead to new construction. But new rental construction has remained absent from the city because of tougher lending standards following the 2007 financial meltdown and recession.
Quite frankly that hasn't seemed like the worst thing, as Detroit's new construction tends to be far less attractive than renovations of classy old structures. (The exteriors make that case while interiors find a way to be bland either way.) But with a tax grant that supported the rehabilitation of historic and older buildings now expired, some developers might be getting more ideas about new construction. Here's hoping the Book Tower can find a friendly developer before it gets all bland new developments down there. · Newberry Hall Shows Off Finished Apartments, Hosts Party [Curbed Detroit]
·Downtown is Officially A Theme Park For Bad Rebranding [Curbed Detroit]
· Rental unit demand grows near downtown [The Detroit News]
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