Giant Medical Arts Building Will Replace Midtown High-Rise

Say goodbye to Professional Plaza, and hello to another uninspired mid-rise for Midtown. According to the Free Press, John Ferchill (developer behind the Book-Cadillac Hotel) plans to demolish the aging Professional Plaza tower, replacing it with this 5-story medical building, a smaller retail building, and a 600-space parking garage. The final cost will be something like $60M.

We're still waiting on more renderings and info from architects Neumann/Smith, so let's keep things simple. Here's what we think we know.
→ Unlike every other recent development on Woodward, this one isn't hiding its parking garage. From what it looks like, the parking garage/retail would be on the property's north side, completely visible to those driving towards downtown.
→ Ferchill claimed that he wanted to redevelop the current tower as dorms for WSU, but the "economics didn't work." Why not just do regular apartments? Those economics seem to work for every other development in Midtown.
→ Let's call it what it is: This is basically an expansion of DMC.
→ A tipster told us that Professional Plaza's curtain wall was in such bad shape, the cost of repairing it was prohibitive. Has anyone else heard something similar?
→ Construction is expected to start in the spring.

· Midtown Detroit's neon hammer & nail building coming down for new projects [Freep]
· Professional Plaza High-Rise Targeted for Demo [Curbed]