The renovation of the Broderick Tower is nearing completion and the jobs created by the $33 million project in downtown Detroit are starting to add up.
Construction on the Broderick Tower began nearly two years ago and it’s set to welcome its first residents in September. The project necessitated about 350,000 work hours, which translates to about an average of 100 jobs per month for both skilled and unskilled workers for the length of the 20-month renovation, according to the developers behind the project. The building will have a permanent staff of 10 people maintaining the former office tower.
The Broderick Tower opened in 1927 as the Eaton Tower. The 34-story building, designed by Louis Kamper, became the Broderick Tower in 1944 and spent most of its life as office space for professionals, such as dentists. It went vacant in 1985 and became a signature haunt for urban spelunkers in the 1990s and 2000s.
The renovation will turn the Broderick Tower into a combination of restaurants and bars on the ground floor, office space on the first few lower floors and luxury apartments on the higher floors. It joins the redevelopment of the adjacent M@dison Building into office space for tech start-ups and the pending renovation of the nearby Whitney Building into a boutique hotel and apartments.
“It’s adding to what’s becoming an emerging district,” says Eric Novak, a spokesman for Motown Construction Partners, which is redeveloping the Broderick Tower. “This is just the beginning.”
So far 100 of the 124 units are reserved, including all of the penthouse units. The apartment residents will move into the building first. The office space and ground floor commercial space will open later this year.
Jon Zemke, ModelMedia.com
