Adaptive reuse of an auto shop is spurring redevelopment in Detroit

An adaptive reuse of an automotive shop is spurring a larger redevelopment of a depressed Detroit neighborhood. The 1921 shop is being converted into 28 market-rate, for-sale residential lofts, according to J.C. Cataldo of Canfield Lofts LLC, the developer. The loft is the first project of a new urbanist redevelopment of the Weber Block, which also will include 80 rowhouses, 50 apartments and 13,000 square feet of retail. “In its heyday, the area in which this building is located supported a population in excess of 200,000,” Cataldo says. “Today that population hovers around 10,000. The sad thing is, all of the infrastructure — roads, sewers and utilities — that supported the larger population are still in place and vastly under used. Meanwhile, in the surrounding metro Detroit area, farms are being plowed under, and developers are battling municipalities in an effort to recreate that which we once had.”