Latest upscale Detroit housing development features resort-like pool deck

Boasting an elaborate lounge and a resort-like swimming pool deck, Detroit's newest upscale and amenity-filled housing development is now officially open.

The Perennial Corktown, 1611 Michigan Ave., directly across from the former site of Tiger Stadium and not far from Ford's nearly finished Michigan Central Station rehab, is a newly constructed seven-story, 188-unit apartment building along with seven new three-story town homes.

The asking rents are at the high end of the market, starting at $1,650 per month for studio units, about $2,000 for one bedrooms and the mid-$3,000s for two bedrooms with two baths. However, 10% of the apartments are set aside at significantly below-market rates for those with qualifying incomes.

Rents for the townhomes start at $7,525 per month. Starting in 2031, the homes could be sold to individual homebuyers.

The development is a sister project for the nearby Godfrey Hotel Detroit, 1401 Michigan Ave., which opened last fall and was built by the same development team: Farmington Hills-based Hunter Pasteur Homes, Chicago-based Oxford Capital Group and Southfield-based The Forbes Co. The Perennial's apartment building broke ground in fall 2021.

During a ribbon-cutting ceremony Thursday afternoon in the building's lobby, Hunter Pasteur CEO Randy Wertheimer told a crowd of several dozen that the building contains "the nicest amenity space in the downtown Detroit market.”

That space includes an expansive fitness center with a yoga room, a coworking space wing, a game room and a well-appointed residents' lounge like that often found in boutique hotels.

What's more, there is a 10,000-square-foot outdoor pool deck that — when it's swimming pool season — will feature cabanas and fire pits.

“It will be like you live in a resort," Wertheimer said.

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan and City Council President Mary Sheffield attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony and praised the inclusion of "affordable" housing within such a high-end building.

Setting aside 10% of the units at below-market rents for those earning no more than 60% of area median income, or $39,780 per year for a single person, was one request that emerged from the project's Community Benefits ordinance process.

The Community Benefits process is mandatory in Detroit for large developments seeking significant incentives.

More: New and upscale Perennial Corktown apartments and townhomes opening soon in Detroit

"What is near and dear to my heart is mixed-income housing, because we know that when we have higher incomes mixed with lower incomes, it really creates stronger communities," Sheffield said. “So I commend you Randy and the team for making it happen. I know it is not always easy incorporating affordability into these projects, but you honored the voice and the desire of this community, and I think that should be commended.”

Duggan noted how the project is one of numerous big developments to happen in Corktown in recent years, including many new apartments and town homes that have opened — or soon will open — across Michigan Avenue at the former Tiger Stadium site.

“I look across the street and I think, 25 years ago, I was the chair of the Stadium Authority that built Comerica Park and Ford Field," Duggan said. "And I think about the gloom and doom predictions: 'Once Tiger Stadium leaves, this neighborhood, Corktown is dead. The property values are going to decline, people have no future' — as if a neighborhood was best served by having activities 80 days a year and 260 days a year having the entire area shut down.

“And if you look at where we are today, it is remarkable," he said.

Perennial Corktown was built over what was mostly surface parking lots and a former Bucharest Grill location. The development also includes a new parking deck.

The ground floor of the apartment building will soon house Haraz Coffee and a bodega-style convenience store, Corktown Market, that could open in roughly a month.

Wertheimer, the Hunter Pasteur CEO, said the building welcomed its first residents Dec. 15.

“Leasing has been going well," he said. "I think we’ve leased 30 units or so since we’ve opened, maybe half of them have already moved in. And, hopefully, we lease 15 units a month from here on out until we’re full.”

The development team last month began interior demolition work on a separate but nearby project, called Red Arrow Lofts, which will convert the former Downtown Self-Storage Co. building at 1551 Church St. into a 28-unit apartment building. The rehab is expected to be complete by January 2025.

The name honors the building's history as a former Red Arrow soda factory.

Contact JC Reindl: 313-222-6631 or jcreindl@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @jcreindl

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Latest upscale Detroit development features resort-like pool deck