Owners spend $20M+ to take David Whitney Building in Detroit to next level

JC Reindl, Detroit Free Press

A historic building in downtown Detroit that a decade ago helped to launch a boom for new upmarket boutique hotels in the city has undergone a significant renovation and room expansion, as well as a quality upgrade.

The elegant 19-story David Whitney Building, 1 Park Ave. near Grand Circus Park, dates to 1915 and had been empty for nearly 15 years before it underwent an extensive rehab and reopened in 2014 as a mixed-used residential tower with a Marriott Aloft hotel.

Now the building's owner, Detroit-based The Roxbury Group, has poured an additional $20 million-plus of renovations into the landmark building to take the property to the next level.

The hotel officially rebranded this month as the Hotel David Whitney, becoming one of Marriott's Autograph Collection hotels, which is considered a step up.

A look at the lobby area with lots of marble and seating at the Hotel David Whitney, Autograph Collection on Wednesday, March 27, 2024. This area is one of many new changes to The David Whitney Building at Grand Circus Park that used to be an Aloft Detroit, a Marriott property.
A look at the lobby area with lots of marble and seating at the Hotel David Whitney, Autograph Collection on Wednesday, March 27, 2024. This area is one of many new changes to The David Whitney Building at Grand Circus Park that used to be an Aloft Detroit, a Marriott property.

The project involved more than just a cosmetic freshening up, but rather full renovations to all rooms and amenity areas, including the building's stunning four-story atrium and mahogany-paneled bar and check-in lobby.

“Other than the terra cotta and the marble floors, we’ve touched every surface in this renovation," Stacy Fox, a Roxbury Group cofounder and principal, said. “So all the common areas, all the guest rooms, the fitness area — it’s all been refreshed or upgraded.”

The total room count has grown to 160 rooms from 136 with the conversion of two dozen former apartments into full-size hotel suites. And a restaurant has opened, Presley's Kitchen, which features a 1920s and ‘30s art deco vibe and is open seven days a week.

There also is a new small market and coffee shop, Capper & Capper Market, whose name pays homage to a bygone men's clothing store, Capper & Capper, that was an occupant in the building from when it opened in 1915 until fall 1982, according to Free Press archives. (A Capper & Capper location at Somerset Collection mall in Troy survived until the late 1980s.)

The number of apartments in the building is now 80.

The bar area behind the registration desk on Wednesday, March 27, 2024. This area is one of many new changes to The David Whitney Building. The building at Grand Circus Park used to have Aloft Detroit, a Marriott property, was recently remodeled to become the Hotel David Whitney, Autograph Collection.
The bar area behind the registration desk on Wednesday, March 27, 2024. This area is one of many new changes to The David Whitney Building. The building at Grand Circus Park used to have Aloft Detroit, a Marriott property, was recently remodeled to become the Hotel David Whitney, Autograph Collection.

In an interview Wednesday, Roxbury Group cofounders Fox and David Di Rita recalled how they faced a choice of doing either modest improvements to maintain the Aloft brand, or making a more substantial investment to elevate the building to the Autograph Collection level.

They decided to go big.

“We’re looking at this as an opportunity to finish what we started a decade ago," Di Rita said. “While the Aloft was a wonderful conversion and an enormously successful project, we felt like we owed it to the city and to this building to give it its final conversion, if you will.

From left, David Di Rita and Stacy Fox, cofounders and principals of The Roxbury Group, inside the large lobby area of the Hotel David Whitney, Autograph Collection on Wednesday, March 27, 2024. This area is one of many new changes to The David Whitney Building at Grand Circus Park that used to be an Aloft Detroit, a Marriott property.
From left, David Di Rita and Stacy Fox, cofounders and principals of The Roxbury Group, inside the large lobby area of the Hotel David Whitney, Autograph Collection on Wednesday, March 27, 2024. This area is one of many new changes to The David Whitney Building at Grand Circus Park that used to be an Aloft Detroit, a Marriott property.

"We no longer view this as an adaptive reuse; we view this as finally achieving the building’s full potential,” he added.

More: New Detroit bar, restaurant Presley's Kitchen sets opening date in David Whitney Building

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The David Whitney Building was designed by Chicago architecture firm Daniel H. Burnham & Associates and commissioned by David C. Whitney as an honor to his late father, David Whitney Jr., who was a Detroit lumber, real estate and shipping magnate who lived from 1830 to 1900.

Early on, the building featured retail stores around the atrium and numerous doctors' and dentists' offices in the floors above. The building ultimately closed in 2000 and saw several renovation attempts go nowhere.

The Roxbury Group successfully reopened the building in 2014 as the Aloft hotel and upscale apartments. Shortly thereafter, downtown Detroit saw a series of similar upmarket hotels opening, including the Foundation, Siren, Element and Shinola hotels.

Then another round of boutique hotels arrived after the COVID-19 pandemic, including the Cambria, ROOST and Godfrey hotels, and several more are now under construction — an AC Hotel in Midtown, an anticipated Edition Hotel in the Hudson's site skyscraper, and plans next year for either a new hotel next to Little Caesars Arena or conversion of the Fox Theatre office building into a hotel.

(There are also plans to build a large 600-room hotel on the downtown riverfront that would attach to the Huntington Place convention center.)

Di Rita said he considers all those new hotels on the horizon less as competition for Hotel David Whitney, and more a sign of the overall strength of demand for upscale hotel rooms in Detroit.

A remodeled suite at the Hotel David Whitney, Autograph Collection on Wednesday, March 27, 2024. This area is one of many new changes to The David Whitney Building at Grand Circus Park that used to be an Aloft Detroit, a Marriott property.
A remodeled suite at the Hotel David Whitney, Autograph Collection on Wednesday, March 27, 2024. This area is one of many new changes to The David Whitney Building at Grand Circus Park that used to be an Aloft Detroit, a Marriott property.

While the building's initial Aloft hotel was an early arrival, he pointed to the 2008 reopening of the 453-room Westin Book Cadillac as perhaps the starting point for the downtown hotel revival that is continuing.

"What happened is you started getting the high-end traveler choosing downtown," he said. "In the old days, particularly the business traveler, they would maybe have business downtown, but they would stay in Dearborn or Southfield or Birmingham. So what we’ve been able to do as an industry in Detroit, by bringing more high-end options downtown, is drive business to downtown that used to stay outside of the city.

Contact JC Reindl: 313-378-5460 or jcreindl@freepress.com. Follow him on X @jcreindl.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Owners spend $20M+ to take historic Detroit building to next level

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