Yeah I hear what you are saying – personally I am a little more upset by the massive public funding of stadiums for billionaire investors like Ilitch. That makes no sense to me at all.
I appreciate it when cities become invested in restoring old buildings, especially ones with historic value. The problem I have is that the city always ends up paying for the restoration in one way or another. Most often the city will offer the investor assistance in the form of tax waivers or interest free loans. The city will also carry costs for improvements to infrastructure in and around the building. Also, over the years, how many investors have started renovations only to gut the buildings for anything of value and then suddenly file for bankruptcy. In the end, the taxpayer will end up getting hosed in one way or another.
I have no idea what the plans for the Book Tower/Building are, but I agree it does seem like about a billion dollars in cleanup just for the exterior. And the interiors are pretty screwed up too, after countless waterfalls going down the elevator shafts to flood the basements. Curbed Detroit reports that the restoration will run at least 400 million and that Dan Gilbert is behind the project.
From the amount of rusted metal, missing windows and damaged stonework… cleaning the sculptures seems a waste of time and taxpayer’s money… unless they’re planning on selling them off before demoing the building.
Yeah I hear what you are saying – personally I am a little more upset by the massive public funding of stadiums for billionaire investors like Ilitch. That makes no sense to me at all.
I appreciate it when cities become invested in restoring old buildings, especially ones with historic value. The problem I have is that the city always ends up paying for the restoration in one way or another. Most often the city will offer the investor assistance in the form of tax waivers or interest free loans. The city will also carry costs for improvements to infrastructure in and around the building. Also, over the years, how many investors have started renovations only to gut the buildings for anything of value and then suddenly file for bankruptcy. In the end, the taxpayer will end up getting hosed in one way or another.
I have no idea what the plans for the Book Tower/Building are, but I agree it does seem like about a billion dollars in cleanup just for the exterior. And the interiors are pretty screwed up too, after countless waterfalls going down the elevator shafts to flood the basements. Curbed Detroit reports that the restoration will run at least 400 million and that Dan Gilbert is behind the project.
From the amount of rusted metal, missing windows and damaged stonework… cleaning the sculptures seems a waste of time and taxpayer’s money… unless they’re planning on selling them off before demoing the building.