By: Ian Thibodeau

DETROIT ‐ As developers scramble to jam‐pack a vibrant downtown Detroit, some plans for new apartments are newer to the city than others.

The Roxbury Group announced Monday plans to start construction on The Griswold, a $24‐ million project that will be built on top of a 10‐story parking garage on the corner of Griswold Street and Michigan Avenue, steps away from Campus Martius Park.

This project comes from the same company that redeveloped the historic David Whitney Building in Grand Circus Park just last year.

The five‐story addition will add 80 market‐rate apartments to downtown. Construction is expected to be finished by the end of 2016.

According to a release, the residential units will have “unobstructed views of downtown Detroit.”

There will be one‐, two‐, and three‐bedroom units ranging from 750‐ to 1,600‐square‐feet. Several units will have balconies and floor‐to‐ceiling windows.

At “market‐rate” pricing, that will put rent in the biggest units well past $2,000 a month, though it’s hard to say, as “market‐rate prices” sometimes carries a note of ambiguity.

Just last week, the price of a two‐bedroom, one‐bathroom loft on Broadway Street downtown went up 35 percent in a year, from $1,850 per month to $2,500 a month.

That’s not a Roxbury project, though.

According to a release, Detroit‐based Kraemer Design Group will head the architectural work on The Griswold. Kraemer is at the helm of numerous projects between Cass Corridor and Jefferson Avenue.

“The construction of these new high‐rise apartments will help meet the growing demand for residential units downtown,” said Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan in a release. “The fact that we are starting to see new residential construction, to complement the many residential building restorations already taking place, is a clear sign of an increasingly strong housing market in Detroit.”

This will be the first construction project in the city’s central business district since 1992.
“It is gratifying to be able to revive the Griswold nearly a decade after our initial plans for this location were put on hold” said Roxbury Principal David Di Rita in a release. “We see the renewed project as a natural evolution of our original vision for the site which also builds on the current momentum in Capitol Park.”

According to a release, this and several other projects were planned and subsequently scrapped in 2007 after the real estate market fell.

Read this story on MLive.