Book Tower
Book Tower is a 38-story Italian Renaissance-style building designed by architect Louis Kamper for offices and retail use. The building was an anchor of Washington Boulevard when the Boulevard was considered Detroit’s most exclusive commercial real estate corridor. The original 13-story Book Building was constructed in 1917 with the 38-story Tower addition constructed in 1926, resulting in nearly 500,00 SF of commercial retail space. Bedrock’s recent adaptive reuse and restoration work converted Book Tower into apartments and hotel rooms, along with a mix of retail, restaurant and office on the first three floors. The historic three-story atrium at the ground floor, infilled in the years prior to the building’s vacancy, was reopened as The Rotunda, and showcases the fully restored stained-glass skylight, a new must-see destination in downtown Detroit.
KDG has worked with numerous developers over the course of twenty years as Master Planner, Designer, Historic Architect, and Code Consultant leading up to the current redevelopment of the Book Tower. Over that time, we evaluated the building for multiple different uses, providing historic consulting and code consulting services along the way on one of Detroit’s most marked adaptive re-use projects.
KDG provided Bedrock Detroit with our Master Planning study, previously developed in coordination with JC Beal, that studied the building primarily as a residential building with the restored three-story atrium redeveloped into commercial tenant space. The program evolved under Bedrock’s direction, becoming more diversified, resulting in hotel, food and beverage and broader commercial uses. KDG served as Historic Architect, ushering the project through all historic regulatory processes as well as providing historic design guidance to the project team. KDG served as the code and accessibility consultant for the Architect of Record on the project, ODA Architecture, helping to achieve all necessary permitting and city approvals. We are proud to have performed an integral role on this large project team which transformed this celebrated monument in downtown Detroit.
