DETROIT — Rock Ventures, an umbrella entity whose family of companies includes Quicken Loans and Title Source, has acquired five properties in downtown Detroit with plans to renovate them into mixed-use facilities.
This acquisition wraps up a year in which Rock Ventures has purchased eight properties totaling 630,000 square feet of commercial space. Last month, Rock Ventures broke ground on a 33,000-square-foot specialty retail development complete with a 10-story parking garage.
Since August 2010, Rock Ventures has brought more than 7,000 employees to downtown Detroit. Rock Ventures has helped locate 45 companies in the city, including Twitter, Chrysler, Metro-West Appraisal and several tech start-ups. Rock Ventures was formed to facilitate the operation of Dan Gilbert’s portfolio of companies, investments and real estate.
“It has been an exciting year of opportunity in Detroit,” says Gilbert. “Our focus in 2013 will be on the three Rs — residential, rail and retail, all of which are vital in creating the vibrant, thriving urban core we all envision.”
Rock Ventures’ five-property acquisition includes 1201 Woodward (the Kresge Building), 1217 Woodward, 1412 Woodward, 1301 Broadway (Cary Building Lofts) and 1521 Broadway (Small Plates Building).
The Kresge Building, which is 9 stories tall and includes 54,000 square feet, was once home to the Kresge store. The building, built in 1891, will be renovated to accommodate retail space on the ground level and office or residential space above. The first floor of the property currently houses The Detroit Shoppe and Detroit Artist Market pop-up stores.
1217 Woodward is a five-story, 30,000-square-foot office property immediately north of the Kresge Building. Similar to Kresge, 1217 Woodward was also built in 1891 and will be renovated to feature retail on the first floor. Santa Wonderland is leasing a portion of the ground level of the property.
1412 Woodward is a 6,000-square-foot, three-story property that is currently vacant. The building was built in 1916 and will feature ground-level retail space with office space in the top two stories.
The Cary Building Lofts were built in 1906 and span 20,000 square feet. The five-story property will be renovated to feature ground-level retail space and residential units in the top four stories.
The 9,300-square-foot Small Plates building is fully leased to the Small Plates restaurant on the first floor and four residential loft apartments above it.
Rock Ventures’ full-service real estate firm, Detroit-based Bedrock Real Estate Services, brokered all five transactions. Bedrock leases, develops and manages all of Rock Ventures’ properties. The company is a partnership between Gilbert and real estate developer Jim Ketai.
“The need for retail and updated office and residential space in downtown Detroit is keeping Bedrock extremely busy,” says Ketai, who adds that Bedrock has grown more than 60 percent in the past 12 months just to keep up with the demand.
— John Nelson