Nearly 80 apartments in Detroit’s Hotel David Whitney are expected to be turned into for-sale condos, a move that aligns with market demand in a changing downtown.
The units were built as part of the 2014 conversion of the 1915 office building into a hotel and residences. The developer, The Roxbury Group, said on Tuesday that the apartments will become 79 for-sale condos, priced at $277,000 for a one-bedroom and over $1 million for larger floor plans.
The project — called The Residences at Hotel David Whitney — is set to add 68 one-bedroom units, nine two-bedroom units, and two three-bedroom units to the Detroit condo market. Buyers can select from curated design packages and will have access to the hotel’s amenities, such as the wellness and lounge spaces, housekeeping, parking and room service.
The existing renters, many of whom have been living in the building since its original conversion, were given an early opportunity to purchase. About 20 made the move to secure ownership of their units, said David Di Rita, founder and principal of The Roxbury Group, in an interview with Homes.com.
The Roxbury Group initially opted to include residential components to follow the trend of other former Detroit office buildings and additional structures being converted into hotels, all of which featured a residential component, such as The Westin Book Cadillac.
Moving from rented units to for-sale was a combination of The Roxbury Group exiting market-rate rentals and what Di Rita calls a “maturing market” compared to 2014. The developer could have sold the apartments as a block to another company. Instead, it chose to redevelop the units because “we saw that the market was ready for for-sale property like the David Whitney, whereas it might not have been 10 or 11 years ago when we started the project.”
The decision was also informed by new real estate development throughout the area, specifically condos.
“We saw a lot of condo development in and around the Brush Park neighborhood just north of us. It seemed there was some new construction condominium development in the downtown, so we started to see a maturing market for that,” said Di Rita.
He also pointed toward another recent project that converted apartments to condos, the former historic Fort Shelby Hotel in downtown Detroit.
Buyers will not be eligible to purchase multiple units or list units as short-term rentals, according to Di Rita.
“This is really about giving people an opportunity who want to live in downtown Detroit and have a home downtown,” he said.
The David Whitney Building was designed by Chicago-based architects D.H. Burnham and Co., led by architect Daniel Burnham, who also designed New York’s Flatiron Building and Union Station in Washington, D.C. The David Whitney originally opened with medical offices and retail before closing in the late 1990s. It reopened in 2014 after a $94 million restoration.
Other developers are betting on the downtown Detroit market’s hunger for condos. Bedrock is constructing a high-rise with 96 condos priced at $1,000 per square foot, according to city filings. Those could push up the record for condo sales in downtown.
The Detroit metropolitan area posted one of the nation’s highest monthly home price increases in October, according to Homes.com market data. Detroit posted a 6% increase, making it No. 4 on the list of major metros.