Big Challenges and Bigger Dreams on East Warren & Bedford

Rendering for Ultreia at 16131 E. Warren Avenue. Image courtesy of Field Day Architects

“Don’t you put a penny into that building!” warned Billie, a kind lady 80 years-wise who lives in the first house behind 16131 E. Warren Avenue. This was sage advice from someone who witnessed the decline of the commercial corridor. The building’s roof had slowly collapsed along with all the floors below it after sitting vacant for the past 25 years, which we would only discover once the locksmith opened the front door after purchasing the property through auction in 2015.

Three floors along with the roof had fully collapsed inside of 16131 E. Warren Avenue. Image courtesy of Marc Maxey and Ellen Donnelly

Billie and I would become friends over the next decade as my partner Ellen and I stubbornly tried to figure out how to bring this building back online. Ultimately, this spring, Billie and her sister Rena wrote letters of support for our Brownfield Redevelopment Plan, a state program that helps to cover the cost of environmental cleanup to abate asbestos and leadbased paint in functionally obsolete properties.

As architects, we optimistically thought it would be fairly straightforward to renovate the building; despite the rotted wood interior, the load-bearing brick and steel bones were good! We made drawings, cleaned out as much debris as we could, and slowly began to learn the ropes of real estate development, which has been a second education for us.

Along the way we met more neighbors, community leaders and organizers, and many others who helped support our efforts. In the past five years, the corridor has undergone transformational change with the city’s streetscape improvement and targeted investment through the Strategic Neighborhood Fund. Thus, we have aptly named this project Ultreia, which is a greeting of encouragement to ‘keep going’ said among pilgrims walking the famous 500-mile Camino de Santiago across Spain. It has been a slow and arduous process that wouldn’t have been possible without all the community members we have met along the way or bumped into, by chance, walking along the corridor.

This fall we will begin construction on Ultreia, returning the building to its historic use as a 7-unit mixed-use building, with four commercial storefronts on the ground floor and three apartments on the second floor. There will be one 2-bedroom, and two 1-bedroom units renting between 70-80% of the area median income (AMI). The residential apartments will be served by a rooftop solar array with battery backups so residents won’t lose power during DTE’s outages. The commercial spaces will be ‘white-boxed’ (finished with drywall and primed) and range in size from 1000 sq. ft. - 650 sq. ft. and are available to lease for $1700 - $1100 / mo.

We are eagerly looking for local businesses who want to set up shop and we will be holding several community meetings in the coming months to gather feedback from residents on what type of businesses would best serve the community. Look for us at the East Warren Farmer’s Market on Thursdays at the EWDC table and more information will follow in the Morningsider as the project progresses. Get in touch with us through our website: www.field-day.design or email marc@field-day.design for more info.

Rendering of Ultreia facing Bedford St. Image courtesy of Field Day