Add this bright news to the Detroit turnaround file:
Corktown sellers benefit as "investors feel pushed out of downtown because of Dan Gilbert’s buying spree there,” a broker says. (Instagram photo by Aly Andrews)
"A land-buying spree is erupting around the popular Michigan Avenue strip in Corktown," Louis Aguilar reports in The Detroit News.
It’s the latest sign a rush is under way to buy in Detroit’s gentrifying swath, stretching from Corktown to Midtown to downtown, say commercial real estate brokers and building owners.
“Some people want to buy as a way to support the city, and others think they are getting bankruptcy prices,” said James Horn, a broker for Wilhelm & Associates, who was involved in one of the five pending Corktown sales made in the past month.. . .
The highest listed price for any of the sold buildings was $3.7 million. That was for the Corktown Inn, a motel at 1331 Trumbull, about five blocks south of the former site of Tiger Stadium. The Corktown Inn had been for sale for 3½ years, according to CoStar.
“It’s the Dan Gilbert effect,” said Albert Ellis, senior associate for Colliers International, who was involved in the motel deal. “Investors feel pushed out of downtown because of Gilbert’s buying spree there.” . . .
“The bankruptcy is making many investors, especially out-of-town investors, think these are fire-sale prices,” Ellis said. In some sense they are, he admits. Based on square-foot-per-dollar — the usual measure for real estate deals — the Corktown prices are great deals compared with most cities, both in the U.S. and abroad.
