The longstanding Subway location could eventually be torn down. (Photo: Google Maps)
Dan Gilbert has added a downtown Detroit oddity to his real estate portfolio: the stand-alone Subway sandwich shop on Beaubien that looks like it got lost on its way up north.
The building purchase is likely about location, Crain's reporter Kirk Pinho writes in his Real Estate Insider column. It sits across from the $300-million University of Michigan innovation center Gilbert is building with fellow billionaire Stephen Ross.
Subway can reportedly live out its lease at the site, but Pinho anticipates the building will be torn down eventually. (That is, barring any battle from Detroit's preservationists; the building was constructed in 1908 and seems to us an architectural gem.)
The sale price is not known, but the quarter-acre on which the building sits is assessed at $774,700. A parking lot and former bail bonds office are part of the parcel.
