An ambitious housing and hotel development in Midtown Detroit known as The Mid is scheduled to break ground later next year after pandemic-related delays.
The project would be built on an empty 3.8-acre site at 3750 Woodward, just north of the Whole Foods and the proposed SoMA development featuring a Target store .
Current plans for The Mid call for approximately 300 units of "co-living" space, a 225-room hotel, 80,000 square feet of retail space and a to-be-determined number of additional residential units.
Emery Matthews, one of the lead developers, told members of the project's Neighborhood Advisory Council during a Monday night virtual meeting that The Mid will have two phases. The first phase was once planned as the hotel, he said, but because COVID-19 made it harder to get financing for hotels, it instead will be the co-living spaces.
The co-living spaces will go in a planned high-rise that will be along John R and comprise a mix of single units and units featuring rooms with shared common rooms. There will be about 300 co-living units containing just under 600 beds.
The phase one design work is about 90% done, he said, and construction is expected to begin in early third quarter of 2022.
No anticipated groundbreaking date was given for the second phase — the second high-rise facing Woodward Avenue with the hotel and extra residences.
More: Parking dispute once imperiled plans for new Detroit Target store
More: Basan is the new restaurant from Grey Ghost group at the Eddystone
"We have not given up in terms of pursuing financing, but certainly, the market still remains a little questionable for hospitality," Matthews said of the project's hotel phase. "The financing market seems to be a little bit more receptive to residential uses than strict hospitality."
The Mid development is led by Mohammad A. Qazi, who is CEO of the Southfield-based Ciena Healthcare skilled nursing homes business and also was a primary investor in the Foundation Hotel and Apparatus Room in downtown Detroit.
The state Legislature in June approved an extension until September 2023 for $8.9 million in brownfield tax credits for The Mid that would have otherwise expired.
Contact JC Reindl: 313-222-6631 or jcreindl@freepress.com . Follow him on Twitter @ jcreindl . Read more on business and sign up for our business newsletter .
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Mid housing, hotel development to break ground after COVID-19 delay
