The Big Makeover Plan: Cass-Davenport Historical District revamped

The $17 million renovation of the Cass-Davenport Historical District (which honors the architectural and social significance of four buildings: The Davenport Apartments, Chesterfield Apartments, Aderna Court Apartments, and Naomi Apartments) began this past Thursday with a groundbreaking ceremony attended by Mayor Mike Duggan. The project, estimated to finish May 1,2015, will begin with the interior reconstruct of the Davenport building built in 1905 and the Italian Renaissance style, seven-story Cass Plaza Building (formerly the Naomi Apartments) and largest of the four buildings housing 78 units to be converted into 39 apartments and a coffee house.

Two of the four buildings that make up the Cass-Davenport national historic district are undergoing a construction process that will create 47 quality and affordable apartment homes. “The Big Makeover Plan,” whose majority investor is Great Lakes Capital Fund with a pledge of $9 million, will also bring approximately 275 jobs to the Detroit area, according to FOX2.

Plans to make Cass Corridor a major part of a $450 million, 45 block “entertainment district” have already begun with beginning procedures for the new Red Wings arena and will continue with a proposed $200 million in "spinoff development."

“It’s something that hopefully will be a tax-base generator,” governor Snyder told reporters last September. “Not the arena as much per se, but all the surrounding development.”