If you’ve been outside the Westin Book Cadillac Hotel in the past year or so, you’ve likely noticed the building directly across the street and its colorful, distinctive artwork that wraps around its first floor.

You can expect to say goodbye to it soon, developer Richard Karp told me this morning. He plans to tear the building down to make way for a mixed-use development with a multifamily component. Formally known as the Gateway Center building, the exterior of its first floor is wrapped in black-and-white and color portraits, including some of women and lollipops. (He referred to it as the "lollipop girl" building during our conversation.)

“But it’s not historic. It’s not architecturally significant. So there’s no (financing) incentives available for it from a historic standpoint. For us to spend the money rehabbing it, we are better off doing a larger structure encompassing the surface lots to the north,” he said.

Details on his planned development — including time frame for starting and concluding demolition and construction, how large it will be, etc. — are not yet being disclosed.

Karp owns the Gateway Center building, at 1101 Washington Blvd. at Michigan Avenue, and a handful of other properties immediately surrounding the Westin Book Cadillac, which is owned by The Ferchill Group.

The purchase price for the Gateway Center building was $700,000, according to CoStar Group Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based real estate information service.

His other properties include a surface parking lot to the north, which he purchased from the Detroit Transportation Corp. a year ago for $650,000, according to CoStar; and a 20,000-square-foot retail building with two stories at 1242 Washington Blvd. that he purchased in March for an undisclosed price. The surface lot would become part of the mixed-use development.

Plans for the retail building were not disclosed. While that building may not be the prettiest to look at, there’s potential there — particularly given its location directly south the Book Tower and Book Building, both purchased by Dan Gilbert this summer from Milan, Italy-based Akno Enterprises. It’s also just a block or so away from the Gabriel Richard Building, which is being converted into apartments by Joe Barbat, and The Griswold, slated for 80 new apartments atop an existing 10-story building by The Roxbury Group. And don’t forget its location just west of Capitol Park, where Karp owns seven properties, some of which are slated for multifamily redevelopment projects.

Gilbert is also an active investor in that area, most recently purchasing the David Stott Building and the Clark Lofts building with as-of-yet undisclosed redevelopment plans, as well as planned construction of a new building with more than 200 micro apartments on the site of a burned-out former strip club.

“Just as pleased as we were when Mr. Gilbert followed us into Capitol Park, we were equally pleased when he followed us onto Washington Boulevard,” Karp said this morning.

The artwork on the Gateway Center was put on within the last year or so.

It is an artist-authorized reproduction of works from two different projects by Detroit artist Michelle Tanguay: "Sweet Tooth" and "Face to Face."

A previous version of this story quoted Karp as saying he commissioned the artwork on the Gateway Center building. This version is correct.