$8.89 million high bid does not meet undisclosed reserve price for Film Exchange Building

Identity of high bidder not known

1926 building in heart of The District Detroit

An $8.89 million high bid during a three-day online auction that ended today didn't meet the undisclosed minimum price the owner wants for the Film Exchange Building in downtown Detroit.

As a result, the building will not be sold at this time.

Danny Samson, chief development officer for the owner, Detroit-based The Sterling Group, declined comment Wednesday other than to say that the bid didn't meet the reserve price.

The undisclosed high bidder's offer amounted to $106.37 per square foot for the 83,593-square-foot building at 2310 Cass Ave. in the heart of the Ilitch family's sweeping District Detroit development project.

For much of Wednesday morning, the high bid sat at $3.25 million. But shortly before the auction was set to end Wednesday afternoon, the bidding war heated up, causing the auction to be extended by nearly 40 minutes as last-second offers were submitted.

Messages sent Wednesday to brokers handling the auction for Farmington Hills-based Friedman Integrated Real Estate Solutions LLC were not returned.

The Film Exchange Building opened in 1926 and has been vacant since the 1970s, according to Historic Detroit, which tracks Detroit buildings and architecture history.

The building was designed by C. Howard Crane, who also designed the Fox Theatre, what is now the Detroit Opera House and several Detroit theaters that have since been demolished.

The Sterling Group entity, 2310 Associates LLC, paid $1.92 million for the property in 2014, according to city records.

A similarly sized building just a few blocks to the southeast, the 75,000-square-foot Women's City Club at 2110 Park Ave. nearby, sold in January to an entity tied to the Ilitch family for $5.85 million, or $78 per square foot.