John Gallagher

Detroit Free Press

Businessman Dan Gilbert's Bedrock Real Estate Services announced today that it has purchased Corktown Lofts, a collection of properties that includes a four-story loft-style office building, two warehouses and two surface parking lots in the city's Corktown neighborhood west of downtown.

The properties total approximately 178,500 square feet, most of which are in the loft office structure at 1700 W. Fort.

The purchase price was not disclosed, as is common practice with Bedrock acquisitions. But the building was listed for $5.95 million by L. Mason Capitani, a Troy real estate brokerage. Al Iafrate, senior vice president of the brokerage, said the building drew several interested inquires and was quickly snapped up by Bedrock.

This property was the former headquarters of the Display Group, which recently relocated to a 255,000 square foot facility in one of the former Packard Plant buildings.

This acquisition is somewhat outside Bedrock's usual sphere of operations in the immediate downtown core. But it is just a few blocks from Gilbert's Quicken Loans Technology Center on Rose Parks.

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Bedrock said in a statement that the properties will provide "key mixed-use space in the flourishing Corktown neighborhood" and may be aimed at entrepreneurs, artists, restaurants, and residential apartment dwellers.

Current tenants at Corktown Lofts include Pluto, a creative content studio, and photographer, artist and collector Lisa Spindler. Together they occupy about 10,000 square feet of the overall space.

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“This acquisition presents creative redevelopment opportunities for us in a vibrant, growing area,” said Jim Ketai, managing partner and CEO of Bedrock Real Estate Services. “Anyone who has visited Corktown recently has experienced its wonderful energy. We have already received interest from potential new tenants looking to locate their offices downtown in this type of open, collaborative space.”

Contact John Gallagher: 313-222-5173, gallagher@freepress.com or on Twitter @jgallagherfreep

Time line of Dan Gilbert's developments