Editor's note: This version includes updated information on the planned Hotel Bonstelle, formerly known as the Detroit West Elm Hotel project.

Woodward Avenue is the spine of Detroit's thriving Midtown district, yet even amid the flurry of new luxury-branded apartments and artisanal small plates restaurants, some highly visible properties along the avenue have stayed vacant or underutilized.

Now, those development gaps are moving closer to being filled by new residential, retail, commercial and hotel buildings.

The projects — some underway, others scheduled for groundbreakings in the near future — include a movie theater, several high-profile hotels, more condos and multifamily residences, renovated office space and expanded street-level shopping.

Sue Mosey, executive director of Midtown Detroit Inc., a nonprofit organization that has helped catalyze the district's development, said this latest group of Woodward projects will add population density and visitors to the district, supporting the many smaller service-oriented businesses that have sprouted in Midtown in recent years.

“Over the years, we’ve probably had more development going on on Cass and Second (Avenues) and that area, and now Woodward seems to be picking up steam," Mosey said. "I think part of the reason is that to do something on Woodward, you have to make a pretty big investment because of the scale of the street, and we’re finally getting into the period where people are making the larger-scale investments."

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Nearly all of the projects have encountered some delays and will not make their original completion dates. Yet so far none has been canceled.

“All of these projects are complicated and they can take longer than we would like," Mosey said, "but it doesn't mean they won’t eventually get over the finish line.”

Mosey said she is especially excited about the new hotels. Until now, the mini-boom of new boutique hotels happening in downtown has mostly stayed there.

“We had like 50 hotel rooms in all of Midtown, so we were definitely underserved," she said. “So it's good that we’re finally getting into a period where that is being addressed."

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Hotel Bonstelle and more

The coming hotels include a 130-room Hotel Bonstelle, to be built on what is now a parking lot at Woodward and Eliot Street, next to the Bonstelle Theatre. The project's developer is Detroit-based Roxbury Group, and the hotel would incorporate the decommissioned Bonstelle Theatre under a long-term lease with the theater's owner Wayne State University.

The hotel was initially planned as a "West Elm"-branded hotel, after the furniture and home décor retailer West Elm. Roxbury is now in discussions with other hotel brands. The project has a 2021 opening date.

Southfield-based hotel developer Group 10 Management disclosed plans to Crain's Detroit two years ago to build a 120-room hotel at Woodward and Alexandrine Street, next to Bicentennial Tower and close to the Detroit Medical Center.

A source told the Free Press that the project has evolved and now calls for two hotels, a traditional hotel and an extended-stay hotel, and as many as 300 rooms. There also would be some new housing.

Group 10 representatives did not respond to repeated inquiries this week and it is unclear when the developer plans to break ground.

The Mid to include hotel and apartments

Yet another hotel would be part of a major new Midtown development announced in March that is to be called The Mid. This $310-million project would rise on a fenced-in dirt lot at 3750 Woodward, between The Plaza apartments (once commonly known as the "Hammer and Nail" building) and the Whole Foods.

The Mid would make big marks on the Midtown skyline. Plans call for a 25-story hotel with 225 rooms and 100,000 square feet of retail space. There also would be a 30-story building with 60 condos and 250 apartments, plus a new large parking deck.

The project was unveiled with goals for a summer groundbreaking and a December 2020 opening. The groundbreaking is now expected to happen in the second or third week in October. There has been no announcement regarding which brand of hotel would open.

SoMa finally starting south of Mack

One large and much-anticipated project that is gradually taking shape is called SoMa, or South of Mack. Its location, at the busy corner of Woodward and Mack, includes two former and now-empty American Red Cross offices and the vacant site of a demolished muffler shop.

SoMa consists of about 7 acres and is being developed by father and son George and Adam Nyman of Birmingham-based Professional Property Management Co.

In a phone interview Wednesday, Adam Nyman said they have just begun constructing SoMa's first phase: A parking deck that will have ground-level retail space. They already are busy renovating the old Red Cross offices for new office tenants, which will include the City of Detroit.

Further in the future, new eight-story and 12-story buildings could be built along Woodward and filled with office and residential tenants, according to past SoMa marketing materials.

Nyman said that beyond the parking deck, he has no anticipated starting date for SoMa's other new construction components.

The SoMa site was once said to be under consideration by Target for a small-format urban store.

A city of Detroit representative could offer no details regarding the city's leasing plans there.

10-screen movie theater, plus beer

One of the more crowd-pleasing projects on the horizon is a planned movie theater just off Woodward on a vacant lot at 90 Stimson. The theater would be an Alamo Drafthouse Cinema with a full liquor license and nine to 10 movie screens, which would more than replace the old four-screen Ren Cen 4 Theatre in downtown that closed in 2015.

Jonathan Hartzell, a partner in the theater project, said Wednesday that they hope to finalize the theater's land deal in the next 30 to 45 days, "and then you’d get a theater in the spring of 2021."

In a separate project, Rapper Big Sean also is looking to build a movie theater in Detroit in a partnership with Troy-based Emagine Entertainment. The location for that multiplex has yet to be announced.

New ground-floor retail

Orchestra Place at 3663 Woodward, across from the Starbucks and Ellington Lofts, is undergoing a renovation that will add four new ground-floor, Woodward-facing retail spots where before there was only office space and no entrances.

The first tenant is e-bikes retailer Electric Avenue Bikes, to be joined later by Real Estate One and a to-be-announced bank. The fourth space is still available.

“We are very interested in seeing this intersection of Midtown fully activated," said Richard Broder, CEO of Broder & Sachse Real Estate, which undertook the renovations after purchasing Orchestra Place from the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

ContactJC Reindl at313-222-6631 or jcreindl@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @jcreindl. Read more on business and sign up for our business newsletter.