DETROIT, MI - Quicken Loans founder Dan Gilbert has bought a 16th high-rise in downtown Detroit:

The 1001 Woodward building

.

The 23-floor building, located at the corner of Woodward and Michigan Avenue, houses GalaxE Solutions, Meridian Health Plan, the University of Phoenix and the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments (SEMCOG).

The building is 68 percent occupied and, with Quicken Loans' lease of 65,000 square feet, it will soon be 87 percent full.

"Detroit has become a key destination for brain economy companies," Gilbert said in a release. "The acquisition of the 1001 Woodward building allows us to continue to offer premium office space at affordable rates for those looking to join us in the technology district that is gaining more and more momentum each and every day."

With the purchase, Rock Ventures, Gilbert’s umbrella company, now owns 2.9 million square feet of commercial and residential space in downtown Detroit, in addition to several parking garages and a surface lot totaling 4,250 parking spaces.

Rock Ventures is also building a 535,000-square-foot, Z-shaped parking garage and retail development that will zig zag from the corner of Broadway and East Grand River to the corner of Gratiot and Library, and include 33,000 square feet of ground floor retail space and 1,300 parking spaces. The project is scheduled to be complete in December 2013.

Gilbert's move into Downtown Detroit started five years ago. Here's a timeline of the Quicken Loans-billionaire's investments in the city:

January 2007: Dan Gilbert founds Bizdom, a non-profit entrepreneurship accelerator for budding web and tech-based startups in Detroit.



January 2009: Gilbert and other business leaders invest in M-1 RAIL, a 6.8-mile light-rail system that will link key neighborhoods to Detroit's riverfront, the business district, and educational, cultural, entertainment and medical institutions along Woodward Avenue.



July 2009: Quicken Loans announces it will relocate its headquarters to the Compuware Building in downtown Detroit in 2010.



August 2010: Quicken Loans and five of its sister companies move 1,700 team members into the Compuware building in downtown Detroit.



November 2010: Gilbert, together with entrepreneurs Josh Linkner and Brian Hermelin, launch Detroit Venture Partners, a Detroit-based venture capital firm that invests in seed and early-stage technology companies to be located in the city.



January 2011: Rock Ventures, the umbrella entity formed to provide operational coordination, guidance and integration of Gilbert's portfolio of companies, investments and real estate purchases Detroit's historical Madison Theatre Building and begins transforming it into a collaborative tech hub to encourage partnership among local entrepreneurs.



April 2011: Rock Ventures acquires the 13-story Chase Tower located in Detroit's downtown central business district and begins renovation.



April 2011: Rock Ventures buys Two Detroit Center, a 1,095-space parking garage located in the central business district.



May 2011: Skidmore Studio, a graphic design firm located in a nearby suburb, announces it will become the anchor tenant in the Madison Building when it opens in Fall 2011.



June 2011: Quicken Loans hires 200 interns to work in the Detroit office to expose students to the city and help end Detroit's "brain drain."



July 2011: Earvin "Magic" Johnson joins Detroit Venture Partners to help fund start-up tech companies.



July 2011: Quicken Loans and four other downtown Detroit companies unveil the "Live Downtown" program, which offers financial incentives to team members who live in the city.



July 2011: Quicken Loans sponsors the debut of Somerset Collection's CityLoft, a pop-up shop open the last weekend of each month in downtown Detroit with mini-versions of upscale stores, to bring retail back to downtown Detroit.



August 2011: Rock Ventures purchases Detroit's First National Building to house more team members as well as other businesses.



August 2011: Rock Ventures acquires its fourth building, the 101-year-old Dime Building located in downtown Detroit, along with the Financial District Garage, a 983-space parking structure adjacent to the Dime Building.



August 2011: Rock Ventures purchases the Madison Parking Lot on Broadway, adjacent to the Madison Theatre Building.



September 2011: Quicken Loans hosts a job fair to fill 500 positions in Detroit within the Family of Companies, 2,500 people line up around the building to apply.



October 2011: An additional 2,000 Quicken Loans team members move into the newly renovated Chase Tower.



December 2011: Rock Ventures completes the acquisition of three additional properties in Downtown Detroit – the historic Wright-Kay brownstone, the Lane Bryant Building and the Arts League of Michigan Building.



January 2012: Rock Ventures adds two more buildings to its real estate portfolio - the Historic Federal Reserve Building, and 1550 Woodward Avenue, a one-story building to be utilized for retail or commercial use.

February 2012: To encourage Detroit's "brain gain," the Quicken Loans Family of Companies announces it will hire 600 paid interns - 500 to work in Detroit to discover all the great things the City has to offer.



April 2012: The Quicken Loans Family of Companies begins a recruiting campaign to hire more than 1,400 team members, and launches Valley to Detroit, a campaign aimed to bring laid off Yahoo technology professionals to Detroit from Silicon Valley.



April 2012: Rock Ventures and Chrysler hold a press conference to announce that Chrysler will lease the top two floors of Rock Ventures' Dime Building and rename the building Chrysler House.



June 2012: Quicken Loans partners with other Detroit businesses to create "IT in the D," a program to give local university students real-world experience to prepare them for tech jobs in Detroit.



July 2012: Title Source, the largest independent provider of title insurance, property valuations and settlement services in the nation, begins move of 1,500 team members to downtown Detroit's First National Building.



October 2012: Rock Connections, a strategic marketing company that provides experienced communications specialists, robust analytics, and targeted selling strategies, moves 115 team members into the Chase Tower Building in downtown Detroit's growing tech hub.



October 2012: Rock Ventures and Quicken Loans launch "Opportunity Detroit" with a national commercial narrated by Kid Rock on the Fox television network during the fourth game of the World Series.



November 2012: Rock Ventures breaks ground on 33,000 square-foot specialty retail development with 10-story parking garage in downtown Detroit.



December 2012: Rock Ventures purchases One Woodward, the 26-story, 333,000 square-foot building located in Detroit's Central Business District.



December 2012: Metro-West Appraisal, the nation's largest independent residential real estate appraisal company, announces it will move its national headquarters to downtown Detroit's Chrysler House in March 2013.



December 2012: Rock Ventures adds five buildings to its real estate portfolio - 1201 Woodward (Kresge Building), 1217 Woodward, 1412 Woodward, 1301 Broadway (Cary Building Lofts) and 1521 Broadway (Small Plates Building) for a total of 120,000 square feet of space.

January 2013: News emerges that Gilbert is attempting to buy Greektown Casino.

March 2013: Rock Ventures announces it purchased 1001 Woodward, adding 275,000-square-feet of space to its Downtown holdings. The purchase includes 15,000-square-feet of first-floor retail space along Woodward Avenue.