Halfway between the trendy downtowns of Ferndale and Royal Oak, a long-dormant, 13-acre factory site alongside railroad tracks is anticipated to become a hip spot for food, a brewery and more.

Iron Ridge Marketplace promises to transform a Rust Belt cluster of aging buildings, including a five-story office tower, into an entertainment and retail destination on the site of what long ago was a wire factory. The $35-million brownfield redevelopment project — tucked between I-696 and train tracks at the Ferndale-Pleasant Ridge border — already houses about eight businesses, some of them recruited through Craigslist, with more to come.

On a recent tour of Iron Ridge Marketplace, developer Dennis Griffin stopped and looked around the inside of Pulse Fitness — which opened last June in a long building directly alongside the tracks.

"This building was a blown-out mess," he said. Now, it's a chic, locally owned fitness center with about 800 members, cutting-edge exercise equipment, spin classes, pumping bass and a protein-shake bar.



The property was used for a dairy before it was converted into a brewery in the 1930s and, in the 1940s, a wire factory.

For many years, much of the 231,000 square feet of space sat vacant and decaying, even as the downtowns in Ferndale and Royal Oak became popular hot spots for dining and nightlife.

Demand for real estate rose substantially, and this is one of the few big spaces left for development in a relatively dense area. Aging industrial and warehouse sites, especially along railroads, have become appealing spots for trendy places to eat, drink and work — usually offering easier parking access than more-crowded downtown areas. Similar projects have occurred in Birmingham and Royal Oak.

Construction at Iron Ridge Marketplace started in October 2017, and tenants here now range from an advertising business (Driven Creative Supply Co.) to a 3D printing and software company (Fisher Unitech) and fire suppression company (Fire Rover).

But the next few steps are anticipated to make it more exciting for visitors.

In one vacant structure, there's heavy, 1940s-era factory equipment covered in dust near pools of brownish water half-frozen below a jagged mess of pipes and rusted metal. By mid-2020, this is planned to be a taproom for an on-site brewery.

It connects to a long, rectangular building — also in need of serious attention — to soon house restaurants, vendors and more. Griffin said a coffee shop and Caribbean restaurant are among the possibilities. The final phase of the project is proposed multi-family housing.

"What Dennis has is the vision that's so big that it scares people," Pulse Fitness owner Scott Genord said, adding: "He's come through on everything he says."

Iron Ridge Marketplace, at 404 East 10 Mile Road, is a project of Iron Ridge Holdings, with Griffin and his business partner Greg Cooksey both of C.G. Emerson Real Estate Group, as well as development partners Milford Singer Development Co. and First Holding Management Co.

Genord said he expects Iron Ridge Marketplace to be "like a landmark," a place people can go without worrying about parking — an issue he frequently heard complaints about at a previous Pulse location in downtown Royal Oak.

About 500 parking spaces are planned for the marketplace. He said access to I-696 is "so easy," he has members who stop in on commutes, such as between Southfield and St. Clair Shores.

Beer by the tracks

Craft breweries, with their manufacturing operations often visible through windows from visitor-friendly taprooms, are a natural fit for mixed-use projects revitalizing tired industrial areas. Putting them near railroad tracks has become a trend across the United States, including southeast Oakland County.

Griffin Claw Brewing Co. opened in 2013 at the Rail District in Birmingham. Just a few blocks south of Iron Ridge Marketplace is Urbanrest Brewing Co., which opened in Ferndale in 2017. And in Royal Oak, south of Lincoln and east of Main Street, Roak Brewing Co. opened in 2015.

"It's worked out well," Roak co-owner John Leone said. He said that while "technically, it's not downtown," there was plenty of space for brewing operations, easy access for distributors, and there are dozens of parking spaces.

Both Roak and Urbanrest are in developments by C.G. Emerson; the latter is part of greater Iron Ridge District, encompassing the marketplace and more businesses about a block south along Woodward Heights, including Farm Field Table and Detroit Grooming Co.

Griffin declined to say what brewing company will open in the 10,000 square feet available at Iron Ridge Marketplace, other than it will be "very experienced professionals" and "everything is planned."

In the large room with 36-foot-high ceilings, massive pieces of metal equipment left over from the Walker Wire and Steel Co. line the ground. The company, which opened in 1945, once offered customers the "largest stock of wire in Michigan," the Free Press previously reported.

And before the wire factory, the location housed an unfinished brewery. Voigt-Pros't Brewing Co., founded in March 1936, became "another case of overestimating the demand for beer and underestimating major competitors after (Prohibition) repeal," Peter Blum wrote in the book, "Brewed in Detroit" (1999). Construction was halted, and no beer was ever made.

An 'eclectic, more modern area'

The Rail District in Birmingham, a few miles north along the same railroad tracks, has several similarities to Iron Ridge Marketplace — and about a 14-year head start.

Restaurants, a yoga center, hair salons and other businesses operate near the railroad along South Eaton Street just south of East Maple Road, at Birmingham's eastern border with Troy.

"It was an old, industrial section of town; industrial was kind of moving out," said Jana Ecker, planning director with the City of Birmingham. "There was an area of land that we knew we could do something better with."

Construction starting in about 2005 brought new buildings and renovations to old ones. Flexible zoning allowed for mixed use. Ecker said small offices and a martial-arts school are in a former factory for Detroit Stamping Co., later known as De-Sta-Co, manufacturing equipment and tools for the automotive industry and more. The Sheridan at Birmingham, a senior-living center, is at a location formerly used by Stanley, a garage-door company.

Ecker said it was planned as an "eclectic, more modern area that would complement what we already had downtown."

Property values in the area have risen, she said, and the city has taken steps to improve infrastructure and add public art and sidewalks.

"It's just gone gangbusters," she said.

Even in Oak Park, where alcohol was banned until 2015 from bars or restaurants, there are plans to bring in a brewery to an aging corridor of homes, low-slung businesses and light-industrial buildings on 11 Mile Road. Royal Oak-based River Rouge Brewing Co. (which opened in 2015 through another so-called adaptive reuse project, coincidentally by C.G. Emerson, that involved retrofitting an old bar at 404 Fourth Street) is planning a second location at 14401 W. 11 Mile.

Oak Park, just west of Ferndale, has plans in the works for several areas more inviting to pedestrians and cyclists, with pocket parks, a dog park, bike lanes and bike repair shelters among flashes of color from the city's sunflower-planting project.

Read more:

Oakland Co. city wants to go from boring to booming

Farmers fear downtown development in Royal Oak

'Something original'

When they moved in 2013 from Brooklyn, New York, to Detroit in search of an affordable space to open their custom-designed furniture business, Alex Rosenhaus and Drew Arrison discovered it wasn't as easy as they'd expected.

"Detroit is too expensive, honestly," Rosenhaus, co-owner of Alex Drew & No One, said. "Like, it sounds absurd, but yeah, we can't afford Detroit. ... We actually are really happy with this location."

After starting at a friend's shop in Hazel Park, they searched for a place on Craigslist and since opened their workshop, showroom and office in a free-standing building at Iron Ridge Marketplace. Rosenhaus said they were given a fair, fixed rate to rent the space. And their products, such as a $1,650 mirror and $2,250 cocktail table, are sold online to mostly customers across the country.

When events such as Harvest Days, a pop-up fall market with a beer garden, live music and more, are held at the marketplace, they open up the shop for visitors.

"We have people popping their heads in all the time," Rosenhaus said.

Iron Ridge spokeswoman Brooke Gieber said events are part of the plan to bring together the tenants, as well as the community. For example, Genord said more than 200 people participated in the inaugural Iron Ridge-Pulse Fitness Dog 5K Run/1K Walk that raised money for Detroit Dog Rescue.

Iron Ridge Marketplace is about 60-70 percent complete, Griffin said. He said they've used Craigslist, among other methods, for connecting with the range of tenants; when they find one, they renovate spaces customized to their needs.

"They're very particular in what they want to create, what they want Iron Ridge to be," Genord said, adding that, for tenants, "everyone they pick, I think, they just want something original."

Robert Allen can be reached on Twitter @rallenMI or rallen@freepress.com.