A new corps of landlords is scooping up Eastern Market property and rapidly changing the real estate landscape for the food district east of downtown Detroit.

In the last 18 months or so, a handful of buyers have purchased more than 20 buildings totaling nearly a half-million square feet with the potential for well north of $100 million in investment.

But those buyers are cut from a different cloth than many of the Eastern Market property owners of old.

This crop is laden with developers, economic development professionals and out-of-state and foreign investors looking to cash in on a hot enclave where food and funkiness, foot traffic and freshness, reign supreme and where Detroit's billionaires haven't planted their imposing flags.

Yet historically, the street-level business operators in Eastern Market owned their own properties, said Robert Heide, who up until about three years ago had substantial real estate holdings in the district before cashing out and "semi-retiring."

"Most of the business owners there were building owners themselves," he said.

Santemp Co. is out, having sold its six-building, 110,000-square-foot property portfolio to New York City-based ASH NYC, which redeveloped the Wurlitzer Building into the swank Siren Hotel. The company plans a mixed-use development that's still in the early stages.

As is Bert Dearing, although his popular Bert's Warehouse, 2727-2739 Russell St., remains in operation as a tenant of Sanford Nelson's Firm Real Estate LLC.

Busy Bee Hardware sold its approximately 20,000 square feet to developer Roger Basmajian's Basco of Michigan Inc., who plans a $6 million redevelopment. Other long-term property owners like Rocky Investment Co. have also exited the market.

With smaller, perhaps less liquid landlords comes deferred maintenance, said Dan Carmody, president of the Eastern Market Corp. Deeper wallets should bring a fresh round of building improvements, he said.

"We saw this trend coming," Carmody said. "I call it a tsunami or tidal wave of investment that's needed to update many of the buildings in the district ... To have a future, these buildings need a large infusion of cash."