JC Reindl

Detroit Free Press

An ambitious $51-million plan to turn the ravaged and abandoned Lee Plaza tower on Detroit's west side into an oasis of upscale housing is still moving forward, despite months of project delays, the prospective developer said last week.

"We're going to renovate the building and bring it back to luxury," said Craig Sasser, 63, a Detroit native who recently returned to the city from Los Angeles. "Bring it back to being an iconic landmark, with first-class of everything.”

The 17-story high-rise, 2240 W. Grand Blvd., is located about a mile west of New Center in a part of the city that is spotted with empty homes and storefronts and has yet experienced the revitalization energy pulsing through areas of greater downtown. Built in an Italianate Art Deco style, the Lee Plaza opened in 1929 as a luxury residential hotel and closed in the 1990s as low-income senior housing.

Developer wants luxury apartments back in Lee Plaza

The tower has since been heavily vandalized and gutted by scrappers and is missing all of its windows.

Sasser has had a tentative deal since last fall to buy the tower and two adjoining parcels from the Detroit Housing Commission for $258,000 in cash. He initially planned to close on the property in December, but lining up the various city, state and federal approvals required more time than first anticipated, he said. The closing is now scheduled for June 1.

"Craig's interest and commitment has been unwavering throughout this process," Kelley Lyons, the commission's executive director, said in an e-mail. The commission "believes he has strong support for the project."

Sasser's redevelopment plans call for 200 market-rate apartments and construction of a new 300-space parking garage at the tower's rear, as well as a small side-lot park. He estimates that renovating the tower would cost $34 million and building the parking garage and park would cost $17 million.

Once the redeveloped tower opens — perhaps in 2018 — the new apartments would be about 1,000 square feet and asking rents could be $2 per square foot, or $2,000 a month per unit. Those rates would far surpass current rents in the neighborhood and rival prices in some of the newest and trendiest apartment buildings in downtown.

"I believe three years from now, this area will be able to support $2 a square foot," Sasser said. "If not, I have a little fallback room."

The key to making Sasser's vision reality is a major investor — he declined to say who — who wishes to make Lee Plaza a demonstration project for a large residential building that could generate as much energy from renewable sources as it uses. Potential energy sources could include solar panels, wind turbines and geothermal units, he said.

The project could also utilize various historic and energy tax credit programs. Lee Plaza is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Sasser has a background in commercial real estate and, in decades past, assisted his mother, the now-retired developer Loretta Sasser Orme, with market research for some of her projects. He has experience restoring single-family homes in Los Angeles, although has never before tackled a development of Lee Plaza's size and complexity.

He said he has the money to close on the property in June. He acknowledged he is still raising funds to secure the property afterward. His company, Moneta Energy, would be purchasing the land.

Sasser estimates that full redevelopment would take about 18 months to compete, with initial months spent clearing out and cleaning up the building.

Among those cheering for Sasser's success are members of the West Grand River Collaborative, a neighborhood and business group. The Housing Commission once offered the Lee Plaza to the group for just $1. "But it was far beyond our capacity," said collaborative President Mildred Hunt Robbins.

For years, the collaborative hoped a developer would arrive and do what Sasser is trying to do — renovate the plaza and restore it to life.

"We are completely pleased that he is on the scene," Robbins said. "It has the potential to hasten the revitalization of everything around it."

Sasser envisions Lee Plaza as the anchor and the first phase of a two- or three-phase project. The second phase would involve constructing low-to moderate-income senior housing in the neighborhood and veterans housing.

Lee Plaza background: