More than 2,400 windows. Every one of them fabricated to match a 1926 profile.
Louis Kamper’s Book Tower opened that year at 38 stories and 475 feet, and it sat empty from 2009 until Bedrock bought it in August 2015. The restoration took seven years and about $313 million. The building reopened in June 2023.
Project Scope
500,000 square feet across 38 floors returned to use. The program came out as 229 apartments, a 117-key ROOST extended-stay hotel, Anthology Events, seven food and beverage concepts, and just over 50,000 square feet of retail and office.
More than 2,400 historically accurate replacement windows were fabricated and installed. The limestone and masonry facade was restored, including the heavily ornamented crown that had been shedding material onto Washington Boulevard for years.
ODA Architecture handled architecture and interiors, with Kraemer Design Group on historic preservation and the tax-credit compliance that goes with it. The Brinker/Christman joint venture held the construction contract, the same pairing that ran Michigan Central Station about two miles southwest.
Rents launched between roughly $1,100 and $4,300 depending on layout. The project took a 2024 International Architecture Award from the Chicago Athenaeum.
Why It Matters
A transformational brownfield incentive package reported at $618.1 million was approved in May 2018 covering the Book Tower and Book Building redevelopment. That figure is the authorised package rather than cash spent, and it is what made a fourteen-year vacancy financeable.
Detroit now has two seven-year landmark restorations finishing within a year of each other, run by overlapping contractors. That is less coincidence than consequence. The trades who learned to detail 1920s limestone and fabricate period window profiles on one job were the only crews in the region who had done it recently when the next one started. Restoration capacity gets built the same way any other capacity does.
Related coverage & projects
Project Team & Details
| Developer | Bedrock |
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| Owner / Client | Bedrock |
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| Architect | ODA Architecture |
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| Consultants | Kraemer Design Group (Historic Preservation) |
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| General Contractor | Brinker / Christman Joint Venture |
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| Status | Completed |
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| Funding Source | Mixed |
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