Arbor Update

Ann Arbor Area Community News

Collegian's new owner may add 3 floors

21. October 2005 • Murph
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Michigan Business Review reports that the Collegian’s new owner is hoping to add back the three stories of residential use that were removed from the original plan:

The building, located next to Nickels Arcade, was sold for $6.45 million to Lorne J. Darnell & Associates, according to city records.

The company has third-floor offices space in the buidling, and a tenant may soon move into the fourth floor.

Darnell hired Luckenbach Ziegelman Architects the Ann Arbor company that did the original building to design the vertical addition that also would convert the fifth floor to residential use, adding 27 rental units to the area just west of State Street and the University of Michigan’s Diag.

The housing, according to plans filed with the city, is “targeted at the local population of university students and faculty, filling a critical housing need in this centralized location.” The apartments would include 24 studio units of 450 square feet and three 1,100-square-foot penthouse-style apartments on the top floor.
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The Collegian originally was planned to have seven stories and a green roof when Spoon sought city approvals in 2001.

Those early plans called for three floors of offices and four levels of luxury condominiums, ranging from 1,800 to 2,800 square feet and hitting a top price of $1.2 million.

However, Spoon told city officials in 2002 that he could not get financing for the mixed-use building, and instead scaled back to the five-story office building.



  1. Someone should protest. It will spoil the penthouse view from Arbor Vitae…
       —Marc R.    Oct. 21 '05 - 05:53PM    #
  2. Sweet! I especially like that the units will be small, and theoretically affordable. I lamented at the time that Spoon didn’t scale back the size and price of his units when he couldn’t sell the million dollar behemoths.
       —Parking Structure Dude!    Oct. 24 '05 - 03:46PM    #