Over on Peterboro just west of Cass stands the Woodstock Apartments.
A good-looking apartment block left over from Detroit’s heyday, it has been vacant for awhile.
Here’s a photo of it back in the day. I think a lot of people would have loved to live there, and would live there if it were in this condition today.
Owned by a company linked to the Ilitch family, the buildings have been feared on the list for possible demolition.
Renderings of the “District Detroit,” the 50-block plan for the area around Little Caesars Arena, have the building gone. A Change.org petition was also launched to save it.
Today there’s a glimmer of hope for the future of the building, even though the structure is listed as owned by a company merged in 2016 into ODM Parking, based at the same address as Ilitch Holdings.
Today I spotted a small work crew that appears to be repointing the building, repairing the masonry between bricks.
Also, over the last few weeks I’ve the seen lights on a few times.
Notably, the windows are still in the building and in decent shape. Lately that seems to be the Detroit bat signal for “maybe something will happen with this place.”
One might think — or hope if you’re a preservationist — that if you’re going to take it a building down — why would you fix it?