The Platform Buys Lakeshore Global Building At Grand Boulevard & Woodward

Detroit real estate developer The Platform has bought another large building, adding to a growing portfolio of properties it plans to renovate in the New Center area.

The company said Wednesday it has purchased the eight-story Lakeshore Global Building at the corner of Woodward Avenue and Grand Boulevard. Plans call for upgrading the 240-thousand square-foot building … which is currently 60 percent occupied … and getting it ready for full occupancy for office and retail tenants.

The building is right across the street from the first QLine stop — proof, the company says, of its commitment to mixed-use, transit-oriented development in the neighborhood.

The building was designed by Detroit architect Albert Kahn for the Ford Motor Company back in 1908 and still features a Kahn-designed first-floor arcade in its original condition.

The Platform, headed by Peter Cummings and Dietrich Knoer, is becoming something of a ‘Dan Gilbert’ of real estate development in the New Center and Milwaukee Junction areas.

The Lakeshore Global Building joins a portfolio that includes the Fisher Building and the Albert Kahn Building, two of the neighborhood’s iconic structures. The Platform is also behind developments like The Boulevard, a mixed-use residential building under construction at Third Avenue and West Grand Boulevard, plus the Baltimore Stations 1 and 2 projects that we told you about recently.\

The company also acquired several parcels on East Grand Boulevard in Milwaukee Junction totaling about four acres that are currently used as surface lots.

Story written by Sven Gustafson.