Steve Neavling
Demolition has been halted for at least a month at the former Chinatown building at 3143 Cass Ave. in Detroit.
A historically significant building in Detroit’s old Chinatown neighborhood may avoid the wrecking ball after preservationists and a city councilwoman made a last-minute pitch to preserve the 140-year-old structure.
Detroit City Council on Tuesday unanimously approved a one-month delay in demolition to give city officials time to prepare a report about the historic and architectural significance of the two-story brick building at 3143 Cass Ave.
The goal is to add the building to the National Register of Historic Places. While the designation won’t require the building to be preserved, it will make the building eligible for public grants and tax credits.
Demolition was planned for Monday, but Councilwoman Gabriela Santiago-Romero convinced the Ilitch family’s Olympia Development, which owns the building through another company, to hold off on demolition for at least a month.
In the meantime, Janese Chapman, director of the Historic Designation Advisory Board, said she’ll complete a report to bolster the argument for preserving the building.
“We would like the time to do some additional research on the property and then prepare a report and present it before your honorable body,” Chapman told city council. “The report will include the historic and architectural significance, as well as the developmental history of the community” surrounding the building.
Preservationists and Santiago-Romero heard about the upcoming demolition in a Crain’s Detroit Business article on July 17 and quickly sprung to action in hopes of saving the building.
In a letter to city officials last week, Santiago-Romero said the building was “a major contribution to the Chinatown Historic District and an undeniable part of our city’s rich history of diversity.”
In the 1960s, after the Chinese American community was displaced from downtown, residents moved to the Cass Corridor, opening restaurants and other businesses. The Chinese Merchants Association bought the 3143 Cass Ave. building and used it for social, educational, recreational, and religious purposes. A theater inside the building was used for Chinese opera.
Before the Chinese Merchants Association purchased the building, it served various roles – a ballroom, fraternal hall, and restaurant.
ODM Management, an Ilitch-linked entity, purchased the property for $50,000 in 2004, according to public property records, and has done little to nothing to preserve the building.
In 2018, the city declared the property a dangerous building, and the city council signed off on the designation at the time. But in 2021, a separate survey for the city found that the building has a long and storied social history worthy of preservation and historic designation.
“We have all agreed to delay the demolition for at least one month during recess to allow Dr. Chapman some time to do a report on the significance and the potential to save and preserve the building,” Romero-Santiago told the council.
Since Olympia Development received what would become more than $400 million in tax incentives to build Little Caesars Arena and what it promised about a decade ago would be a surrounding community of vibrant, adjacent neighborhoods in the Cass Corridor, most of the buildings have been demolished or are still vacant. North and west of the arena, abandoned apartment buildings still dot the landscape, despite promises from the Ilitches that they would renovate them.
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