The Exchange Building in Detroit’s Greektown neighborhood is being built from the top down, and will house residential and commercial spaces.
Things are looking up at the 16-story-tower Exchange building, quite literally.
The luxury high-rise condominium, located at 338 Gratiot Ave. in Detroit, is being built from the top down and is already making a buzz for its unique appearance during the early stages of construction.
Located in Greektown, the building aims to bring “home a connection from Detroit in a location that fuses Greektown, the Central Business District and District Detroit’s entertainment venues into one central location,” according to its website.
With their motto, “Live Connected,” they aspire to live in a sustainable, green and clean, tech-enabled, touch-free environment. Live Connected means building on innovative design and build processes.
Exchange has worked collaboratively with the Greektown Neighborhood Partnership to ensure that its plans align with its vision. Within Greektown’s vision for the future, their neighboring site, the Randolph Plaza, is going to receive a facelift, too.
David Alexander, senior superintendent for LIFTbuild, told the Michigan Chronicle that the building is the first construction of its kind in America.
“We are big on proving that our concept works and the benefits of it,” Alexandar said. “We’re finally starting to reap the benefits.”
Alexander added that with the building location being downtown there were some underground infrastructure challenges that the construction crew members overcame.
“It’s a tight site and … it wasn’t the easiest site to work with,” he said of getting storm and sanitary systems online.
The project has received support from the City of Detroit, the Greektown Neighborhood Partnership and the Downtown Detroit Partnership.
The building is projected to save over 63 million gallons of water and 18,256 metric tons of CO2. That’s the equivalent of eliminating the energy use of 2,107 homes for each of the 25 years of the project.
Twenty percent of the apartments will be available for households earning no more than 80 percent of the area median income — meaning that a single individual must earn less than $50,160, or a family of two must earn no more than $57,280 annually to qualify. Prospects/applicants will be qualified on a first-come-first-served basis.
The LIFTbuild technology being utilized at Exchange is drawing media attention from across the country. With the two condo floors and two apartment floors lifted and locked in place, the construction team is readying for the next lift. The project is expected to be completed in late Spring 2023.
According to a published report, the building, described as “the first of its kind across North America,” is 207 feet tall and using the prototype for the LIFTbuild technology, described as a system that makes a construction site become a manufacturing plant.
“We’re not putting people on beams 100 feet in the air that need to be tied off. We’re trying to eliminate all the fall hazards. That is our number one objective, get rid of the hazards, get rid of the inefficiencies on the site,” said Joe Benvenuto of LIFTbuild said in the article.
Benvenuto added that the $64 million tower is held up by two concrete structures described as the spine.
“It’s a fully cantilever design and there are no columns in the way of the exterior glazing, so if we go up to the floors, you will see a wide-open floor space, that’s great for the residents but also assembled in a way that’s very efficient for the workers,” he said in the article.
Every floor is built on the ground using more than 150,000 pounds of steel and 110 cubic yards of concrete, according to the article, which adds when it is complete, it’s raised at an average speed of 25 feet per hour.
“If you look up now, you can see all the ductwork, and plumbing, and fire protection, and fireproofing, that was all done right here,” said Benvenuto said in the report.
“Land is at a premium and the development of the city needs to happen in a much denser environment, this type of technology helps us accomplish that as well as reduced labor demands and hopefully faster schedule times and more economical budgets,” he added in the report.
Nicole Bentley, a regional property supervisor, told the Michigan Chronicle that on behalf of management for the property, the building will offer a “distinctive experience” to the neighborhood.
“They’re going to feature a wide range of resident amenities,” Bentley said of a techno gym, fitness room, lounge, outdoor deck area, plus “amazing views.”
“It’s also going to be pet friendly,” she said of the high-rise living environment that encompasses a “very distinctive experience unlike any other in Detroit.”
“It’s amazing,” Bentley said of the top-down building technology. “Watching it take shape is definitely an amazing project to be involved in.”
When finished, Exchange will mainly be a residential tower with several commercial locations on the first floor with a completion date tapped for late spring 2023.
For more information, visit exchangedetroit.com.
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