Bedrock in Detroit has announced new details of The Belle, a mixed-use development at 1346 Broadway in downtown Detroit (between East Grand River and Gratiot avenues).
The restoration of The Belle will combine 8,000 square feet of retail and dining space with 42 studio, one-, and two-bedroom residential units. The Z Parking Deck is located across Broadway from The Belle, while two blocks to the north is the Detroit Opera House.
“Bedrock’s meticulous restoration of The Belle complements development efforts to bring modern and affordable living amenities to the Broadway Corridor,” says Kofi Bonner, CEO of Bedrock, is a full-service real estate firm owned by Dan Gilbert.
The Belle will offer:
- 42 residential units — with 20 percent offered at 80 percent area median income for affordable housing
- 8,000 square feet of ground-floor retail and dining
Scheduled for completion in 2026, Bedrock has enlisted Kraemer Design Group in Detroit as the lead architect, Roncelli Inc. in Sterling as the general contractor, and Pophouse in Detroit for interior design and branding. Work on the building has been ongoing for several months.
East of The Belle is Basco’s The Reckmeyer, a nine-story mixed-use project that has long been in pre-construction. It joins other redevelopment efforts underway along the Broadway Corridor.
A block east of The Belle in what today is known as Paradise Valley (formerly Harmonie Park and originally Germantown), recent attractions and enhancements include:
- The Vinyl Society at 1427 Randolph St., a lounge from Dennis Archer Jr.
- Fixins Soul Kitchen at 1435 Randolph St., a soul food restaurant by former NBA-All Star Kevin Johnson.
Paradise Valley was a thriving black community east of downtown Detroit, bounded roughly by Hastings Street to the east, Jefferson Avenue to the south, the former Grand Trunk Railroad now the Dequindre Cut to the east, and Gratiot Avenue to the north.
Paradise Valley was largely razed with the construction by the Michigan Department of Transportation and the National Highway Administration of the Chrysler Freeway (I-75 and I-375) starting in the 1950s, along with the development of Lafayette Park.
Multiple efforts have been made to bring back some semblance of Paradise Valley, which emerged in the 1920s as a jazz mecca.
For more information and to follow the progress on Bedrock’s The Belle, visit TheBelleDetroit.com.
Editor’s note: According to an April 2023 filing with the Detroit Historic District Commission by Kraemer Design Group, the following history of the building was provided:
“Designed by the Detroit architectural firm of George D. Mason & Company Architects and completed in 1926, the Harvard Square Building replaced an earlier three-story commercial building. The Broadway Exchange Building was constructed with commercial spaces in the basement, a first floor, and mezzanine levels. The upper floors of the 10-story building housed offices for a wide variety of professionals such as engineers, lawyers, doctors as well as insurance companies and Realtors. The attic floor provided space for mechanical equipment. In 1928 the building acquired the name American Radiator Building, and the American Radiator Co. occupied most of the building at that time. The building name changed to the Phillips Building in the 1950s, and finally the Harvard Square Centre Building in 1977. The retail spaces have housed many different tenants including the Merchant’s Salvage Company Mortgage Liquidators, Federated Clothes, the Broadway Market (which featured the popular Lefkofsky’s Delicatessen and Kreger’s Drink Shoppe) and most recently the Paris Bar. The building has been vacant since the late 1990s, with the exception of the Paris Bar nightclub on the first floor (which closed in 2015).”
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