Brush Park Developer Picks Architects for Massive Detroit Project

The portfolio contains 400 units and includes townhomes, duplexes and apartments.

IMG_4921Detroit—Brush Park Development Co. (BPDC), which was named the developer of the historic 8.4-acre Brush Park neighborhood in Detroit earlier this year, has tapped five architecture firms from across the country for the project. Their work will be on nearly 400 new residential units, including townhomes, duplexes, carriage homes and apartments. The architects will also design the renovation of four historic mansions.

Brush Park was a fashionable, close-to-downtown neighborhood in the mid- to late-19th century in Detroit, sporting a number of High Victorian Gothic style mansions built for the wealthy of the time. For most of the 20th century, the neighborhood had fallen on hard times. It has seen some restoration and development since the 1990s, and the BPDC redevelopment will take the process much further.

The local firms selected for the Brush Park project include Hamilton Anderson Associates of Detroit, for master planning, landscape architecture, apartments, and townhomes. Also, Christian Hurttienne Architects of Grosse Pointe Park, Mich., will work on historic preservation/renovation adaptive reuse of four historic mansions.

The out-of-state architectural talent recruited for the project include Lorcan O’Herlihy Architects of Los Angeles, which will do four apartment buildings; Merge Architects of Boston, for carriage homes and duplexes; and Studio Dwell of Chicago, for townhomes.

The initial Brush Park development will consist of a four-block area designed to be a catalytic neighborhood for Detroit. It’s only a few blocks from the M-1 RAIL line, a 3.3-mile circulating streetcar line under construction along Woodward Ave. that will link Detroit’s CBD, Midtown Detroit and the city’s entertainment district. Additional entities consulted by BPDC on the project include the Ecumenical Theological Seminary, Presbyterian Villages of Michigan, and various city government agencies and other local developers.