College for Creative Studies reveals plan to renovate Argonaut building

The College for Creative Studies in Detroit on Wednesday unveiled details of its $145 million plan to renovate the Argonaut building in time to house an “integrated educational community” in the landmark building by next fall.

Construction and renovation work is already under way at the 11-story, 760,000-square-foot building.

General Motors Corp. donated the building and three nearby properties to CCS. The CCS board of directors approved a proposal for “The Argonaut Project” May 22 and officially received the property on May 29, said College President Richard Rogers.

Funding for the total project will be collected from a combination of tax incentives, a bond sale, private fundraising, bank financing through J.P. Morgan Chase Bank N.A., and some “partner contributions” from schools, businesses and nonprofits that commit to becoming tenants at the Argonaut, Rogers said.

The college has sought to hire a major gifts coordinator to oversee a $50 million capital campaign for the Argonaut Project, but CCS officials said the size of the campaign is still subject to change before a formal announcement on that initiative later this year.

“Both (GM) and the college did a very thorough job of due diligence on this proposal before our decision,” said Gary Cowger, group vice president of global manufacturing and labor relations for GM and a CCS board member. “So the board (at CCS) is very comfortable that the project will be able to go forward in this form and be completed on time.”

Nearly 200 of the 800 employees in GM’s North American design operations are CCS graduates, Cowger said. Many of them work at the General Motors Technical Center in Warren and working on such products as the Buick Enclave, Cadillac CTS coupe, Pontiac G6 and Saturn Aura.

“The property was on the market for some period of time,” Cowger said. “But when we saw the synergies of the features of this building with the space needs of the school, it then seemed like the best feasible use of the property.”

The Argonaut, in Detroit’s New Center area, was designed in 1927 by Albert Kahn and completed in 1936. An historic base of GM’s vehicle design operations, the building has been vacant since 1999 when GM finished relocating to the Renaissance Center.

Albert Kahn Associates Inc., Detroit, is handling architectural design work on the building project, while Jones Lang LaSalle Inc. is a project manager and Larson Realty Group L.L.C. in Bloomfield Hills is acting as developer.

Detroit-based Walbridge Aldinger Co. is general manager of construction on the project.

When finished, the redesigned building will house CCS housing for 261 students, and five design departments now housed at the Walter B. Ford II building on the college’s current campus. It will also house a business incubator for creative industries, and two charter schools for middle and high school students established by the Henry Ford Learning Institute.

Deborah Parizek, executive director of the institute, said the school has not committed to a specific size for either institution and will make a more formal announcement of its own plans later this summer.

“The schools will reflect our commitment to small class sizes and individually focused learning, as well as a focus on the arts and the creative (academic) subjects, in keeping with the theme of the building,” she said.

The school is also courting several nonprofits to become tenants, but at least two such agencies — the YMCA of Metropolitan Detroit and United Way for Southeastern Michigan — have been noncommittal thus far and hope to make a formal decision within a month or so if they have enough information.

A portion of the project's total cost will go to cover some upgrades to CCS' existing campus, between Brush Street and John R, as well as the Argonaut overhaul itself, Rogers said.

“Partner contributions” from nonprofits, retailers and other agencies would probably be proportional based on each institution’s presence within the building, Rogers said. But the school is determined to open by next year.

“When you’re an academic institution, everything that you work to begin is of course set toward opening in September,” Rogers said. “If we didn’t make the timeline to open by fall 2009, the next possible window we could look at to open is in fall 2010, at a lot more cost to us. So, there’s definitely plenty of motivation to get finished on time.”

http://crainsdetroit.com/article/20080618/REG/746803116/-1

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College for Creative Studies reveals plan to renovate Argonaut building