Royal Oak's 400 Parent Ave. Lofts wins awards for innovation, reuse

Monday, February 22, 2010 | Source: metromode
The 400 Parent Avenue Lofts are garnering a little more excitement for Royal Oak, taking in two awards highlighting a creative and innovative reuse of an existing building.

The loft project is located in Royal Oak's Warehouse District, just south of downtown. The developer took an old lumber warehouse and turned it into eight residential lofts. Such adaptive reuse allowed the building, designed by Michael Poris and John Skok of Birmingham-based McIntosh Poris Associates, to be named "Best Loft Building" by Detroit Home magazine. It received a 2009 Honor Award from the Detroit Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. The award notes that the developer took "a building that appears to have no redeeming value and gives it life with minimum of means."

"Giving new life to a building with a different use is exciting," Michael Poris said in a prepared statement. "This was a small lumber warehouse, built in the 1960s, set on the edge of a neighborhood. As Parent Avenue Lofts, it becomes part of the neighborhood, transitioning what was once an industrial outskirt into an extension of the community. We were able to take something that had outlived its purpose and make it useful."

The current 14,500-square-foot building features two-story units that come with many of the true loft amenities, such as exposed duct work, 21-foot-high ceilings, metal roof trusses, cement flooring on the ground level, and open, flexible spaces. They also have some sustainable features, like tankless water heaters and pyramidal skylights.

The developer also removed the original front of the building because it lacked windows and replaced it with private-entry doors and bay windows for each unit. It combined the building's industrial heritage with its current modern residential use. The interior also features other post-industrial/residential touches like custom concrete countertops and metal-and-wood staircases.

Source: Laura Grover, spokeswoman for 400 Parent Avenue Lofts
Writer: Jon Zemke
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Downtown Living, Environment, Green Building, Housing, Oakland County, Redevelopment, Sustainability 

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