$17-million medical center opens in southwest Detroit
Mayor Dave Bing helped to officially open a $17-million state-of-the-art medical center in southwest Detroit.The Community Health and Social Services Center at 5635 W. Fort replaces a cramped 42-year-old clinic that once housed an Oldsmobile dealership. It begins appointments in its new home, next to its old clinic. The health center will offer primary care and dentistry, mental health services, a domestic violence program and nutrition classes. It has 24 exam rooms, four procedure rooms, a six-room dental suite, a pharmacy, a laboratory and wellness center. It also has a 240-seat conference room that can be divided into separate spaces for community meetings; a track, and a kitchen for healthy cooking demonstrations. The extra space will allow the center to nearly double the patients it will serve, from 11,000 last year to more than 30,000 expected in the years ahead, said Dr. Felix Valbuena Jr., the clinic's medical director. He started at the clinic in 1989 as a social worker. He decided to go to medical school and now heads a staff of four doctors, three nurse practitioners and a physician's assistant. CEO J. Ricardo Guzman said the clinic expects to hire 152 full-time workers, up from 75 now.
PwC to move to new site in city
In a major downtown real estate deal, some 650 employees of the PwC US accounting and consulting firm will move later this year from their current office home near Ford Field to the One Detroit Center office tower in downtown's financial district. David Breen, managing partner of PwC's Greater Michigan market, said the firm will take up to three floors in One Detroit Center and will have some naming rights in its new location. Formerly known as PricewaterhouseCoopers, the firm moved into a newly built office building near Ford Field in late 2005 just before Super Bowl XL in February 2006. In the years since, the space configurations required by the firm's national practice standards led the firm to seek a new office home in Detroit.
Toronto firm buys downtown's Penobscot Building
Another major downtown Detroit skyscraper has been sold, and -- surprise! -- the buyer was not Dan Gilbert. Triple Properties, the Toronto-based real estate firm that already owns the Silverdome in Pontiac, bought downtown's historic Penobscot Building last week for a price estimated to be in the $5-million range. "We have witnessed a tremendous amount of start-up activity in Detroit these days," said David Friedman, president and CEO of the Farmington Hills-based real estate firm Friedman that negotiated the sale by Capmark. "We look forward to this building once again playing a significant role in fueling future growth." The 47-story Penobscot was built in the 1920s during the golden age of Detroit skyscraper building from a design by noted architect Wirt Rowland of the firm Smith, Hinchman & Grylls. The building has changed hands several times in the past 20 years. Gilbert, founder and chairman of Quicken Loans, has engaged in a buying spree of downtown's historic office towers in the past year, snapping up the Chase Tower, First National, Dime Building and others. But the Penobscot was not among them, although Gilbert's real estate advisers were among the potential buyers who scouted the Penobscot in recent months. The building is about 45% to 50% occupied with tenants including Strategic Staffing Solutions and Wayne County Friend of the Court.