The Eddystone is one of three hotels on Park Avenue designed by Louis Kamper for Lew Tuller; the other two are the Royal Palm at 2305 Park Avenue and the former Park Avenue Hotel at 2643 Park Avenue. All three are on the National Register of Historic Places. The Park Avenue Hotel was demolished in 2015. The Eddystone was the first of these hotels to be built. Tuller had already other hotels, and by the early 1920s the northern portion of Park Avenue looked like an ideal place to expand his hotel empire. Tuller hired Louis Kamper to design the hotelon the corner of Park Avenue and Sproat, and the building was constructed in 1924. The hotel had 312 rooms, most of which were rented monthly. Tuller, however, had overextended himself financially in building his hotels, and in 1928 lost all three Park Avenue hotels. Financier David P. Katz purchased the building, and owned it until 1966. However, the area surrounding the Eddystone became more impoverished, and as the neighborhood's fortunes declined so did the Eddystone's. It continued in operation as a residential hotel until the late 1990s, when it was abandoned.
Multiple failed redevelopment attempts
In 2005, plans to convert the Eddystone into 60 condominiums with street-level retail space were announced by then Michigan Governor Jennifer M. Granholm. In August 2010, work was being carried out on the site to secure the lower floors of the building by bricking up the windows. However, the planned renovation never occurred, and the building continued to sit vacant. In 2015, Olympia Entertainment, the real estate segment of the Marian Ilitch-owned Ilitch Holdings, began construction on the Little Caesars Arena near the Eddystone. As part of the development, the Park Avenue Hotel was demolished, and Olympia was required to redevelop the Eddystone, which sits just outside the footprint of the new arena. The 2015 agreement specified that Olympia had to finish redevelopment of the Eddystone within one year of the issuance of a certificate of occupancy for Little Caesars Arena, which was issued on September 12, 2017. Olympia failed to comply with the requirement, as construction had not even started by August 2018.
Description
The Eddystone Hotel is a thirteen-story, rectangular, Renaissance Revivalsteel frame building, clad with brick, limestone, and terra cotta. The first and second stories are clad with limestone, and the upper floors are clad with yellow brick. A denticulated cornice separates the second and third floors, and another terra cotta beltcourse separates the eleventh and twelfth floors. Decorative terra cotta elements are used around the windows on the third, fourth, and twelfth floors, and a terra cotta cornice caps the building. The main facade is seven bays wide, with the five center bays containing paired windows on each floor and the end bays containing a single window in the third to thirteenth stories. On the lower floors, the center bays contain large arches, the center one of which contains the entrance. The outer bays contain storefront entrances. Through the main entrance is a small vestibule that leads to the main lobby in the center of the building. Elevators and stairwells lead to the upper floors. The upper floors still have the original room layout, with rooms located on three sides of the building and the elevators, main hallway and stairwells located on the fourth.
