Quicken Loans Employee Relocation Makes Detroit Reconsider Its Housing Options

By Veronica Grecu, Associate Editor

Detroit’s former Trolley Plaza apartment building, located at 1431 Washington Boulevard, has been rebranded as Detroit City Apartments, according to the Detroit Free Press. Opened in 1981, the Trolley Plaza building was later renamed as Washington Square and, in 2009, it was purchased by national multi-family apartment company Village Green of Farmington Hills, which then began renovating and upgrading the facility.

The 351-unit property offers a wide range of amenities such as a Sky Park and a Sky Club, a concierge, an outdoor swimming pool, a tennis court and a fitness center. The renovations designed by Ron and Roman, LLC and Damon Farber Associates lead to as many as 10 different floor plans with units ranging from 640 to over 1,000 square feet and rents from $675 to $1,720 per month.

During the inaugural ceremony, Village Green CEO Jonathan Holtzman pointed out that more and more young professionals encouraged to relocate by companies such as Quicken Loans are heading towards downtown Detroit in search for a place to live—and many of them will choose places like Detroit City Apartments as their homes.

In fact Quicken Loans has recently announced that another 1,500 employees will be relocated in Detroit and this move is expected to trigger a significant economic boost in the area. Surprisingly enough, the city’s residential inventory is not quite ready to absorb the incoming population. In a recent article Crain’s Detroit Business Quicken Loans founder Dan Gilbert said that this is an opportunity to create more places to live.