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Rowe Building

Dining / Office / Residential

With its temporary name of "The 500 Block Project", the Rowe Building project is mixed-use in every sense of the phrase. When finished, this building will house two restaurants, and nightclub, office space, and will even have 8 loft apartments on the top floor.

The building will be created by combining the former PSI building, the Carlton building, and Jewelry World, and adding floors to make all three of them four stories. After reconstruction Jewerly World will have a mostly glass facade and will contain catwalks connecting the other two buildings.

The first floor will be host to a brew pub and a Brazillian steakhouse. A nightclub will be located in the basement of the Carlton. The [url=]Blue Collar Gourmet[/url] ([url=]Redwood Lodge[/url]) is the group bringing these new dining spots to the project.

[url=]Rowe Incorporated[/url] - an engineering and surveying company (among other things) - will occupy the second and third floors for a combined 30,000 square feet of office space. Close to 100 of their 135 employees will be moved to the new offices which have been leased for the next 10 years.

On the top floor of the complex, the eight apartments ranging from 1,500 to 2,500 sq. ft. will feature 18-foot high ceilings over the living area. Two prospective tenants had put down payments on lofts even before preliminary demolition work was complete.

Overall, the project is expected to create 100 jobs in addition to the jobs brought by Rowe. Interior demolition started at the beginning of February 2006 and a "start of construction" celebration was held on March 24 with an appearance by Gov. Jennifer Granholm. Most of the demolition and clean up work was done by the time of the celebration.

In the months leading up to around late May or early June, the facades will be removed from the buildings and then steel will go in for the additional floors.