The Michigan Strategic Fund officially approved Tuesday a more than $231.7 million transformational brownfield plan for the planned $3 billion development between Henry Ford Health, the Detroit Pistons and Michigan State University in Detroit’s New Center neighborhood.
The Detroit City Council originally approved the plan in February.
The plan will give the developers the $231.7 million in tax revenue reimbursement over 35 years.
The incentives will go toward several parts of the development, now called the Future of Health development, that include the planned HFH and MSU Research Center; the residential and commercial projects on the grounds of the current HFH headquarters in New Center; as well as a six-story parking garage on the grounds. The total brownfield development is projected at $773 million.
HFH has not, at least yet, sought public tax incentives for its planned $2.5 billion hospital tower across West Grand Boulevard from its legacy hospital in the city.
The incentives include a local and school property tax capture of $117.4 million; state tax capture of $44 million and the rest in a capture of income and withholding taxes, as well as sales and use tax exemptions.
The state justifies the incentives package due to the project creating an estimated 735 full-time jobs.
The Future of Health project marks the largest development in Detroit’s history, and re-envisions the neighborhood surrounding the century-old Henry Ford Hospital spans multiple blocks south of West Grand Boulevard on both sides of the John C. Lodge Freeway/M-10.
Big plans, big partnership
What’s included in the vision of a newly announced team-up of Henry Ford Health, Detroit Pistons owner Tom Gores and Michigan State University targeting redevelopment of the New Center neighborhood surrounding Henry Ford Hospital.
1. New Henry Ford Hospital tower
2. Henry Ford Detroit Pistons Performance Center
3. Henry Ford Health Center for Athletic Medicine
4. One Ford Place Lofts (repurposed mixed-use residential)
5. Mixed use residential and retail
6. Parking structure
7. Henry Ford Health/Michigan State University Research Facility
HFH, the Detroit Pistons and MSU announced the development in February last year. Plans include a 154-unit, $79 million new apartment building; a new $54 million, 105-unit apartment building; and a $189 million proposed redevelopment of HFH’s headquarters One Ford Place into 403 units of housing. Tom Gores, owner of Platinum Equity and the Detroit Pistons, are set to take over Henry Ford Health’s existing headquarters in New Center.
Overall, the buildings would have 311 studios averaging 540 square feet, with 63 of them being considered affordable; 288 one-bedroom units averaging 749 square feet, with 57 of them being considered affordable; and 63 two-bedroom units averaging 1,076 square feet, with 133 of them being considered affordable.
The new hospital tower, which is expected to open in 2029, is projected to be a 21-floor, 1.2 million-square-foot hospital with 877 patient rooms. Demolition of the former Health Alliance Plan building will begin this spring to make way for the tower.
In September, Dan and Jennifer Gilbert and their Gilbert Family Foundation announced a contribution of $375 million for the creation of a 72-bed, state-of-the-art physical medicine and rehabilitation facility and neurofibromatosis research center to the hospital tower. It would be managed by Shirley Ryan AbilityLab of Chicago.
The hospital campus will include the construction of 1.84 million square feet of new space, including a new $203.3 million, 150,000-square-foot shared services building.
Additionally, the development includes a $335 million biomedical research center. MSU will own the seven-story, 335,000-square-foot facility and jointly fund and operate it with Henry Ford Health. Construction on the research center near the intersection of Amsterdam Street and Third Avenue is expected to begin in mid-May and wrap up in time for a 2027 opening, MSU said.
