A downtown Detroit apartment conversion has netted more than $11.6 million in public financing.

The 80-unit Reckmeyer project by Detroit-based Basco of Michigan, run by Roger Basmajian, on Tuesday received Michigan Strategic Fund approval for an $8.22 million Michigan Community Revitalization Program loan and brownfield tax-increment financing of $3.46 million.  

The project will convert and add on to three existing buildings on Broadway Street north of Gratiot Avenue in the Paradise Valley neighborhood in downtown Detroit, to create a new nine-story, mid-rise building. The new portion would be set back about 18 feet, delineating between the old and new portions of the structures.

The project, expected to cost $37.9 million, is more than a decade in the making. 

In June 2014, Dan Gilbert had an agreement with the DDA to buy the properties but never executed. Two years later, a Basco affiliate, Broadway Detroit Development II, won a 2016 Detroit Economic Growth Corp. request for proposals for the 1326 and 1332-1336 Broadway St. buildings north of Gratiot Avenue.

“This has been a long, long process,” Roger Basmajian, who runs Basco, said Tuesday. “We are excited to break ground.”

That’s anticipated in September, followed by 18 months or so of construction. 

Some of the building facades would be fully restored, but others would be demolished under the proposal, Basmajian told Crain’s last July.

The project is named after the fur clothing business that had originally been in one of the buildings, Basmajian said. 

According to an MSF board briefing document, Basco has “maximized traditional financing” at $13.8 million and is bringing a little more than $4 million in equity to the table. Other financing includes a $4.3 million Public Act 210 tax abatement, a $4.275 million Revitalization and Placemaking award, and other Detroit Economic Growth Corp. funding in the form of a $6.75 million Downtown Development Authority loan.

The memo says that the 20-year return is expected to be 5.3% for the development team and its investors. 

Twenty percent of the 80 apartments would be set aside for those making 60% of the Area Median Income, and close to 6,500 square feet of commercial space is planned on the ground level. 

Detroit-based Kraemer Design Group is the project architect while the general contractor is Sterling Heights-based Roncelli Inc.