The Torgows have expanded their footprint next to the Joe Louis Arena site.

Last month, an affiliate of the family’s Detroit-based Sterling Group development company paid an estimated $5.5 million for more than three acres of west Detroit riverfront land from Detroit developer Peter Cummings, according to Wayne County land records. GRR Associates LLC, the buyer, is registered to Eli Halpern, Sterling Group’s general counsel.

The site, located at 701 W. Jefferson Ave. and 811 W. Jefferson Ave., is sandwiched between the site the Torgows are developing with high-end residential and hotel space and the Riverfront Towers apartment and condominium complex. Plans for it are not known. The listing also included marina rights. 

Attempts to reach the Sterling Group were not successful. Cummings, through the same spokesperson, declined comment.

Earlier this year, Sterling Group, which is run by Gary Torgow’s children, completed the Residences at Water Square, a 25-story, nearly 500-unit apartment tower with some eye-popping rents on the former Joe Louis Arena property. And within months, they started construction on a companion tower there, also 25 stories, that is slated to host a convention-style hotel with some 600 rooms under the JW Marriott flag. 

Detroit-based O’Connor Real Estate had the listing, which was part of a series of properties Cummings’ Detroit-based The Platform LLC listed for sale in November.

The others were the 4.34-acre former Joe Muer restaurant site between Gratiot Avenue and St. Aubin Street next to the Dequindre Cut; a nearly 1-acre site at East Baltimore and John R Road in the Milwaukee Junction neighborhood; and the 1.1-acre site of a former Big Boy restaurant at East Jefferson Avenue and East Grand Boulevard in the Islandview neighborhood across from Belle Isle.

The East Jefferson site sold to an unknown buyer for $537,500 last month.