The new RH building is next door to a new mixed-use building anchored by JP Morgan Chase & Co., which is building out a $17 million new office as part of Birmingham-based developer Ron Boji’s $80 million, 135,000-square-foot, four-story building at 370 Brown St.; also under construction.
Whenever RH’s precise grand opening happens this year, it’ll be a red-letter day for the retailer, whose efforts to build a new marquee store in what is perhaps Southeast Michigan’s swankiest downtown have survived setback after setback dating back to at least 2019.
Nearly six years ago, Birmingham voters scotched a $57.4 million bond proposal to pay for a parking deck on a different downtown site, effectively killing what at the time was a $140 million mixed-use development that RH would have anchored at Old Woodward and Bates.
Other components of that plan included 30 rental residential units, 25,000 square feet of office space and a total of about another 10,000 square feet of retail space across multiple buildings. In addition, there would have been 1,159 parking spaces and a 530-foot extension of Bates Street to the northeast.
With that proposal dead, RH turned its attention to the current downtown site across from the Daxton Hotel at Old Woodward and Brown. The property had been home to Capital Tile, Lutz Financial Services, Roche Bobois, Frank’s Shoe Service and Coldwell Banker Weir Manuel.
There, RH sought to build its 54,000-square-foot store, which is slated to have a restaurant on top, plus underground parking.
The revived plan became public in March 2021. Several months later, RH had its site plan approval. It also needed rezoning and lot splits during the municipal approval process.
But with those secured, the buildings on the property then started coming down, leading to excavation and foundation pouring.
Construction halted for about a year amid a major redesign and then resumed in the fall 2023.