• City Club Apartments-Central Business District Detroit to have 288 units
• Other plans include pet shop, market, restaurant
• To be complete by the second quarter next year

A new 288-unit apartment development on a vacant Grand Circus Park site downtown is expected to be ready for partial occupancy late this year.

The City Club Apartments-Central Business District Detroit apartments on the site of the former Statler Hotel is being developed by Farmington Hills-based City Club Apartments, former Village Green Cos. CEO Jonathan Holtzman's new development company.

Construction began in September and is expected to be complete in the second quarter next year.

In addition to the apartments, the new building is expected to include 13,000 square feet of retail space, including a pet store, a restaurant and a gourmet market, according to a news release.

The Statler Hotel opened in 1915 and was demolished in 2005. The site at Washington Boulevard and Park Avenue has sat vacant since. The project has been in the works for several years.

In June, the approximately $70 million development received $1 million in brownfield funding.

In a Thursday interview, Holtzman described City Club Apartments-CDB Detroit as having hotel-like amenities. Among those are an outdoor movie theater, valet parking, concierge services and exercise rooms.

"We tried to make it more dynamic, 24/7. You're moving much closer to that hospitality model vs. the traditional apartment model. This development kind of is an evolution of what we've been doing," Holtzman said.

He said the building will be about 100 feet tall and have a wide variety of unit layouts and styles.

"When the Statler Hotel came down over a decade ago, we lost a great building on one of the most exclusive corners downtown," Mayor Mike Duggan said in a statement. "Now, thanks to City Club Apartments and our partners at the Detroit Economic Growth Corp., this corner will be redeveloped in a way that will allow Detroiters of a range of income levels to call it home."

Twenty percent of the apartments are designated for those making less than the area median income.

In 2016, Holtzman split from Village Green, which is now based in Southfield. The company traces its roots back to Holtzman's grandfather, Joseph. He then founded City Club Apartments with Canadian investor Alan Greenberg. Village Green is now led by CEO Diane Batayeh.

City Club Apartments says it has $2 billion in real estate assets and $500 million under development or construction in Cincinnati, Detroit, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Louisville and along the East Coast.

The general contractor on the Detroit project is Grand Rapids-based Wolverine Building Group; BKV Group, which has offices in Minneapolis, Chicago and Washington, D.C.; and Minneapolis-based Damon Farber Landscape Architects are architects on the project.

Financing is by Huntington Bank, the Bank of Ann Arbor and Comerica Bank. Holtzman said about 80 percent of the project cost is from loans through the banks, while the other 20 percent is from cash equity.

Read full article by Kirk Pinho for Crain's Detroit Business here