- Neighborhood Development
- New Construction
- Adaptive Reuse
- Hospitality
- Other
- Core City
- Detroit
- Texas
- New York
5K
5K, named for the building's address, converted a 13,500 sf, abandoned, 1950s grocery store into a build-to-suit company HQ around three courtyards.
This was not the renovation of a tired, but architecturally significant gem - bringing an icon back to life with cosmetic surgery - this was genetic engineering. We transformed the building's DNA.
We worked with Ishtiaq Rafiuddin of UNDECORATED Architects, to figure out how to solve - what we believe will become - a larger problem. How do you approach the renovation (as opposed to demolition) of a totally derelict, not architecturally significant, building? The result, 5000 Grand River - a new species.
The project was completed in November 2020.

5K Logo by Lafayette/American

5K - NE corner of Grand River and Warren, just South of the Grand Trunk Rail Line (Rafael Gamo, 2021)

5000 Grand River, before beginning work (Chris Miele, 2018)

5K, 16th St entrance (Rafael Gamo, 2021)
5K exists on its own little island sandwiched between the Grand Trunk rail-line (to the North), Warren (to the South), Grand River (to the West) and (16th St to the East). 5K is the Northern border of our property holdings in Core City and the only property we hold North of Warren.

5K, situated North of Warren, just across from the Grand River Block (Chris Miele, 2023)

5K in context (Rafael Gamo, 2021)

Looking SE down Grand River w/ 5K on the Left (Rafael Gamo, 2021)
Records on the property date back to 1897, when it served as the O.W. Shipman Wood & Coal Yard and Sinclair J. T. Co. Coal until 1953.
In 1953, post-war Detroit was booming. The city was growing, fast. Quick, utilitarian - not architecturally significant - structures were being built to service the growing and financially viable population. In that same year, 5K was built as King Cole Super Market.

5K as a coal yard in the 1940s (Wayne State Library)

5K, occupying the NE corner of Grand River and Warren before work (Chris Miele, 2018)

5K, as we renovated (Chris Miele, 2019)

5K, current (Chris Miele, 2022)
In 1965, during the city's peak, the Detroit Institute of Meat Cutting took over the back half of 5K and Paul R Salomon, a wholesale distributor of "all sorts of odds and ends, including saddles and fishing gear," owned the building and operated in the front. Commerce, vitality!
After the 1967 riots/revolts, which dealt the Grand River & Warren intersection a huge blow, the building and its businesses struggled. Detroit's population began to dwindle.
When we purchased the building in July of 2014, it had sat in disrepair for over two decades.
5K is the comprehensive story of 20th and early 21st century Detroit: an industrial boom (Coal Yard) led to a financial and population boom (Super Market, Butchery School, Vibrant Retail), whose roots were not deep and eventually led to a bust. What was built to quickly service boom, didn't take time to consider true architectural quality and was eventually abandoned and left to fend for itself.
Our renovation continues this Detroit narrative....

Front corner of 5K after the 1967 riots.

5K in 2009 (Google)

5K in 2019, our work just starting... (Google)

Paul Salomon came to speak to Lafayette / American about the building and area in August of 2022. He couldn't believe what the building became (Philip Kafka).

Paul R Salomon and Philip Kafka in 5K August 2022 (Randy Pardy)

5K when we purchased it (Philip Kafka, 2014)

The condition we discovered in the building + a WC Bevan (Philip Kafka, 2014)

Decades of deferred maintainence (Philip Kafka, 2014)

One day everyone left and never came back (Philip Kafka, 2014)

5K around purchase (2013) and today (2023) (Google)

Around when our work began (Philip Kafka, 2014)

5K, Today. From Grand River (Rafael Gamo, 2021)
Today, the building is a 13,500 SF creative office oasis, the HQ for Lafayette American, Detroit's largest and certainly most pioneering independent advertising agency.

Courtyard entrance (Rafael Gamo, 2021)

Lobby flanked by two courtyards (Rafael Gamo, 2021)

Lobby, lived-in by Lafayette/American (Chris Miele, 2024)

Bright, inspired work space (Rafael Gamo, 2021)

We left what was untouched, giving the fresh spaces a feeling of being "established" and "significant" (Chris Miele, 2024)

Views of Grand River and Warren, but privacy from the street life (Chris Miele, 2024)

Work inside, but always connected to the outside (Chris Miele, 2024)

Work spaces surround lush courtyards (Chris Miele, 2024)

Respite attached to the workplace (Chris Miele, 2024)

Vibrant, verdant (Chris Miele, 2024)

Company lunches connected to courtyards (Chris Miele, 2024)

Park in a garden and walk into work (Chris Miele, 2022)

5K - As Built. Originally Bloomscape HQ designed by M1DTW, now Lafayette American
Converting an awkward, flat, insignificant (if generous), ugly and poorly proportioned (if honest) building, whose original objective was to service immense demand in a booming 1953 Detroit, into a building that needed to create demand, in a mostly vacant 2014 Core City, required more than a renovation, it required an idea.
Ish and I had been working together and we shared an interest in crafting quality spaces, with generous natural light and significant landscape; we decided to bring light and landscape to the center of the building, a section that hadn't seen either of these God given amenities.
We also had a secret weapon, Landscape Architect, Julie Bargmann, a wizard.
The building needed an entirely new roof and metal deck - a liability? No, an opportunity.
With all this, we were able to transform what should have been a basic renovation project, into a total genetic reengineering of a building. What would normally have been a demolition, became a renovation, which became an architecture project, which became a landscape project.
The result was the consequence of many late night conversations and studio sessions. A true intellectual exploration into how we could turn just something no-one saw the value in into something very special.

5K from the Corner of Grand River and Warren, 2018, Chris Miele

Sharing ideas - Bargmann and Kafka (Randy Pardy, 2018)

Rafiuddin and Bargmann work with the model in the foreground (Randy Pardy, 2018)

Passionate, productive, late night studio sessions over the 5K model (Randy Pardy, 2018)

Rafiuddin worked himself to sleep, often. Late nights at the Prince Concepts studio (Philip Kafka, 2018)
To elaborate, to get light, nature and wonderment into this flat, utilitarian structure, sections of the removed roof were never replaced, creating three courtyards.

Kafka, Chavarria and Saad assess the roof conditions before beginning the heavy lifting (Chris Miele, 2019)

Decades of a bad roof led to a bad deck (Chris Miele, 2019)







5K - NE corner of Grand River and Warren, just South of the Grand Trunk Rail Line (Rafael Gamo, 2021)
The courtyards made dark, low quality space bright and desirable. A previously dead building, now full of life.
But, it wasn't just the light we created with the courtyards, it's also what we did inside of them.
Julie built her plan around the ancient Gingko tree; we planted 28 of them across the three courtyards. Then, instead of demolishing the original terrazzo floor, we carefully cut it into tiles and benches and repurposed them as the ground steppers and benches within the courtyards.
The result is a sort of organized chaos of ancient trees, considered ground cover and repurposed history which come together to create special, relevant, generous, lush, green spaces.









Picnic courtyard w/ terrazzo floor repurposed as benches and floor tiles (Chris Miele, 2024)
From the inside, large windows frame lush, green, living works of art.

Bright and green (Chris Miele, 2024)

Conference room on the courtyard (Chris Miele, 2024)

Perfect lunch spot (Chris Miele, 2024)

(Rafael Gamo, 2021)
The 17,000 SF of land that was sandwiched between the building and the Grand Trunk Rail-line, became our first study as a PARK(ing) lot: 30 maple trees, 20 parking spaces and all organic pervious materials as ground cover.

PARK(ing) behind 5K (Chris Miele, 2022)


Even our trades trucks looked good in the landscaped lot (Philip Kafka, 2020)

A busy spring day fills the PARK(ing) lot and both sides of 15th st (Chris Miele, 2023)

The back lot when we bought the building (Philip Kafka, 2015)

We love our fall colors (Chris Miele, 2024)
The path to an inspired building wasn't simple or direct. We had to begin by cleaning and taking inventory of the assets the building offered.
We took the entire building apart only to carefully reassemble it, needing to elevate, and really use, what was left.

Beginning.... (Philip Kafka, 2017)

After we began to clean (Philip Kafka, 2017)

The space, stripped, with original mezzanine shown (Philip Kafka, 2018)

Beginning to explore and excavate (Philip Kafka, 2018)

Ish assessing a backside opening for views of the train (Philip Kafka, 2019)

5K, backside, after clean-up & light work began (Chris Miele, 2018)

5K, backside, after heavy lifting (Chris Miele, 2023)

Excavating on the inside (Chris Miele, 2019)

Beginning to create footings for the walls surrounding the courtyards (Chris Miele, 2019)

Footings in (Chris Miele, 2019)

Courtyards begin to take shape (Chris Miele, 2019)

Carmelo and Kafka explore the excavations (Randy Pardy, 2019)
Working in the building birthed insights and informed the final design.
The back of the building already had a mezzanine and therefore had a roof that was 1' higher. We finished off that back section of the building by extending the existing mezzanine into a full second story.
This gave us back most of the interior square footage that the courtyards took away.

The space, stripped, with original mezzanine shown (Philip Kafka, 2018)

The slightly raised roof, in the back of the building, presented an opportunity... (Chris Miele, 2019)

Rafiuddin and Kafka work with builders, Kyle Reiss and Jim Saad to assess and solve the 5K riddle (Randy Pardy, 2019)

Steel is steel. New meets old to make a full second story (Chris Miele, 2019)

Existing meets new (Chris Miele, 2019)

Grey steel was what was new and red steel is what was existing (Chris Miele, 2019)

A full second story (Chris Miele, 2019)

Kafka and Rafiuddin walk on the new second story (Randy Pardy, 2019)

(Chris Miele, 2021)

Upstairs loft space (Chris Miele, 2021)

Sit and enjoy the view of the Grand Trunk Rail Line (Chris Miele, 2021)

View from upstairs into a courtyard (Philip Kafka, 2024)

Bright, clean, raw and yet refined (Chris Miele, 2021)
After excavation and removal of concrete, we began to open the building up.
Very quickly, dark spaces became inviting and inspired. Although complicated, counter intuitive, and daunting the work was working, the space was feeling better and brighter with every step.

Carmelo begins to open up the Grand River facade (Chris Miele, 2019)

We installed a few courses of block in the old storefronts and then placed glazing above them to give light and privacy (Chris Miele, 2019)

Opened up and coming together (Chris Miele, 2019)

(Chris Miele, 2019)

Old block + steel + bright greenery, perfect! (Philip Kafka, 2019)

No wood was used in the building - all steel and concrete (Chris Miele 2019)

Steel studs sit on top of the new block footings we created to surround the courtyards (Chris Miele, 2019)

(Chris Miele, 2019)

(Chris Miele, 2019)

With the trees planted and the courtyards complete, we clad the interior with corrugated metal (Chris Miele, 2020)

Brightness (Chris Miele, 2020)

Already feeling special (Chris Miele, 2020)

(Chris Miele, 2020)

Standing in the sun from one courtyard looking into the other two (Chris Miele, 2020)

5K (Chris Miele, 2020)

Victor Chavarria - head of construction for Prince Concepts - takes a well deserved moment of rest (Chris Miele, 2019)
5K was originally designed to be a 12 unit multi-family project surrounding interior courtyards. A little village within aged walls. Bold, ambitious, inspired, but the plan didn't make good use of our existing assets - raw space and an existing second story that could be expanded. Cutting the building up into tiny spaces, negated what we already had.
We redesigned and permitted a renovated building with 8 apartments, 3 large commercial studio/work spaces, one tiny retail kiosk, and three beautifully landscaped introverted courtyards.
The plan for the building and design of the courtyards was so inspired it compelled a 50+ person company in Downtown Detroit to Lease the entire building and make it their HQ. They wanted to be in 5K, but they wanted all of it... We changed plans and finished building as a 13,500 SF HQ for Bloomscape in November of 2020.

Original 12 unit plan by Ishtiaq Rafiuddin (2017)

A building as a village... (UNDECORATED)

The building was permitted as 8 apartments in the back and large commercial spaces the front (UNDECORATED)

The upstairs was three loft style apartments (UNDECORATED)

5K - As Built. Originally Bloomscape HQ designed by M1DTW, now Lafayette American
Our favorite addition to the building, a bench on the Grand River exterior next to the bus stop. We love public space!

The bus stop before the bench (Google)

Building as bus stop bench (Philip Kafka, 2023)
We worked like crazy to make this building something special, but the most amazing feature already existed - the train rolling by like a river...

Views from upstairs perfectly frame the train rolling by... (Philip Kafka, 2020)
Train rolling by like the river.... (Philip Kafka, 2020)
That's 5K.

When we started (Philip Kafka, 2015)




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Address
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Design Architect
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Architect of Record
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Interior Architect
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Scope
13,500 SF Building Renovation
17,000 PARK(ing) lot
58 trees planted
1 creative HQ
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Awards
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Press & Media
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Status
Owned by Prince Concepts and leased to Lafayette American
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