Hotel Eddystone

The Hotel Eddystone is a former hotel owned by the famed Lew Tuller at Sproat Street and Park Avenue in Detroit, Michigan. The tower, adjacent to the new Little Caesars Arena, is slated for redevelopment into apartments and first-floor retail.







The Hotel Eddystone was the first of three residential hotels built on Park Avenue by Lew Tuller. 1 Designed by Louis Kamper in the Italian Renaissance style, the 13-story, 156-room hotel opened in December 1924. Two other residential hotels owned by Tuller, the 13-story, 250-room Park Avenue Hotel, and the 13-story, 180-room Royal Palms, opened in 1925 near the Eddystone. The three facilities cost Tuller nearly $8 million. 1 5

The onset of the Great Depression and competition led Tuller to struggle financially. The Eddystone was foreclosed in 1928 and ownership fell to David Katz who operated the hotel until it was discovered that Katz was operating a fraudulent operation in 1966. 1

Due to racial tensions that cumulated in violent riots, industrial restructuring, the loss of thousands of jobs in the automobile industry, and rapid suburbanization in the middle of the 20th century, Detroit began to rapidly contract. The city’s population peaked at 1.85 million in 1950 and by 1970, it had dropped to 1.51 million.

The Michigan Veterans Foundation reopened the Eddystone as a shelter in August 1992, 3 where homeless military veterans could live while getting counseling and information on employment and substance abuse. 2 3 The hotel was forced to close on September 17, 1993, after the Foundation was unable to pay its utility bills or the mortgage.

With the construction of the Little Ceasar’s Arena adjacent to the Eddystone, the Ilitch family announced on May 26, 2017, that the abandoned hotel would be converted into 96 apartments and first-floor retail. 1 4


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Further Reading


Sources

  1. Austin, Dan. “Hotel Eddystone.” Historic Detroit, 2018. Article.
  2. Johnson, L.A. “Shelter for homeless vets to close its doors tonight.” Detroit Free Press, 17 Sept. 1993, p. 1B-4B.
  3. Jones, Stephen. “Veterans to receive shelter, support.” Detroit Free Press, 5 Aug. 1992, p. 1B.
  4. Reindl, J.C. “A look at District Detroit plans near arena.” Detroit Free Press, 3 Sept. 2017, p. 13A.
  5. “Tuller Adds New Link to ‘Home-Hotel’ Chain.” Detroit Free Press, 3 May. 1925, p. 5.17.

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