Fire destroys dilapidated $2.5M house next to Little Caesars Arena
A fire has destroyed a dilapidated house near Little Caesars Arena in Detroit whose owner is one of the last arena district "holdouts" who has not sold their property to the Ilitch family organization.
The fire started in the predawn hours of Monday morning and the house's charred ruins continued to smolder throughout the day.
The two-story wood house, at 2712 Cass Ave., was built in the late 1800s and once had a $5 million price tag, making it the most expensive residence on the market in Detroit in 2017 when the new Red Wings and Pistons arena opened.
However, the asking price was lowered in recent years, most recently to $2.5 million from $3.9 million this spring, according to Shane Parker, broker/owner of S&P Realty in Grosse Pointe Park.
Parker said it's his understanding the house was unoccupied at the time of the fire. He said he and the property's owner are waiting for the Detroit Fire Department to determine the fire's cause.
"We were selling it as vacant land, so I guess nothing changes there. It will still be sold as vacant land listed at $2.5 million," Parker said later Monday morning. “It was due to be demoed at some point, because knocking it down was going to be the only option.”
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The house, which had been damaged in a 2013 electric fire, was once occupied by a caretaker. The house accumulated numerous city of Detroit blight violation tickets over the years.
The heat from the fire Monday also damaged a neighboring District Detroit parking lot attendant booth and pay terminal. Work crews used a crane Monday afternoon to uproot damaged light poles from the lot.
The house's owner has kept a low profile and Parker declined Monday to identify them. Parker also declined to share details about any negotiations concerning the property.
When asked during a January 2020 interview about the prospect of buying the house, the Ilitch organization's Keith Bradford, president of Olympia Development, told the Free Press that "if the price was right, we probably would.”
An Ilitch organization representative on Monday referred all comment about the fire to the Detroit Fire Department.
Detroit Fire Chief of Communications James Harris said the house was unoccupied and the fire is under investigation. The fire was reported shortly before 4 a.m.
Land records show the property on Cass sold for $25,000 in June 2002 to a family partnership composed at the time of six individuals. That sale occurred years before the rumors — ultimately proven true — that the sports venue to replace Joe Louis Arena and the Palace of Auburn Hills would be built in the area.
The Ilitch organization went on to pay nearly $50 million for various privately owned land parcels within the future arena district footprint, a 2014 Free Press investigation found.
Some of those private landowners netted big sums, such as $5 million for a boarded-up liquor and convenience store, Park and Sibley Market, known in the neighborhood as "Ma Pete's."
Detroit City Council also voted in 2014 to transfer 39 publicly owned parcels for $1 to help form the future arena district. (Those parcels went to the Detroit Downtown Development Authority, the arena's actual landlord.)
Records show a $1 real estate transfer for the now-destroyed Cass Avenue house happened in November to a "Scheherazade Love" trust, although Parker said ownership of the house has stayed in the same hands.
The property is currently zoned within a business district, so a future buyer of the property would presumably need a variance if they wished to build another residence there.
Later on Monday, the city's Buildings, Safety Engineering and Environmental Department posted a bright orange "Emergency Demolition Ordered" sign on the house's charred front steps.
Contact JC Reindl: 313-378-5460 or jcreindl@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @jcreindl. Read more on business and sign up for our business newsletter.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Fire destroys dilapidated $2.5M house next to Little Caesars Arena
