Ford sells Dearborn office building to developer eyeing mixed-use plans
Posted By: The Detroit News on November 4, 2022. For more information, please click here to read the source article.
Ford Motor Co. this week sold its Regent Court office building in Dearborn to a local real-estate developer who is planning a mixed-use redevelopment of the property.
Mike Shehadi, CEO of Farmington Hills-based pharmacy company PharmaScript, confirmed Friday that he purchased the building at 16800 Executive Plaza Dr. In the coming months, he plans to come up with a concrete redevelopment plan and financing to convert the roughly 670,000-square-foot office building and the 34-acre property on which it’s located (which Shehadi also owns) into a mixed-use site.
The sale first was reported by Crain’s Detroit Business. Shehadi told Crain’s he paid less than $20 million for the building.
Shehadi said firm plans are still to be determined, as he plans to consult the building’s designer and is in negotiations to acquire other nearby property. But he is looking to convert the building — which is empty — into a mix of residential and office space, with townhouses tentatively planned for vacant land behind Regent Court.
“There is a shortage of housing in the city of Dearborn, Dearborn Heights,” he said. “There is a huge demand for it.”
Shehadi — who said he and his wife are the the sole investors in the property — and Ford Land, Ford’s real estate arm, declined to disclose the selling price.
Gabrielle Poshadlo, a spokesperson for Ford Land, said via email that the building was completed in 1990 and has been home to various Ford teams over the years.
“Ford regularly reviews its global portfolio to ensure our campuses and facilities enable our business objectives and provide a great environment and experience for our teams. As part of that review, we continue to consolidate our teams to optimize collaboration with modern facilities while divesting non-core sites,” she said. “This includes our Dearborn footprint where we are building a more cohesive campus while exiting properties that are no longer needed such as Regent Court.”
Ford is in the midst of a major renovation of its Dearborn campus. As part of that effort, the automaker has shifted employees to a handful of “collaboration centers,” leading it to offload some unused office buildings in its portfolio. The company has a flexible hybrid work model in place for many of its salaried workers.
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