Barclay Inn, Condemned in 2010, Begins Falling This Month

A former hotel at a prime intersection will start to come down this month, four years after the Barclay Inn's last guests checked out. The city's last September obtained a court decree condemning the vacant, foreclosed property on the southeast corner of Woodward and Maple as an eyesore.    

Demolition arrangements are in a final stage, with a "final site logistics meeting with the contractor tentatively scheduled for July 14," said Bruce Johnson, Building Department manager.

Blue Star Inc. of Warren, the contractor hired to tear down the hotel, is in the process of obtaining a city demolition permit and approval from the Michigan Department of Transportation. MDOT's approval is needed because the work will block angled vehicle spaces along the curb on Woodward, a state route that includes the service drive parking area.

No new project for the choice corner has been proposed for city review, Planning Director Jana Ecker said. TCF Bank, which owns the foreclosed site, has received a purchase offer from an unnamed developer envisioning a multistory mixed-use builiding, added Ecker, though she said she's unsure whether that would be an office-retail complex or a project with residential units.  

Scott Krall of Blue Star, which was hired by the bank's Livonia regional office to tear down the hotel, said he is waiting for "the last gas shutoff clearance from Consumers Power."

Mesh screening will be added to chain-link fencing around the site to satisfy city requirements, Krall said.

Workers have hauled away guest room furniture for donation to The Salvation Army and are salvaging copper fixtures and other materials with recycling value.

The 124-room hotel, formerly a Holiday Inn Express, was built in 1958 and was renovated in 2000. A motel-style wing with two floors wraps around two sides of the five-story main tower. The building also has a small exercise room and breakfast restaurant.

The no-frills lodging, rated three stars in travel guides, was particularly popular during the Woodward Dream Cruise weekend and preceding days each August. Rooms sold out as far as a year ahead as the hotel alongside the legendary strip became a gathering spot for Corvette owners' clubs from several states.

It was owned by a subsidiary of Pomeroy Investment Corp. of Bloomfield Hills until TCF Bank acquired it in December, city records show.

Demolition will be gradual, not a dramatic collapse triggered by explosives. Three to four cranelike machines called hydraulic excavators, including one with a long boom reaching the top floors, will reduce rooms to rubble. Water from hydrants will be sprayed to minimize dust.

Blue Star will deploy a wrecking crew of six to eight men, not counting truckers carting away debris, said Krall. He expects a four-week destruction phase, followed by another month of site clearance and restoration to a grass field by September.

A lane on eastbound Maple Road will be closed "for several hours for safety and working room when we reach the first floor," the contractor's representative added. "We'll try to do that on a Sunday morning."

The teardown project is Birmingham's largest since a 1912 school was razed in the fall of 2008 to clear the way for just south of downtown. In 1999 on North Old Woodward, a Crowley's Department Store branch came down to be replaced by the theater and retail building.