JACKSON, MI – The city of Jackson has sold the historic Hayes Hotel building, hoping this time it will bring some life to the long-vacant building.
The Jackson City Council voted unanimously to sell the property for $25,000 to J. Jeffers & Co. in a Tuesday, April 5 meeting. The Milwaukee-based developer is planning a $27.2-million development to rehabilitate the 10-story building, officials said. Councilwoman Laura Dwyer Schlecte, Ward 4, was absent from the meeting.
“The Hotel Hayes development will be a tremendous project for the city,” Anchor Initiative CEO Scott Fleming said. “With the approved sale, downtown Jackson will experience a major economic impact.”
The Anchor Initiative has worked with the city in this most recent attempt to make the property viable again. Attempts by the city to sell the building in the past have not come to fruition.
However, these current plans for the buildingat 228 W. Michigan Ave. will create roughly 84 to 91 market-rate apartments, Fleming said. The apartments will be a mix of studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom units.
There also has been conversations of utilizing some of the apartments as Airbnb’s, which would provide some “hotel use” to the former hotel, Fleming said. An event center, retail and restaurant spaces are also expected to be on the first two floors of the building, he said.
The Hayes Hotel opened in November 1926, with a restaurant, a lounge, a grand ballroom and ornate fixtures throughout.
Related: Peek Through Time: Grand, glamorous Hayes Hotel drew out-of-towners, locals to downtown Jackson
However, it closed under mounting debt in 1975. Consumers Energy, which had purchased the building for $225,000 in 1973, converted the building, which was next door to its then headquarters, into office space.
The city bought the hotel property and its surrounding parking lots from Consumers Energy for $1.5 million in 2000. It also purchased the now-demolished Consumers Energy headquarters building and its parking lots for $300,000 in 2004, making the city’s total purchase price of the properties $1.8 million.
The building has been vacant since 2003 when Consumers moved to its current headquarters in Jackson. For the last 18 years, the city has spent roughly $1.5 million to preserve the structure, City Spokesman Aaron Dimick previously said.
Related: How the city of Jackson plans to attract investors to historic Hayes Hotel building
The city is selling the hotel building for $25,000 in hopes to encourage the development to move forward, City Manager Jonathan Greene said.
“The $25,000 represents a fair price for the scale of the redevelopment. I would consider it as the city’s contribution to make the project work,” Greene said.
While several past deals with potential developers have fallen through, the city believes the newly chosen developers and the close collaboration with the Anchor Initiative will finally make redevelopment happen, Mayor Daniel Mahoney said.
“They’re looking forward to the challenges to renovating such an old building that has been out of use for so long,” he said. “Normally when people see a big project, that’s when the hesitation comes in. But, when we took a tour with them when they were in town, they said, ‘This is what we live for.’ If anyone is going to do it, it’s going to be them.”
The request for proposals for the building was sent out last summer, Fleming said. Roughly four to five developers were considered, but the historical preservation work and confidence in the project is what made the city choose J. Jeffers & Co., he said.
J. Jeffers & Co. has previously completed rehabilitation projects in Milwaukee. The development company was established in 2012, and has developed commercial spaces, apartments and historic preservation projects, according to its website.
The company is excited for its first project in Jackson and is ready to take on the challenge of the Hayes Hotel, Chief Marketing Officer Scott Schwebel said.
“The Hayes offers the type of restoration potential we embrace and have experience executing at J. Jeffers & Co.,” Schewebel said. “From returning the lobby and ballroom to their luminous stature, to activating the ground floor and the building’s street presence, to the overall historic preservation and further re-imagining of its use once completed, adding more density and programming to downtown while preserving a legendary property.”
While the councilmembers were excited to see the Hayes Hotel purchased, some, including councilmembers Will Forgrave, Ward 6, and Karen Bunnell, Ward 5, are still hesitant about it due to previous deals falling through.
“I remember countless times of people saying, ‘The Hayes is coming,’ and it’s one of those things that sounds like a broken record,” Bunnell said. “But I do have a good feeling about this as well. I think (Fleming) has done a good job at finding this developer.”
After the sale of the property is finalized, the development will enter a 180-day “due diligence” phase, where the developer can investigate the property and secure funding, Greene said.
There is currently no timeline for when construction will start on the new development, city officials said.
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