Bluestone Realty Advisors, Oxford Property Management moving downtown

Bluestone Realty Advisors and Oxford Property Management are moving from their offices near Briarwood Mall to a downtown Ann Arbor loft space that was formerly home to ICON Creative Technologies.

Neal Warling and Jeff Hauptman, owners of Bluestone, said they’ve wanted to move downtown for a number of years, but recent circumstances made the move possible.

For one thing, the approximately 3,000 square feet of space on South State Street above Amer’s Deli became vacant this year when ICON Creative Technologies moved to a property it purchased on Felch Street.

Secondly, the University of Michigan’s Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation department, already a major tenant at Oxford’s Burlington office complex, is planning to lease another 3,000 square feet there currently occupied by Oxford and Bluestone, Hauptman said.

“We’ve been wanting to get downtown for a long time. We’ve put offers on a lot of buildings,” said Hauptman, an owner at Oxford.

The company has owned the space, which used to be Jacobson’s furniture sales room, for 12 years. The upstairs has seen many changes, including removal of an air-conditioning unit, rehabilitation of old apartments, raising of the ceiling, and now, a more efficient office for the 15 employees of Oxford and Bluestone than their current home.

The project is expected to be completed within two weeks.

Architect Andrew Hauptman of O|X Studio said an effort was made to recycle and reuse various pieces of furniture and cabinetry to make the rehabilitation more environmentally sustainable. For example, the existing cabinets were retained, with green-certified bamboo plywood doors added.

Some old glass storefront doors will be used on offices, and other wooden doors that had been ordered for a previous project but were not the right size will be converted to tables, he added.

“They work better as tables,” he said.

The new location also provides the potential for expansion because the companies own or manage several adjacent or nearby properties.

Warling said that the new location will not alter the companies’ operations or geographical focus, but that it is nice to be downtown.

“We’re excited to be right here in the middle of things,” he said.

Bluestone agent Newcombe Clark said being in Ann Arbor’s city center is the chance to experience something rare in the state: “In Michigan, you want to get the opportunity to work in a successful downtown.”

The office also has a couple of unusual amenities including a shower and a rooftop deck.

Bluestone controls the sales and leasing of more than 2 million square feet of commercial real estate in Washtenaw and western Wayne counties. Oxford’s portfolio consists of 883,000 square feet of commercial space.

-Dan Meisler writes about real estate and other topics for Ann Arbor Business Review. Contact him at (734) 302-1721 or danm@mbusinessreview.com.

Photo by Robert Ramey: Jeff Hauptman, Neal Warling, Newcombe Clark and Andrew Hauptman of Bluestone Realty Advisors.