Morning fire latest challenge to Ypsilanti's redevelopment hopes

Ypsilanti awoke to painful news this morning as word spread that the historic Thompson Block - the city’s most active symbol of redevelopment at a time when the region sees little of that - burned overnight in an hours-long blaze.

The significance of this fire goes beyond what we see on the surface: This isn’t just a long-vacant building succumbing to flames.

The impact will be felt by Stewart Beal, who fought for the property as he acquired it out of receivership - and near-demolition by neglect by its previous owner - then planned since 2006 to restore and renovate it into a $3.5 million Depot Town showcase.

It’s also a blow for the city, which fought for the 30,000-square-foot building for years before Beal emerged as an investor. Officials had watched rot overtake one of their significant properties, located at the eastern gateway of the destination commercial district.

The Depot Town merchants rallied behind Beal and his plans to expand the vibrancy of Depot Town by extending retail and residential space across River Street. They’ll feel the loss of the potential, too.

The list goes on. Historic preservationists can wonder this morning about what survived and whether what’s left can be saved from the 1860s-era building.

Neighbors, as long-suffering as the city over the condition of the property, had high hopes for Beal’s plans.

The rest of the city, too, celebrated what the block represented: investment in the city’s historical roots by adding meaningful living and retail space. This property still promised to deliver its potential, even as other city redevelopments - like Water Street - stalled and the market dwindled to fill the vacant Visteon factory.

When I last talked to Beal, he told me the Thompson Block would have been completed by now if the national financing crisis hadn’t happened. He had a lender; he had tenants; he had pre-leasing of the 16 loft apartments.

And that wasn’t enough after the banking world was upended.

Yet his retail tenants held on, telling him they were willing to wait.

His eight investors, he said, expressed patience for the process because they believed in the plan and the vision.

And his plan, as of August, was to finish the building by September 2010 no matter how he had to finance it. With more investors, he’d put a big crew on; without more investors, he’d fund small crews on site.

“The Thompson Block has been my number one priority until it gets completed,” Beal told me this summer. “It’s so important to the community, and … it’s the only project that I have other people’s money in.”

As the community hears more today and in coming weeks about the nature of the fire and the extent of the damage, we’ll learn what of the plans can be salvaged and what cannot.

Either way, it’s been a long road for the Thompson Block. This fire, it appears, is making it longer.

But after 20-plus years of rallying behind the building, Ypsilanti isn't likely ready to give up on it.