Banquet center pitched for Tecumseh's Hayden-Ford Mill Building

TECUMSEH — Business partners with experience in restoring buildings with connections to Henry Ford are interested in restoring Tecumseh’s Hayden-Ford Mill Building.

The city’s former community center went back on the market this summer after plans by another investment group to turn the facility in a German-themed restaurant and banquet center fell through over environmental remediation issues in the basement. Adhesives used to seal old wood flooring eventually broke down and released gases that were discovered by the previous developer’s environmental consultant.

New proposals for the building were due by Oct. 19.

Greg Donofrio and Richard Cox on Monday pitched a plan to the Tecumseh City Council to turn the building between East Chicago Boulevard and Globe Mill Pond into a banquet facility with a restaurant. Their plan was the only one submitted, Tecumseh City Manager Dan Swallow said in an email, though some local business owners looked at the building.

The previous developers’ vision to have a restaurant and banquet facility was a good one, Donofrio said. Their conversations with people in the community about uses for the building reinforced the idea that another banquet facility is needed.

They told the council how they’ve restored two other Ford facilities — the Northville Valve Plant and the Phoenix Mill in Plymouth Township. The Valve Plant now houses a mix of tenants, including a fitness center and engineering, technology and architecture firms. The Phoenix Mill is a banquet hall that draws people from around metro Detroit.

Because they have a banquet tenant lined up for the Hayden-Ford mill, Donofrio said, they could have the banquet operation up and running in about a year, even with the environmental remediation. They don’t have a restaurant tenant secured yet, so that would take longer, perhaps up to two years.

The Tecumseh Senior Center would be welcome to stay, though it might be moved to another part of the building, Donofrio told the council.

“That has been a big concern for me,” Mayor Jack Baker said. “… I hope that what you spoke about, allowing that to continue, would happen. … That would be a good thing for you guys. You would make some big inroads in this community if that continued.”

In both Northville and Plymouth, they designed the grounds to be open space that the community can use, Donofrio said. The Phoenix Mill property had been used by the road commission for decades. They took down salt storage barns and limited the parking and the mill’s occupancy to preserve green space. They added features, such as a bicycle repair station, to fit in with nearby Hines Park. Denofrio said they would do something similar with the Hayden-Ford property.

The banquet facility could seat more than 200 people, Donofrio said. The interior can be designed to be partitioned into smaller spaces.

They also see possibilities for having outdoor events.

The request for proposals asked developers to include a price range. Swallow said Donofrio and Cox offered $100,000 for the mill building site with a $100,000 option for the nearby tennis court property.

This is not the first contact they’ve had with the Hayden-Ford mill. Donofrio explained that when Cox was restoring the Valve Plant in the 1990s and decided to make its waterwheel operable again, he met with Don Purkey of Tecumseh, who provided him with the Hayden-Ford's waterwheel bucket design to help restore the Valve Plant’s waterwheel.

“We look at that as a symbol for the community, and the fact that (the Hayden-Ford waterwheel) not spinning is a symbol in itself as well,” Donofrio said. “… That actually would be our priority would be to get the wheel spinning, first and foremost.”

Both he and Cox are engineers and fans of Henry Ford and the automotive industry, Donofrio said. Cox worked for the Ford Motor Co. as an engineer before going into business for himself. They want to preserve the Village Industry part of Ford’s legacy. Ford established small, industrial facilities in rural areas where farmers could work in their off-seasons.

Donofrio said they want to “restore and preserve and repurpose.”

“Our vision is really to take this building,” Donofrio said, “which has been preserved relatively well by the parks department…”

“Better than any we’ve seen,” Cox interjected, drawing laughs from the audience.

“Better than any we’ve seen, for sure,” Donofrio said. “There are definitely some signs that the building needs an additional level of care and maintenance that come with a different source of revenue coming in. But our goal here is really, first and foremost, is to preserve this historic building.”

A key to successfully restoring and preserving the building would be finding the right businesses that would be successful and generate the revenue to maintain the building.

Baker said he appreciated their desire to restore and preserve the building rather than just use it for a business venture.

“That is of utmost importance in my view,” he said. “… I’ve always been fascinated with that building, whether I was a teenager or now along into my 70s, it’s still part of Tecumseh. That’s special to me.”

According to the request for proposals, the city's development review committee, which is made up of city personnel and Tecumseh business leaders, will review the proposal and final recommendations will be made to the city council for consideration. Swallow said he anticipates making a recommendation to the council at its Nov. 20 or Dec. 4 meeting, depending on a review of the purchase and development agreement by both parties.

This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: Banquet center pitched for Tecumseh's Hayden-Ford Mill Building