The Stories at City Modern is part of a four-block development by Bedrock that consists of four renovated Victorian homes and 19 new structures—a mix of townhomes and midrise apartment buildings comprising 400 individual dwellings. The Stories’ design is a modern reinvention of a stacked flat. The first floor is set at a traditional 3'6" above grade to match the existing historic porches on the streets, allowing for two garden-level units below eight two-story units. Two side-by-side asymmetrical pitched roofs are a modern reinterpretation of the roofline of the home that previously sat on the site.
The materials on the buildings’ exterior evoke the natural color palette of the existing Victorian homes next door. The Stories uses Reider Oko Skin fiber-cement panels that are complementary to the historic masonry color. These are accompanied by Atas standing-seam metal panels, used for the roof and cladding. Aluminum-trimmed windows continue the metallic theme. The primary design challenge: the adjacent existing homes are 10 feet from either side of the new apartment project, leaving insufficient room for mechanical equipment. The solution was placing them on an adjacent garage roof.
The Stories’ apartments vary between 746 and 989 square feet, spread among garden-level one-bedroom models and two-story one- and two-bedroom units. Five different floorplans are available. Interiors are designed with open layouts, incorporating ample natural light. Amenities include in-unit laundry, kitchen islands, built-in shelving, and stainless-steel appliances.
The City Modern development offers a variety of shared conveniences. A community center located up the street from The Stories has a fully equipped gym with yoga studio, a lounge with a kitchen and game area, and a courtyard with a firepit and gas grill. A central parking garage has bike lockers.
Located in the historic Brush Park neighborhood, City Modern is situated in one of the largest residential locations adjacent to downtown Detroit. A variety of nearby indoor and outdoor amenities include meticulously landscaped pocket parks that connect City Modern and its neighbors. The neighborhood affords convenient access to dining, shopping, sports, and arts.
Within the development, The Stories presents a housing type that was previously unavailable in City Modern, larger multi-story apartment units housed in a sensitively scaled building. The underlying design goal was to make The Stories’ form contextually appropriate in its current time for a neighborhood developed 100 years ago.
