The first thing you notice on the south facade of LANTERN is the holes. There are 1,353 of them, drilled through the concrete masonry of the south wall and filled with cylindrical glass blocks. At night, the building glows.
That isn't branding. That's the design. LANTERN opened Friday in East Village, a few blocks west of The Shepherd.
It's a 22,300-square-foot adaptive reuse of the old Blue Bird Baking Company, which made bread on the site from 1929 until the 1960s. New York-based OMA, working out of its Manhattan office, took the project. This is OMA's first build in Detroit.
Partner Jason Long led the design. The building was a wreck. A whole section was missing its roof and an end wall.
OMA kept the hole. Now the missing section is the open courtyard and the building's main entrance, 2,000 square feet of public space connecting all of the tenants. Two arts nonprofits anchor the ground floor.
Signal-Return, the Eastern Market letterpress shop and educational program, has its new flagship here. Its interior was designed separately by Detroit firm M1DTW Architects. PASC, Progressive Art Studio Collective, takes the rest of the ground floor.
PASC is the first art studio and exhibition program in Detroit and Wayne County dedicated to adults with developmental disabilities and mental health differences. It has worked with more than 180 artists since launching in 2021. Three artist studios sit on the upper floor.
Resident artists at the moment include Paul Verdell and Davariz Broaden. Assemble Sound, the music label and recording studio, also moved in. Around the courtyard are Cøllect Beer Bar, Cafe Franco from the team behind La Ventana, and the boutique Coup D'etat, founded in 2019 by Angela Wisniewski.
LANTERN is a Library Street Collective project, like The Shepherd two blocks south. Anthony and JJ Curis have been buying property in East Village since 2020 and assembling what they're calling Little Village. The 5,300 square feet of artist studios in the building rent at below-market rates.
9301 Kercheval Avenue, East Village.
