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May 2013
Channel 7 WXYZ: Architect aims to build hotel with shipping containers
DETROIT (WXYZ) – It’s a move to support Detroit’s tourism industry in a novel way–piece by piece, you might say. Project organizers say shipping containers may hold the key to future overnight stays. When an old idea could use some outside the box thinking, look no further than Shel Kimen. She’s not in the business of shipping, but the container she’s opening at Eastern Market is the first piece to building something big. Read More…
The Detroit News: Detroit Hotel Resurgence Tightens Competition
The prototype of the lobby for a potential $4 million hotel called Collision Works arrived Thursday at Eastern Market. The steel container is a pleasant yellow with cutouts for the future windows and doors. Soon it will be decorated and the public will be welcome to venture inside to get a sense of what a room made out of a steel container feels like. Read More…
The Detroit News: Prototype of Hotel Made From Shipping Containers to Debut at Eastern Market
MLive: Shipping Container Delivering Community Center to Detroit’s Eastern Market
Crain’s Detroit Business: Cargo Container — With Aspirations to be Hotel Lobby — Arrives at Temporary Eastern Market Home
April 2013
Crain’s Detroit Business: Thinking in the box: Hotel would use shipping containers
The 36-room hotel would be made from heavy-gauge steel cargo shipping containers — like those that once traveled by train down the tracks running along the cut. Kimen is still working on the aesthetics, but said it will include communal gathering spaces intended to draw in the public so guests can connect with the community. She believes the industrial architecture, along with a planned focus on connecting guests with Detroiters and their stories through ongoing recordings and public events, will attract travelers looking for a unique experience. Read More…
The Toronto Star: Shipping container hotel project makes a statement in Detroit
First Collision is billed as a place where people can come and discuss “Detroit in transition,” Kimen said. But the former ad executive also knows it’s a vital piece of marketing for the idea of a funky, sustainable hotel. “People under 40, frankly, want to connect with the places they are visiting; they want to meet people. The days of going to a luxury room and sequestering yourself are numbered,” said Kimen, herself just into her 40s. Read More…
200 Rooms: 5 Reasons Why Detroit Collision Works is the Most Important Hotel in America
“I have spent the majority of my career walking through hotels around the world and interviewing thousands of hotels reps for a variety of consumer and industry media. Over the years, certain hotel groups have established trends that other hoteliers copied. The Kimpton and Morgans collections, for example, started the designer/boutique hotel movement in the 1980s and 90s. Ace/James hotels invented the residential-style hipster hotel early this century. NYLO Hotels, 21c, Unlisted Collection and others are bringing “industrial-chic” into the mainstream. Collision Works has the chance to be the next big thing because, like those mentioned above, it’s dialed into both the mindset of today’s traveling public and socio-economic themes of this era. Here are five reasons why Detroit Collision Works is a game changer.” Read More
“What we’re trying to do is use this as an opportunity to learn what engages people, what kinds of activities causes people to interact, and also to build the community,” Kimen said. The First Container prototype is meant to generate interest in a much larger shipping-container boutique hotel project known as Detroit Collision Works to be built on Detroit’s near-east side. That project will cost an estimated $4 million. Read More…
Core 77: First Container, Then the World: Just 36 Hours Left to Kickstart Detroit Collision Works!
Shel Kimen loves a good story, and hers is a tale of a grassroots effort to support a creative community in their time of need. She dreamt up Detroit Collision Works, a multipurpose boutique hotel, co-working space and venue for all-around awesomeness, in Summer of 2011, and they’re hoping to Kickstart a prototype of a converted shipping container in time for Flower Day in the country’s longest running farmer’s market—exactly one month out, on May 18. With just 36 hours to go to raise $11,000 for First Container, Kimen was kind enough to take the time to tell us why we should care. Read More…
We’ve seen several creative applications for shipping containers in the past, and the fact remains that these steel structures are unparalleled in terms of durability and availability for a recycled building material. Friend of CH Shel Kimen has been hard at work in an effort to open Collision Works, a 36-room boutique hotel and creative space that will be located in Detroit’s Eastern Market. The structure will be made entirely from repurposed containers that have been redesigned for the hotel. Collision Works is still a year out from completion; in the meantime Kimen has launched a Kickstarter campaign for First Container, a sort of trial run that will install two containers for a community center on 18 May 2013. Read More
Curbed: Shipping Container Hotel Bringing Prototype to Flower Day
The shipping container project known as Collision Works has quietly been making progress since being announced last March. This May—on Flower Day, no less—Eastern Market will feature the first tangible results. Founded by former advertising exec Shel Kimen, Collision Works is getting ready to launch First Container, a prototype of the eventual 36-room boutique hotel and community space planned for a property right on the Dequindre Cut. Read More
Hour Detroit Magazine: Green Rooms (Feature Article)
“Imagine a set of childhood toy building blocks on steroids. That’s the basic concept behind a Detroit hotel’s plans to repurpose old shipping containers as sleeping quarters. Collision Works, a 16,000-square-foot hotel that will sit on an acre of land near the Dequindre Cut in Eastern Market, is scheduled for completion next year, and a pop-up model is slated to open this spring.” Read More
Crain’s Detroit Business: Container preview set for Eastern Market
Yahoo! News: Detroit May See Shipping Container Community Center, Hotel
December 2012
Detroit Free Press: Make Your World (Cover Story and Feature Article) Download the PDF
“It takes some imagination to envision how Shel Kimen wants to transform a barren piece of land surrounded by vacant, graffiti-marked buildings just blocks from the vibrancy of Detroit’s Eastern Market… She’s pursuing a plan to build a boutique hotel out of shipping containers on land abutting a soon-to-be expanded section of the Dequindre Cut, an old rail line that was partially renovated into a bike and walking path. Close to obtaining first-round seed money for her $4-million project, Kimen has an advisory board of local design and entrepreneurship luminaries as well as a preliminary agreement with the City of Detroit to buy the land.” [This article is archived at the Free Press site and only available for a fee. You can view the PDF with the link above.]
While we are sad people continue to call Detroit “derelict”, thanks Daily Mail for picking up the story.
“An ambitious plan to transform a derelict railway yard in Detroit into a boutique 36 room hotel using old shipping containers is close to being realised. The $4 million project is planned for a part of the Dequindre Cut, an old rail line in the decaying city that was has already been renovated into a bike and walking path.” Read More…
October 2012
Green Lodging News: Developer Aims to Build 36-Room Hotel in Detroit Using Shipping Containers
DETROIT—Shel Kimen, the founder of an organization called Collision Works, is making progress in her attempt to build a 36-room boutique-style hotel in the Eastern Market area of Detroit. The hotel, which primarily would be constructed from shipping containers, would also include a 3,000-square-foot event space, co-working space—a mix of private and public space—and outdoor courtyard. Read More…
Meeting Focus: Detroit Can’t Be Contained
Michigan’s largest city is getting creative with green lodging and event space, as plans are developing for Collision Works, a new property [...] that will be built out of shipping containers. Read More…
September 2012
What do you get when you add Hotel+Co-Working+Community? Collision Works (formerly The Detroit Hotel Project), one of the most exciting new developments in Detroit. The Detroit Mercy Detroit Collaborative Design Center (DCDC), local architects, designers, and entrepreneurs have partnered to create a boutique hotel in Eastern Market that will also serve as a creative community haven and co-working space—a beautiful place to sleep, collaborate and learn…. Read More
Curbed Detroit: Boutique Hotel Made of Shipping Containers Planned for 2013
Back in March, a group called Detroit Hotel Project announced intentions to open a boutique hotel in the city. Today the project’s official name, Collision Works, was released along with the news that it will be built out of shipping containers. Last week we spoke to founder Shel Kimen, who is in negotiations to buy a site in Eastern Market for the project. She announced today that she is working with architects at KOOP AM for the design and construction…. Read More
200 Rooms: Detroit Collision Works Taps Into Motor City’s Growing DIY Generation
What if a world class city lost its history? That’s the question posed by Shel Kimen, owner of the new 36-room Detroit Collision Works opening in the fall of 2013. The hotel will be constructed out of shipping containers with an overall design mojo orchestrated by New York’s groovy KOOP.AM architecture/media firm. It’s going to be located within America’s oldest continuously operating market district, the Detroit Eastern Market, where people can gather during the construction phase to talk about the future of the American metropolis…. Read More
Boutique Hotel News: Detroit to get boutique hotel made from shipping containers
Architects Newspaper: HOTEL MADE FROM SHIPPING CONTAINERS PLANNED FOR DETROIT’S EASTERN MARKET
Deadline Detroit: Will Eastern Market Get New Boutique Hotel — Made Of Shipping Containers?
Inhabitat: Collision Works is a Boutique Shipping Container Hotel Slated For Detroit