A fire-scarred, century-old apartment house in Detroit's Hubbard Farms neighborhood is headed for a nearly $4 million rebuild after the city's Historic District Commission voted unanimously to approve the project earlier this week. The early-1900s Greek Revival-style building at 347 W. Grand Blvd, which had sat vacant since 2017, was severely damaged by what its owner says was a deliberately set fire in 2025 — and the person responsible still has not been identified.
Owner Omar Hernandez, a 65-year-old local business owner best known for running Mexicantown Bakery at 4300 Vernor Highway, told the Detroit Free Press that he believes the fire was the work of an arsonist. Investigators have not identified a suspect, according to the same report. The Historic District Commission voted on September 9 to issue a certificate of appropriateness, clearing the way for construction that could begin in the first or second quarter of 2027, pending financing, the Free Press reported.
The rehabilitation would convert the building's original 12 apartments into 18 units, according to the Free Press, marking what the paper describes as Hernandez's largest project to date and his first multifamily rehab. He told the paper he intends to keep the building as original as possible, with plans to preserve its high ceilings and hardwood floors throughout. A City of Detroit Historic District Commission staff report confirms the fire caused extensive exterior and interior damage, with city staff conducting an on-site inspection on November 26, 2025, to assess the destruction.
Strict Preservation Rules Guide the Rebuild
Detroit's historic preservation guidelines require any replacement windows at the property to be aluminum-clad wood units matching the building's original lite configurations, according to the city's staff report. The same filing notes that advisory staff objected to a proposal for synthetic opaque aluminum privacy screening around the adjacent parking lot planned at 355 W. Grand Blvd, where a vacant lot next door is set to become parking for future tenants, per the Free Press. The rehab plan also calls for major structural repairs to the house itself.
Detroit building department records confirm the property was officially registered as vacant in 2017 after tenants left following a broken boiler that was never repaired, the city's report states. The Free Press adds that former tenants departed that year reportedly because of the broken boiler, and that Hernandez purchased the property a few years after it emptied out. Hubbard Farms is one of seven local historic districts in Detroit certified by the National Park Service, a designation that allows qualifying restoration projects within its boundaries to tap the federal Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credit, according to a separate city staff report.
A Neighborhood Institution With Deep Southwest Detroit Roots
Hernandez has bought and restored numerous commercial buildings in Detroit since the late 1980s and has also rehabbed about a dozen single-family houses in the city, the Free Press reported. He immigrated to Detroit from Cuba in 1966 and learned baking at his father's West Vernor Bakery before establishing Mexicantown Bakery in 1995 next to his parents' restaurant, Armando's, according to Latino Leaders. Hernandez told the Free Press he receives calls nearly every week from people interested in buying the Hubbard Farms property, but he turns them down.
Among Hernandez's other Detroit projects was the former Club International, later known as Club Fantasy, a nightclub and performance venue he developed at 6060 Fort St. that hosted acts including 2 Live Crew, Dr. Dre and Ice Cube before closing about a decade before the Free Press published its report. He later sold that property to the Michigan Department of Transportation, which used the site for the Gordie Howe International Bridge project.
Part of a Wider Hubbard Farms Revival
The Hubbard Farms Historic District was established by Detroit City Ordinance No. 1-93 on January 13, 1993, giving the city regulatory authority over the area's historic architecture, according to the State of Michigan. Long before that, the land served as a Potawatomi village and burial ground before being surveyed in the 1830s by geologist Bela Hubbard, who became Michigan's first assistant geologist in 1837, according to the Detroit Historical Society. Detroit's building permit records show the apartment house at 347 W. Grand Blvd was originally permitted in 1905, and the Christa family owned the house until 1958, per the Free Press.
The project adds to a wave of investment reshaping Hubbard Farms. In August, developer Inkwell Partners acquired the vacant former Southwest Detroit YMCA nearby for $1.1 million, with plans for a 50-apartment historic rehab as part of 20 Detroit projects the developer has completed since 2017. In 2023, public and private leaders broke ground on La Joya Gardens, a $24 million mixed-use development in the district that built 53 housing units and 6,000 square feet of retail space along West Vernor Highway, according to REJournals. And late last year, the cafe The Grand Porter opened inside a converted 1890s Victorian house on Porter Street, another sign of the neighborhood's adaptive reuse trend.
