DETROIT - The Westin Book-Cadillac Hotel is quite literally coming out of its shell.

Just over a year ago, developer John Ferchill led a tour of journalists through the ruins of the historic hotel. The tour revealed what was common knowledge: a building that was once Detroit's finest hotel had been reduced by the elements and urban scavengers to a damp, stripped-down, dangerous structure whose fate could have included a date with a demolition crew.

Instead, after some false starts in arranging financing, a savior arrived last year in the form of a $180 million commitment by a wide group of investors, which was led by the Cleveland-based Ferchill Group.

Fast forward to a year later, and the 33-story hotel, to be operated by Westin hotels, is well on the road to rehabilitation. The project is currently at peak construction activity, with 300 to 400 Hardhats on site on any given day.

"We're about 65 percent complete, and things are going well," said Michael Schumaker, project manager - site division for general contractor Marous Brothers Construction. Aside from the shell of the building, he said. "nothing, nothing has been retained. "Heating, cooling, electrical, windows. Everything is new."

Schumaker said the renovation plan had the trades start on floors 23 and 13, and work their way down floor by floor, then in the same direction on each level. With the exception of the suites on the top seven floors, the floor plans are all basically the same, "so once you get all the bugs worked out, we started to move quicker," he said.

Along the way, the trades, contractors and architects have had to figure out how to hide wiring, wireless Internet antennas, as well as plumbing and storm drains from the roof. "Michigan has an abundance of good tradespeople, and we have a really good crew here," said Schumaker, a Cleveland native.

Tracy Scott of Plumbers Local 98, project foreman for Western Mechanical, said plumbers and the rest of the trades arrived on the job about a year ago to find original interior walls torn out and debris removed, leaving wide open spaces on each hotel room floor.

"The challenge we have is fitting modern plumbing code into a building that was built in the 1920s," Scott said.

To start, they had to drill no less than 300 holes in each floor: most through concrete, sometimes through steel plate. With drain pipes, vent stacks and supply lines going up vertically from floor to floor - and then usually in-between walls - there is often only a 1/16th-inch gap of play for installation of larger pipe.

Not much room for error - and Scott said the situation is complicated by the Book leaning an inch-and-a-half to the north. "It doesn't sound like much, and it's not unusual for any building to lean a little, but it has made for some interesting moments for us," he said.

In the end, "tubs had to go where they had to go, and walls had to go where they had to go," Scott said. "We're making it work." One of the hotel's old elevator shafts has been turned over for routing some of the building's mechanical systems, and that has helped, he said.

The original boilers in the third level basement are still in place, but they're being abandoned. The new building will have new hot water heat and air conditioning.

A year ago, Ferchill said he didn't anticipate any surprises structurally, since "there wasn't much left to uncover" in the interior of the building. Earlier this month, Schumaker said that has been the case, with a significant exception being the need to replace decorative masonry "water table" on the roof of the building.

Ferchill also said a year ago that the project had been slow to start because of their inability to acquire an exterior elevator - a buckhoist. "They're all in China," he said. One was acquired, and these days, Schumaker said the lone buckhoist on the west side of the building is the lifeline of the project. "It's pretty reliable, but when it goes down the whole project bottlenecks," he said.

With its mass of brick and other types of masonry features, the trowel trades are playing a vital role in the project. Masons are employed on the project by Western Waterproofing and Dixon Masonry. Paul Misiolek is the Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers Local 1 is foreman on the project, working for Western.

He said the Book was "built right" by craftsmen in the 1920s. "The old guys did a really good job," he said, citing the intricate work and the use of "tie-in" brick courses behind the exterior. "You don't have to worry about the walls falling down on you."

Still, masonry will not maintain its integrity without some maintenance - and
there is a tremendous amount of masonry rehabilitation necessary at the Book. Starting at the top, masons have rebuilt the north and south towers, "which were really bad" and needed to be completely rebuilt, Misiolek said.

On the 23rd floor, the terra cotta water table feature was found to be in bad shape - Misiolek said 532 lineal feet will be replaced with a fiberglass look-a-like. Behind that, galvanized steel will replace the rusting original steel to which that water table was attached.

Moving down, much of the exterior brick of the hotel has been cleaned, which has already made a dramatic difference in the appearance of the building. Masons will lay 100,000 new brick during the course of the project. The brick is made in Ohio with a color the manufacturer had in stock, and combined with the right shade of mortar, "you can barely tell that we did any repairs," Misiolek said. The bricks did have to special-ordered: the Book's bricks were eight inches long, modern bricks are slightly shorter.

About 75 percent of the Book's 2,000 window lentils are corroded, and will be replaced with welded galvanized lentils. "They're at various stages of disrepair," Misiolek said.

Moving down to the fifth floor, all the way around the building's exterior are "capitals" - the tops of decorative terra cotta columns that are also in various states of disrepair. Misiolek said he has a "stone man" who used a laser and a laptop computer to measure existing masonry pieces so that matching replacements can be made.

Miscellaneous limestone will be repaired or replaced on the fourth floor. Down on the first floor, openings will need to be completely re-worked to accommodate the hotel's doors and new storefronts, Misiolak said.

Misiolek said the biggest challenge for masonry workers on the Book isn't replicating the old work, it's simply moving materials with the hotel's single buckhoist - and keeping out of the way of other trades. "We work inside and outside, and with some of the trades finishing up, it's tougher to stage materials," he said. "We're always just trying to avoid gridlock."

He said restoring the Book to its former glory has been a good experience. "I'm glad they decided to repair this hotel instead of knocking it down," he said. "There are a lot of nooks and crannies that are really decorative and ornate. It's great that such a unique building is going to be retained."

Here's the book on the Book

Built in 1924, the storied Book-Cadillac was the tallest hotel in the world and "Downtown's largest and arguably most beautiful vacant skyscraper," says the Forgotten Detroit website. "Long a rival to the Statler (demolished in 2005), the Book-Cadillac offered 1,200 guest rooms and some of the most amazing interior spaces in the city. It is the supreme symbol of 1920's Detroit's wealth and optimism."

Continuing, "The Book-Cadillac featured five floors of grand public rooms and shops. Among the amenities were large lounges, three dining rooms, a coffee shop, three unique and functional ballrooms, and a tea room. They were the most richly decorated interiors found in any Detroit hotel."

The Book hosted Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Johnson and Nixon, and baseball legends Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams, among many others. The hotel is near and dear to many in Southeast Michigan, having been a major employer as well as the site of numerous weddings and banquets.

The public spaces of the Book had gone through a number of interior changes over the decades that it was open to attract guests, but by the end of the 1970s, businesses leaving Detroit's downtown spelled the end of the Book-Cadillac. It closed in 1984.

When the building was no longer guarded after a few years, vandals stripped anything of value from the building and left it open to the elements.

The new plans for the Book will include a 455-room luxury hotel rooms and 67 lofts at the top of the hotel. According to the Ferchill Group, the hotel will include three ballrooms, two of which - the Grand Ballroom and the Italian Garden - "will be restored to their original grandeur."

A third ballroom, at 11,000 square-feet with a seating capacity for 1,000, will be added to the north side of the hotel. The property will also have a swimming pool, whirlpool, fitness center, as well as onsite retail and fine dining.

THE CLEANED UP BRICK on the massive Book-Cadillac hotel in Detroit is the most striking aspect of the building's exterior so far as the 33-story building is renovated. The Ferchill Group, the project's developer, has vowed to reproduce as many original interior finishes as possible in the hotel, which was completed in 1924. Photo by Don Coles, Great Lakes Aerial Photos/(313) 885-0900 owww.aerialpics.com

REPLACING BRICK in the back of the Book-Cadillac is Mike Walenciej of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers Local 1 and Western Waterproofing. The hotel is expected to reopen in late September.

INSTALLING FLASHING near the "ziggurat" architectural feature next to him atop the Book-Cadillac Hotel in Detroit is Andy LaRoy of Sheet Metal Workers Local 80 and Detroit Cornice and Slate. The copper-encased ziggeraut, the nice brick-work, and the use of copper on the base reproduce the original architecture of the Book, whose designers spent money on building features that would rarely be seen.