Detroit buildings were on the verge of demolition until they were saved
View from inside: Restoration of Michigan Central Station
After a six-year restoration by Ford Motor Co., Michigan Central Station will reopen to the public on June 6, 2024. Here’s a look behind the scenes.
Detroit Free Press staff
A once magnificent building in Detroit is aging and becoming empty.
Renovations are urgently needed, but the economic viability appears weak.
Some say the most practical – perhaps the only – option is to tear down the building and start over.
Such sequences famously took place in Michigan Central Station, the Beaux-Arts-style train station in the Corktown district built in 1913, which stood empty and dilapidated for decades after Amtrak withdrew.
But the depot is also a vivid example of how patience can sometimes be a virtue when it comes to determining the next step – renovation or demolition – for aging, listed buildings that suddenly lack residents and for which there is no clear future perspective.
Had a demolition attempt by the Detroit City Council in 2009 been successful, Michigan Central Station would not have survived long enough for its savior to arrive, a savior with the motivation and money to pull off one of the most dramatic historic renovations in the country.
This redevelopment effort by Ford Motor Co.—widely recognized and recently completed—may have given the old depot another century of existence, but this time with a different mix of uses and occupants.
The experience could be instructive for those tasked with determining what happens next at the downtown Renaissance Center after General Motors moves out next year.
GM CEO Mary Barra did not rule out demolition of the landmark complex in a speech to the Detroit Economic Club in the spring. GM still owns the property and is currently consulting with Dan Gilbert’s real estate firm Bedrock on the next steps with the RenCen, including the possible conversion of offices into apartments.
Below are some other buildings in Detroit that were once thought to be beyond saving, but over the years or even decades, the situation changed and developers stepped forward.
Book Cadillac and Fort Shelby Rebirths
The Book Cadillac Hotel, 1114 Washington Blvd., opened in 1924 and was considered one of Detroit’s most prestigious hotels for decades, hosting celebrities, sports stars and politicians, including John F. Kennedy. But the hotel, like the city, went downhill in the 1970s, and it eventually went bankrupt and closed in 1984.
The 34-story hotel remained closed for more than two decades. Thanks to the efforts of then-Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and the Detroit Development Authority, a complex deal was finally struck with a Cleveland developer, who renovated and reopened the Book Cadillac in the fall of 2008 with luxury hotel rooms and high-end condominiums.
“For years there was a lot of moaning about the Book Cadillac; a lot of people called for it to be torn down,” said Michael Boettcher, a city planner and historical guide for Detroit. “But there were some intrepid, talented people who put together a deal.”
A few weeks after the reopening of the 453-room Westin Book Cadillac, another long-vacant downtown hotel, once in even worse condition, celebrated its second opening.
The 22-story Fort Shelby Hotel (525 W. Lafayette Blvd.) is an Albert Kahn-designed building that opened in 1916. It closed in the 1970s and fell into extreme disrepair, with trees growing through its roof.
The building was once considered beyond saving and another candidate for demolition until metro Detroit real estate investors Emmett Moten, Leo Phillips and others partnered with DoubleTree to restore it. It reopened in December 2008 as the DoubleTree Suites by Hilton hotel with 203 guest rooms and 56 apartments on the upper floors.
Hotel Eddystone
A decade ago, there were two abandoned hotels near the site of what is now Little Caesars Arena.
One of them was the old 13-story Eddystone Hotel, the other was the 13-story Park Avenue Hotel. The hotels were built in 1924 and 1925 respectively and were both listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
At the time, all of them lacked windows, leaving them exposed to the elements and accelerating deterioration. Their fate was the subject of negotiations between city authorities and the Ilitch organization’s Olympia Development of Michigan, which was preparing to build the LCA as a successor to the Joe Louis Arena.
Negotiations resulted in a compromise that allowed for the demolition of the Park Avenue Hotel but the preservation and redevelopment of the Eddystone. After several interruptions, the Eddystone underwent a major redevelopment and reopened in late 2021 as upscale housing, mostly market rate, although 20% was reserved as affordable.
Book Depository
The old Book Depository building, adjacent to Michigan Central Station, opened in 1936 as a U.S. Post Office and later served as a warehouse for Detroit Public Schools. The district stopped using the three-story, 25,000-square-foot building after a fire severely damaged the interior in 1987.
It sat unused for about 30 years until Ford also bought it from the Moroun family in 2018.
The building reopened last year as Newlab in the Michigan Central Building with modern workspaces and studios for mobility-focused companies and technologies.
Wheeler Recreation Center
Some projects are still in progress.
The old Brewster Wheeler Recreation Center in the Brush Park neighborhood dates back to 1929 and is where Joe Louis once trained and generations of Detroiters learned to swim. It is located next to the now-demolished Brewster-Douglass public housing projects.
The recreation center closed in the early 2000s and fell victim to graffiti and trespassers. In 2014, the city put the building on its demolition list and announced it would be torn down in the fall unless someone came up with “a viable redevelopment plan.”
Soon after, developers came forward with a vision to convert the leisure center into an event space and a restaurant with a beer garden on the roof. But the plan fell through and the building remained empty.
Then last fall, a new plan surfaced that called for a complete renovation of the recreation center building into a community fitness center. The nonprofit developer behind the plan, MHT Housing, also received approval to build over 200 units of affordable housing nearby.
While the developer did not respond to Free Press inquiries this week about the status of the recreation center’s redevelopment, the building appears to be an active construction site.
Fisher Body Shop
The old Fisher Body Plant No. 21, located at 6051 Hastings St. near Interstate 75 and I-94, opened in 1919 and initially made bodies for Cadillacs and Buicks. The massive, six-story, 55,000-square-foot building has been vacant since 1993 and has been owned by the city since 2000.
Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan was leaning toward demolishing the vacant factory building until local developers Gregory Jackson and Richard Hosey came forward with an ambitious redevelopment plan in early 2022: The building is to be converted into 433 apartments as well as retail and co-working space.
The industrial-to-residential conversion project, known as Fisher 21 Lofts, has already completed a community benefit process and received approvals for a number of development incentives, including tax credits, tax abatements and a brownfield tax abatement.
A project representative could not be reached this week, but recently told Crain’s Detroit that construction could begin once financing is completed, which is expected in September.
A success after demolition
Of course, preserving old buildings is not always the best development option.
In the 1990s, there was an organized effort to save and repurpose the massive JL Hudson department store building on Woodward Street downtown, but demolition advocates prevailed over preservationists, and the 200,000-square-foot building was demolished in October 1998.
A quarter century later, two entirely new buildings stand on the Hudson site, reshaping Detroit’s skyline and turning heads: a 12-story office building and a 45-story skyscraper – the second tallest in downtown – with luxury hotel rooms and condominiums. Developed by Gilbert’s Bedrock, the buildings are nearing completion and have already attracted national attention.
Although this outcome seems like a victory for Detroit, urban planner and historical guide Boettcher pointed out that the site of the former department store is not the only vacant lot in downtown.
It is therefore conceivable that Gilbert would have built his celebrated new buildings even if the JL Hudson building were still standing today.
“In the case of Hudson (demolition), it’s debatable whether that was the right idea or not,” Boettcher said. “It’s entirely possible that the building would have been rehabilitated. And if it had been, someone like Gilbert would have found another site. So I don’t think it’s just a matter of one or the other.”
More: It wasn’t just the Morouns who let Michigan Central Station fall into disrepair
Contact JC Reindl: 313-378-5460 or [email protected]. Follow him on X @Subscribe to.
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