DETROIT– Michigan’s once-blighted Central Railroad station — for decades a symbol of Detroit’s decline — has been given new life after a massive six-year, multimillion-dollar renovation to create a hub for mobility projects in the Motor City’s renaissance.
The massive windowless structure ravaged by scavengers that ominously shadowed the Corktown neighborhood is now home to Ford Motor Co. and the centerpiece of a sprawling 30-acre (12-hectare) mobility innovation district.
The building’s first tenant, Google’s Code Next Detroit computer science education program, is expected to move in at the end of June. Opening ceremonies include an outdoor concert on Thursday, with public tours starting on Friday.
“The train station…is perhaps the most powerful story in Michigan about the power of historic renewal,” said Detroit Regional Chamber President and Chief Executive Sandy Baruah. “Turning something that was a blight into something that’s extremely attractive and that’s an anchor as opposed to a deficit is huge.”
The restoration effort — part of the automaker’s more than $900 million project to create a place where new transportation and mobility ideas are cultivated and developed — was as large as the size of the century-old 500,000-square-foot (46,000-square-meter) building. ). -square meter) building.
In numbers:
__ More than 3,100 workers spent around 1.7 million hours working at the station and adjacent public spaces
__ 29 thousand Gustavino tiles were restored in its Noble Hall
__ 8.6 million miles (13.8 million kilometers) of new mortar were laid on the 21,000-square-foot (1,951-square-meter) ceiling
__ 8 million bricks, 23,000 square feet (2,138 square meters) of marble flooring and 90,000 square feet (8,361 square meters) of decorative plaster were restored or replicated
__ 3.5 million gallons (13.2 million liters) of water were pumped from the basement
__ Installation of 300 miles (482 kilometers) of electrical cables and wiring and 5.6 miles (9 kilometers) of plumbing
The train station’s history reflects the city’s fortunes during its heyday as the automobile capital of the world and later misfortunes when thousands of auto workers and other residents fled Detroit to live in the suburbs.
The Michigan Central Railroad began purchasing land around 1908 in Corktown, the city’s oldest neighborhood, for the new train station, according to HistoricDetroit.org. The station opened in late 1913. But as train travel gave way to air travel and more Americans chose to use the nation’s interstate highways, the number of people passing through Michigan Central fell steadily.
The last train left in 1988 and for years afterwards the building fell into disuse, neglect and abandonment. It has become a destination for curious people and urban adventurers looking for these places. Other buildings in Detroit, especially factories, suffered the same or similar fate, but because of Michigan Central’s size it became a symbol of the city’s decline.
The remodeling by its former owner never materialized. So in 2018, Ford announced it was purchasing the 18-story building and adjacent structures as part of its plans for a 1 million-plus-square-foot campus focused on autonomous vehicles.
“There’s a lot of innovation happening here,” said Jim Farley, Ford’s chief executive. “The future of the company will be located here and on campus. This represents our future revenues.”
It was also the vision of Bill Ford, the company’s executive chairman and great-grandson of its legendary founder, Henry Ford, that a renovated Michigan Central would be something for the community to enjoy, he added.
“And as employees, we are very proud that Ford took a chance on this project,” Farley said.
The project is expected to bring with it thousands of technology-related jobs. Restaurants, new hotels and other service industry businesses are already moving to and near Corktown.
In December, state officials announced three proposed housing development efforts aimed at addressing housing needs around Central Michigan and the Innovation District.
Michigan Central and several other efforts around Detroit are expected to accelerate Southeast Michigan’s innovation economy, said Baruah, who added that the building and surrounding campus will help attract the best and most innovative minds to the area.
“It really is an eye-catching piece. It’s a question of talent,” he said.
The reopening of the train station also comes as Detroit has seemingly gone from national joke to national attraction. Nearly a decade after emerging from its embarrassing bankruptcy, the motor city has stabilized its finances, improved city services, stemmed the population losses that have driven more than a million people away since the 1950s, and made inroads into cleaning up the plague throughout its 139 square kilometers.
Detroit is now a destination for conventions and meetings. Last month, Detroit set a record attendance for the NFL draft after more than 775,000 fans descended on the city center last month for the three-day event.
The importance of Central Michigan’s rebirth has not gone unnoticed by Mayor Mike Duggan, whose administration has guided Detroit back to respectability since the city’s 2014 emergence from the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history.
“I’ve waited 40 years for this day, and I’ve waited a long time for Detroiters, too, so it’s going to be really special,” Duggan said last week.
“The abandoned train station was the national symbol of Detroit’s decline and bankruptcy,” he explained. “It was on the cover of Time magazine with the title ‘bankruptcy’. So the fact that not only the city has returned, but also the train station has returned in such a spectacular way and the place where we will design the cars of the future. Now it’s about the future, not the past.”
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Associated Press reporter Joey Cappelletti in Mackinac Island, Michigan, contributed to this story.
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