Last April when Mary Barra, chair and CEO of General Motors Co., made the headline-grabbing news the company was moving its world headquarters to the 12-story Hudson’s Detroit mixed-use office building from the Renaissance Center, it marked a major win for Dan Gilbert and his real estate development company, Bedrock. At the same time, the announcement raised concerns about the future of the massive waterfront complex that has defined the city’s skyline for half a century.
Thirty years ago, GM purchased the Renaissance Center, consisting of a 73-story hotel tower and four attached 39-story towers, for $73 million — moving from the Neoclassical Albert Kahn-designed headquarters on West Grand Boulevard in New Center (now known as Cadillac Place and owned by the State of Michigan).
Conceived in 1971 by a group of 26 business and civic leaders, led by Henry Ford II and funded by a consortium consisting of Ford Motor Co. and around 50 other investors, the $350 million Renaissance Center complex saw its first tower open in 1976. A hotel, at the time the tallest in the world, opened a year later. Today it’s the Marriott Center at the Renaissance Center.
The Renaissance complex was named in the hopes it would spur urban renewal and a Detroit rebirth following the 1967 civic uprising. At the time, it was reportedly the world’s largest privately-invested real estate development.
Later, in a separate development, two smaller Ren-Cen office buildings — towers 500 and 600 — were added in 1991. Today, the 500 Tower is occupied by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, while the other structure is privately owned.
Often described as a “symmetrical fortress” and “a city within a city,” the original five-tower RenCen was constructed to intentionally and “safely” separate it from the streets of downtown. A common criticism by visitors was that it was easy to get lost inside and hard to find the way out. Coupled with economic forces during subsequent decades, the original complex never created the renaissance planners had expected.
GM, which still owns the five-building complex, invested more than $1 billion over the years to improve the site. The work included removing the concrete berms, enhancing interior wayfinding, building the “Wintergarden,” a five-story retail and exhibit space, and constructing the start of the now award-winning Riverwalk.
During her announcement, Barra said GM would partner with Bedrock, the City of Detroit, and Wayne County to “plot a new path forward” for the RenCen. A team of urban planners, architects, and engineers subsequently analyzed several opportunities and, six months later, a conceptual plan to “right-size” the complex and develop 27 acres along the riverfront was revealed.
The plan called for, in part, removing the low-rise base of the complex and the two office towers (300 and 400) nearest the river to create 6 acres for a riverfront park; converting Tower 100 to residential, while Tower 200 remains office space; converting the top 20 floors of the central-tower Marriott hotel into luxury apartments, which will reduce the room count to 850 from 1,200; and building an observation deck.
As reported in November 2024, the $1.6-billion proposed project sought $250 million in taxpayer subsidies from the State of Michigan through brownfield incentives and financial support from Detroit’s Downtown Development Authority. Bedrock would contribute $1 billion and GM would cover another $250 million.
A few state legislators voiced opposition to public subsidies for the proposed project, while Preservation Detroit and the Michigan Historic Preservation Network opposed any demolition, calling the RenCen a landmark, postwar modernist building eligible for historic landmark status and historic tax credits.
Last March, Bedrock said the public contribution could be $100 million less, while in November the Downtown Development Authority voted unanimously to commit to providing $20 million to reimburse Bedrock for the future cost of demolishing the RenCen “podium,” and, later, $55 million for the cost of building out the civic space.
However, the DDA commitment is dependent on the state Legislature approving the extension of the Transformation Brownfield program by a March 31, 2027, deadline. Jared Fleisher, CEO of Bedrock, remains optimistic and believes the brownfield expansion will be approved before the deadline.
“Since we first announced the plans a year ago, people have become even more convinced of the importance of this project,” Fleisher says. “There are massive obsolete office buildings across the country that cannot survive, and the Renaissance Center is bigger and more complicated than pretty much all of them.
“There are other brownfield projects in the state, from Macomb County to Muskegon, that need public support, so I’m optimistic that, ultimately, working together the state partnership will be there because it’s the right thing to do — and in the state’s best interest to build a thriving Michigan.”
Claude Molinari, president and CEO of Visit Detroit, who leads the charge in bringing events, conventions, and visitors to the region, says it is critical the center is redeveloped. “The fact that Dan Gilbert and Jared Fleisher are committed to making this work gives me an incredible amount of confidence, and I think it will spur further development along the riverfront,” says Molinari, who adds that Detroit is still short of the number of hotel rooms it needs to bring large events to the city.
“Although in 2027, the JW Marriott Detroit Water Square hotel will be connected to Huntington Place, the NoMad Detroit hotel inside Michigan Central, and the Detroit EDITION (opening at Hudson’s Detroit) are all coming online, we can’t lose the Marriott in the RenCen for an extended period of time or we’ll be taking steps backward.”
Eric Larson, CEO of the Downtown Detroit Partnership and founder, president, and CEO of Larson Realty Group in Bloomfield Hills, who has developed, financed, owned, and managed more than $3 billion in metro Detroit real estate, also is bullish in supporting the redevelopment of the RenCen.
“It’s imperative that there’s a right-sizing of the RenCen complex, opening up the ground floor, and creating more public space,” Larson says. “Being able to reconnect downtown across Jefferson Avenue in a meaningful way at the Renaissance Center, which has always been a very challenging site, is sort of the last piece of the 5.5-mile Riverwalk.”
Dan Pitera, dean and professor of architecture and community development at the University of Detroit Mercy, says that resizing the RenCen is a “logical evolution.”
“All around the country people are rethinking buildings without removing them entirely, and instead reusing them,” Pitera says. “When the RenCen was built, we had a working waterfront with (cement) silos and industry, but it has since transformed into a vibrant riverfront where people live, recreate, and work. Now, the next phase should be to connect the complex more to the riverfront.”
Former Mayor Mike Duggan says, “There’s a lot of excitement still to come.
“What Dan (Gilbert) has done has changed this city, and if he pulls off what he says he’s going to do at the Renaissance Center, it will have the greatest impact of all.”
