17 July 2024
Consideration is being given to tearing down a portion of the Renaissance Center.
A source familiar with the matter said no decision has been made on whether to tear down any of the General Motors Co.-owned hotel and office towers that define the Detroit skyline, but did say that conversations have long been held about the possibility given the fragile state of the office market and the sheer cost to redevelop them into other uses.
The Detroit Free Press reported Thursday that officials with GM and Dan Gilbert’s Bedrock LLC are leaning toward tearing down some of the complex. Sources would not confirm that to Crain’s Detroit Business.
GM, Bedrock, city, county and state officials have been engaged in discussions for months about the future of the iconic complex built in the 1970s. GM owns the five largest buildings — four 39-story office towers flanking a 73-story hotel tower that’s the state’s tallest building — and the two smaller office towers to the east that were built in the 1980s have separate ownership.
It’s not known which towers, or how many of the five, are being considered for demolition.
“The Mayor has made it clear from the beginning that all options for the Renaissance Center site will be actively explored,” said John Roach, director of media relations for the city, in a statement. “We are not going to have a situation as we had with the Hudson Building or Michigan Central where critical sites sat empty for 40 years because this community’s leaders would not make realistic decisions. All options are being explored and no decision has been made. We will comment when the process is complete.”
Emails were sent to spokespeople for GM and Bedrock last week seeking comment.
It’s the latest wrinkle in the ongoing behind-the-scenes discussions.
In mid April, GM and Bedrock announced the Detroit-based automaker would be moving its long-time RenCen headquarters to Gilbert’s $1.4 billion Hudson’s Detroit development. Executives and officials said at the time that they would embark on a roughly year-long study to determine what to do with the five towers that GM owns.
The complex has suffered over the years as the COVID-19 pandemic sent office workers home in an effort to combat the virus’s spread, and as downtown’s center of gravity shifted north.
Last week Crain’s Detroit Business reported that a purchase option exists between General Motors affiliate Riverfront Holdings Inc. and Bedrock affiliate Resurgence Realty LLC. The purchase option contemplates the sale of the main GM-owned complex, as well as nearly 20 acres of surface parking that Gilbert has long coveted as a waterfront development site. Just because the option has been crafted doesn’t mean that a sale will happen.
In addition to partial demolition, discussions also revolve around repurposing some of the buildings into other uses, such as residential space.
In April, when the GM/Hudson’s Detroit deal was announced, CEO Mary Barra, in response to reporters’ questions about potentially selling the RenCen, said the automaker is “working to decide what the right outcome is for the building.”
“We are embarking on taking the next year to work together with the mayor, Wayne County and Bedrock to imagine what it can be,” Barra said in April.
Construction of the complex was announced in 1971, as the city was still reeling from the July 1967 uprising that resulted in 43 dead, thousands of arrests and hundreds of buildings destroyed.
Built on a gigantic swath of Detroit riverfront land, it is essentially cut off from the rest of downtown by a 10-lane boulevard and surrounded by little else comparable on that side of Jefferson Avenue.
GM says it has pumped $1 billion into improving the RenCen and the Detroit RiverWalk over the years since it took ownership in the mid-1990s with its $73 million acquisition. Although the improvements, including the wildly popular RiverWalk, have changed that to an extent, the location still has taken its toll.