The 104-year-old Michigan Central Station has sat vacant since 1988. Numerous efforts to redevelop the hulking Detroit landmark owned by the Moroun family have failed to come to fruition over the years. Photo credit: Chad Livengood/Crain’s Detroit Business
DETROIT – Ford Motor Co. is in discussions to purchase the dilapidated Michigan Central Station in Detroit’s Corktown neighborhood just outside of downtown, Crain’s Detroit Business, an affiliate of Automotive News, has learned from multiple sources familiar with the negotiations.
Sounds like a good idea if Ford does buy the station. And if the streetcar extends down Michigan avenue, so much the better. The tracks are still there but paved over. They have worked thier way to the surface in places.
If i worked for Ford Motor Company in say Dearborn and it was announced that my job was moving to downtown Detroit, I’d be looking for a new job. No way I would work there after hearing the horror stories from those who do work downtown. Like armed guards accompanying workers to their cars in the parking garage.
I worked at GM’s old Headquarters in the New Center Area for 3.5 years in the early 1990’s and never had an armed guard to take me to the parking lot. Thankfully attitudes in Michigan are starting to change…why not jump on the band wagon and be an agent of change?
I agree with that. Detroit is turning around; the central business district is coming along. I was impressed the last time I was there last July with new construction and the Woodward streetcar. Hey, you could be in Windsor, Ontario which is boring beyond belief (Sarnia is worse.) Detroit is not boring, that’s for sure.
Just as long as someone (anyone) buys it from the Marouns. They are nothing but slumlord billionaires who use (and use up) anyone and anything that they come in contact with.
Agree and they are also one of the main inhibitors to Detroits rebirth as a new modern city. I hope Canada breaks their bridge / tunnel monopoly and significantly undercuts them on tolls.
Well there was a brief period in the 1980’s and 1990’s where everyone got tired of Mayor Coleman Young’s racial vitrol and suspended most investments in Detroit. They resumed once it became clear the corruption in City Hall was in the decline.
The Ford Family built the Renaissance Center in 1975 in a bid to bring back Detroit, two decades later GM moved it’s HQ there. GM had jazzed up the New Center area before that. Ford Family has spent a lot on the Detroit Metro area, they got burned a few times but they are still at it.
The property is being transferred to a ‘holding’/law firm company? in New York that has done a lot of work for the Fords. FMC is planning to locate all of their electric & auto drive employees to Corktown area. “Future Tech” or something like that, will all be there. Suppose they will extend the new light rail around the corner?? DO NOT knock Detroit if you haven’t been there in the past couple years!! IT IS NOT THE SAME Detroit.
