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February 8, 2006
Last week’s Super Bowl had helped
spur Detroit’s civic leaders to make over its downtown,
long known for its empty buildings and deserted streets, over
the past three years. New sidewalks and street lighting were
installed; early 20th-century office towers were converted
to loft apartments and condominiums, and several dozen new
shops and restaurants opened in once-empty storefronts. As
a result, downtown hasn’t looked so good in years.
But a controversial aspect of this ambitious
makeover was the city’s demolition of several historic
structures. Among the buildings to fall in the weeks and months
prior to Super Bowl XL were the landmark Statler Hotel, a
1914 high-rise that was among the most modern in the world
when built; the Madison-Lenox Hotel, a much more modest eight-story
structure that, while not a landmark in itself, was part of
the city’s officially designated Madison-Harmonie Historic
District. A 1920-circa office building by architect Albert
Kahn that once housed the headquarters of the Motown music
empire was also demolished along with several smaller structures
leaving broad gaps in the greater downtown streetscape.
Part of the sting in losing these buildings
was that, at least in some cases, the city seemed to ignore
basic landmark protections afforded by state law. Detroit’s
Historic District Advisory Commission twice refused Mayor
Kwame Kilpatrick’s request to tear down the Madison-Lenox;
the mayor’s building department then condemned the building
as unsafe and razed it anyway.
The dispute over demolition centers not
on just one set of buildings, but rather on two competing
philosophies about how to redevelop the city. On one side,
there is Mayor Kilpatrick’s “clean, safe, beautiful”
mantra for cleaning up downtown as soon as possible. Under
this approach, the city targets its so-called dinosaur buildings
– those that have been vacant for at least 10 years –
for either fast-track redevelopment or demolition.
On the other side is an array of enthusiasts,
architects and investors who see preservation of Detroit's
stock of older buildings as key to the city's revival. These
preservationists contend that what makes cities livable and
walkable – neighborhoods such as Detroit’s Greektown,
Corktown, Midtown, and Harmonie Park – consists of historic
properties patiently restored by investors. Once threatened
with demolition, these districts survived almost by accident,
yet today they provide some of Detroit’s most eclectic,
diverse neighborhoods.
George Jackson, president of the quasi-public
Detroit Economic Growth Corp., who led much of Kilpatrick’s
clean-up effort, says he turns to demolition only as a last-resort.
“I do feel that economic reality
does play a role,” he says. “I think that when you
have a structure that is not economically feasible to restore,
then I think you have to look at the option of demolition
sometimes. Obviously you can restore any building if you have
the money to do it, but no one going to restore properties
if they cannot make money off their investment.”
Jackson notes that some buildings, like
the now-lost Statler, sat vacant for decades. Intensive efforts
to structure a financing package to help reopen the Statler
had failed. Facing the Super Bowl deadline, the city opted
to tear it down rather than wait any longer for a savior.
Francis Grunow, executive director of
the local non-profit group Preservation Wayne, gives Kilpatrick’s
administration credit for helping developers turn several
early 20th Century office buildings downtown into residential
lofts. But he worries over the pace of demolition. “There’s
definitely been a move to rehabilitate in a way we haven’t
seen in decades. At the same time, we’ve lost a lot of
key buildings that there have been debates about. It’s
definitely been an accelerated pace of both,” he says.
Everyone agrees that Kilpatrick and his
aides have worked mightily to try to restore Detroit’s
two most famous vacant eyesores, the Michigan Central Depot,
a 1914 structure crafted by Warren & Wetmore and Reed
& Stem (who also created Grand Central Station in New
York) and the Book-Cadillac Hotel, a 1924 Italian Renaissance
high-rise by Louis Kamper. Kilpatrick’s administration
pursued—so far in vain—a plan to make over the depot
as the city’s new police headquarters. If the depot project
falls apart, the city hopes to close on a redevelopment deal
soon for the Book-Cadillac, vacant since 1984. But even as
the city goes to almost heroic measures on individual projects,
preservationists like Grunow say there is still no overall
philosophy that sees historic preservation as a basic approach
to urban redevelopment.
“I think we still lack a process
that is in place in other cities,” he says. “We’re
still behind in that regard.”
John Gallagher
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