Originally Posted by
Gistok
Although I can agree with some here that New Center was not Detroit's best idea... I can however understand why it was built.
Back in the 1920s Detroit was bursting at the seams. And downtown real estate was not only hot... it was sizzlingly hot. Prices had skyrocketted by 1920.
That's why when Durant was looking for a new HQ for GM in 1920, he couldn't find enough contiguous property downtown. So he built the GM HQ up in New Center. Ditto for the Fisher Brothers at the end of the 20s. They were looking for piece of land 3 times the size of the current Fisher Building site, to hanlde the eventual triple tower complex [[that never materialized), but a piece of land that size was just not available, except at outrageous prices.
Other developers downtown had similar problems. Theatre impressario John Kunsky found enough space at relatively reasonable prices to build the Adams [[1917), Madison [[1917) and Capitol [[1922) Theatres. But by 1925 when he was starting to develop the Michigan Building/Theatre, land prices went thru the roof, and he couldn't assemble enough land. The Michigan Building/Theatre only take up 80% of the block that it currently sits on. Original plans for the complex included a much larger building and theatre [[with a triple arch entry instead of a single arch entry that was built). But the 9 parcels on the block along Grand River refused to sell, except at inflated prices.
Only the Book brothers were able to develop as they pleased... and that was because they owned much of the land along Washington Blvd. Sadly for the Book brothers, it was the depession, and not land availability that was the demise for the 80 story Book Tower Annex.
So although we ask why they were so stupid in where they built many of Detroit's larger buildings... one has to remember that speculative land prices were a much greater problem back in the 1920s.