Good job Gnome!!

Burnsie is correct... however.... Highgate [[IIRC they also owned the Ponchartrain at the time)... was merely the go-between between the Ford consortium and GM. Highgate bought the RenCen [[as a front for GM) for $72 million, and the immediately flipped it to GM for around $75 million.

If the previous RenCen owners had known that GM was interested in buying the RenCen... the price would have risen dramatically.

Now getting back to Gnome's comments about Archer and his idea to move City Hall from the CAY Building to Cadillac Centre [[former GM HQ)....

Some city employees started a rumor that there was a "hidden agendy" for moving the mostly African American city workers out to New Center... it was to get blacks out of downtown. Some of the imbecile City Council members [[McPhail, Watson, Collins) publicly stated this same "hidden agenda" theory.. and that was the end of the move of City Hall from a dumpy building [[just look inside the windows when riding past on the People Mover)... to a world class structure... Albert Kahn's 1920 former GM HQ.

Instead Engler did what was likely the best thing he ever did for Detroit... give the states largest city a world class state office building [[that ranks right up there with Chicago's modern State of Illinois Center).

In Detroit the easiest way to kill even the best idea is to slap it with the label... "hidden agenda"... and splat... it's dead.