Does this video give anyone else goosebumps? Renaissance Center Construction

**nain rouge** · September-01-14, 02:47 PM

I'm sure this has been linked to here before, but it's worth sharing again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?featur...&v=h6RlUsi_-ZA .

The narrator, the project, the music, the ambiance... it really feels like Detroit's last gasp as a major big city. Though Metro Detroit would remain important in the coming decades, you can see how this moment was Detroit's last stand, so to speak.

**SyGolden48236** · September-01-14, 03:17 PM

The Ren Cen was built by a consortium of 51 major corporations. If such a project as this was proposed today so many of the young college student know-it-all types would be taking to the internet to wail incessantly about how corporations are evil and they are only interested in profits.

**Packman41** · September-01-14, 07:05 PM

Back in 1995 the company I worked for was one of the 51 companies in The Renaissance Partnership and we were asked to completely write off our “investment” in the property to allow it to be sold to GM.

According to http://detroit1701.org/RenCen.htm
“The Ren Center was completed in 1981, and was pretty much a financial failure for its first 17 years. Ford Motor Company moved some of their offices to the building, but there was no overwhelming demand for office space at the Ren Center, and the hotel limped along. In the late 1990s, GM sought an alternative for their aging headquarters on West Grand—the massive building designed by Albert Kahn and opened in 1922. They bought the Ren Center for about one-tenth of the construction cost.”

IIRC, GM bought it for $75 million and the phase I cost was about $350 million – so GM bought it for more like 21 cents on the dollar.

Obviously, all of the 51 original investors lost out and did not receive the investment return touted in the video.

**Scottathew** · September-01-14, 07:14 PM

Great video! Thanks for sharing!

**Ltdave** · September-01-14, 08:45 PM

detroit is [[or was) the 4th largest financial center in the world?

interesting fact. id like to know how that could be...

im thinking, New York, Tokyo, London, Chicago, Munich would all be larger [[at least) now days...

**stasu1213** · September-02-14, 05:41 AM

Originally Posted by SyGolden48236

The Ren Cen was built by a consortium of 51 major corporations. If such a project as this was proposed today so many of the young college student know-it-all types would be taking to the internet to wail incessantly about how corporations are evil and they are only interested in profits.

I wished those students could be zapped back into the past and talk some sense to those senseless investors maybe the thing would not had been built. GM did improve the look of the complex but failed miserably into bringing more retail there

**Bham1982** · September-02-14, 06:28 AM

Originally Posted by Ltdave

detroit is [[or was) the 4th largest financial center in the world?

Detroit was never a major financial center.

The major financial centers back then were the same as now. NYC, London, Frankfurt, Paris, Zurich, Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo.

**Bham1982** · September-02-14, 06:31 AM

Originally Posted by SyGolden48236

The Ren Cen was built by a consortium of 51 major corporations. If such a project as this was proposed today so many of the young college student know-it-all types would be taking to the internet to wail incessantly about how corporations are evil and they are only interested in profits.

I think the reaction would have been the complete opposite- people would be proclaiming the 100th iteration of Detroit's grand "revitalization".

People go wild over a new bar or heavily taxpayer subsidized small-scale renovation; can you imagine a proposed seven-tower complex with the tallest hotel on earth, a luxury shopping mall, and millions of square feet of office space? It would make Campus Martius look like an strip mall in Wixom. Dubai on the Detroit River.

**iheartthed** · September-02-14, 02:31 PM

Originally Posted by Ltdave

detroit is [[or was) the 4th largest financial center in the world?

interesting fact. id like to know how that could be...

im thinking, New York, Tokyo, London, Chicago, Munich would all be larger [[at least) now days...

It couldn't now be the 4th largest in the world as there are no banks still located in Detroit, nor any stock exchanges.

Maybe by capital the Detroit Stock Exchange was once the fourth largest in the world. Considering all of the manufacturing activity that went on in Detroit through the early and mid-20th century it seems very plausible. However, Detroit probably wasn't a place where companies from other parts of the country or world would come to raise capital, like they do in New York or Chicago.

**mikefmich** · September-02-14, 02:38 PM

Originally Posted by Bham1982

Detroit was never a major financial center.

The major financial centers back then were the same as now. NYC, London, Frankfurt, Paris, Zurich, Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo.

Never?
If the video referred to the early 70's, no.
Let's go back to two decades in the early 20th c. I'd say it was entirely possible.

**Sandhouse** · September-02-14, 03:21 PM

Somewhere in Lee Iacocca's autobiography is a snide description of Henry Ford II's management of the building of the Renaissance Center, with a phrase along the lines of, "The symbol of this project should have been a twisted arm." The price of continuing to do business with Ford Motor was to buy a share of the Ren Cen.