Why did GM Leave the New Center?

[Detroit500]

and move into a building designed by one of its nemesis? I'm wondering if people around then could tell the story of how Ford abandons its pet project, gives it away to GM, and GM leaves a beautifully iconic structure.

[detroitbob]

Ren Cen was a bargain...and a chance to consolidate offices under one roof, so to speak. In addition, if memory serves me the old complex was donated or transferred for tax credits. A good move for GM, both fiscal and promotional.

[Zacha341]

What's New Center? ------

[Dexlin]

Oh, you know, that little business center north of Wayne State which has been known by that name since the early 30's, that's all.

[Bham1982]

Because the building was old and outdated, and needed tons of renovations, because the RenCen was available for almost nothing, and because employees didn't want to be in the [[relative) dead zone of New Center.

[Dexlin]

Most of those are right, though, I'd argue that New Center was really no more dead than downtown was at the time of the move. That, and for the longest time, the RenCen didn't even interact with the rest of downtown. As for a liveliness, the advantage was that you could create a little city within the RenCen, which is something that was harder to do with the GM Building.

All-in-all, the move seemed to have worked out positively for all involved. The State of Michigan got to consolidate scattered regional offices and move to an actual neighborhood instead of the Executive Plaza across the freeway from downtown in a zone far more dead the New Center. And, the RenCen finally got a tenant willing to transform the building and bring it back to life. It was one of the games of musical chairs in this region that seems to have had a net benefit for most parties involved. Things didn't work out for the Executive Plaza in all of this, but it's probably a structure that should have never been built in the first place. And, speaking of which, I'm surprised it never found its way to the wrecking ball, though, it nearly did. I wonder who owns it, now?

[Zacha341]

Hah! I know...... I live nearby and recall the heyday, then the slump. There are still some really nice homes in New Center proper but it just did not get off the ground long term.

Oh, you know, that little business center north of Wayne State which has been known by that name since the early 30's, that's all.

[gnome]

Gistok knows the story behind the story as he has told it many times, but in short, Mayor Archer pulled the whole thing off after City Council turned down GM's free offer.

the plan was to move City Hall up to New Center, but City Council frowned on the idea that a white owned corporation would own one of its jewels.

[Dexlin]

That sounds ridiculous, the plan and the story you give for it. If the plan was real and the council was against it, it wasn't some racial thing but that it's highly unusual for a city government to lease space for its headquarters, particularly for cities of Detroit's size.

[gnome]

Of course it is ridiculous, it is about Detroit City Council, you expected something different ?

[stromberg2]

Gnome is 100% correct.

[Gistok]

That sounds ridiculous, the plan and the story you give for it. If the plan was real and the council was against it, it wasn't some racial thing but that it's highly unusual for a city government to lease space for its headquarters, particularly for cities of Detroit's size.

Oh yes... it was very much racial.... at the time the feeling was at the [[then) City County Building [[both the council and city workers) that they were trying to get the African-American city workers away from downtown and the riverfront. So Mayor Archer threw up his hands, and gave up.

And today... the State of Michigan has one of the finest State office buildings [[not in the state capital) in the country, and the city workers are still in dumpy looking cluttered offices at the CAY Building [[just look into the windows when you zoom by on the People Mover).

[EastsideAl]

The reason the city didn't take the deal on the GM Building is that it simply wasn't a very good deal. The deal the city was offered wasn't the deal that the state later got. Essentially, Mayor Archer had brokered a deal that allowed GM to dump the GM Building space on the city in return for taking on the broke and partially-empty Ren Cen [[Ford was already in the process of moving many of its offices out of there).

Archer's theory at the time was that Ford could take over the City-County building and move its remaining Ren Cen offices there, but Ford quickly turned that down. So, the city would have been moving its mostly-centralized offices out of a government-owned City-County Building [[now Coleman A. Young Municipal Center) into a situation where they would have had to rent offices from GM or its successor building owners. This would have moved the city's government and all of its workers out of the heart of the city, and left behind a largely empty building that the city would have to pay for, with no replacement tenants on the horizon. But Archer was still left stumping for the move as part of his deal with GM.

The city did not have, and would not have, the funds to renovate the GM Building [[which is 3+ decades older than CAY) and make it more efficient and modern. And would probably not have had access to the money that was eventually used to do it for the state offices. The state, on the other hand, had deeper pockets, access to more funding, and had a very real need to consolidate its offices that were spread around the Detroit area in poorly maintained out-of-the-way facilities like the Executive Plaza building. It all worked out well in the end.

So, despite the tendency of some white suburbanites to think that all decisions made by the members of the Detroit City Council [[excuse me, "those crazy n-----s on the Clowncil") are motivated by a racial hatred of white people, this one wasn't particularly. [[Well, unless you know something about the race of Dennis Archer, or of the population around the New Center area, that I don't.) It was, plain and simple, just not a very good deal for the city.

[EastsideAl]

city workers are still in dumpy looking cluttered offices at the CAY Building [[just look into the windows when you zoom by on the People Mover)

The CAY Center is "dumpy" for the same reason that the GM Building move would have been a bad deal for the city. The city government has few resources [[certainly nothing like the state's), and the funds available to it have been declining for decades. Had the city moved to the GM Building, those offices would almost certainly be in the same condition for the same reason.

[Gistok]

EastsideAl.... are you sure this was just "crazy suburbanite thinking"... you didn't mention that when you posted the last time this topic came around back in 2010 on a Hall of Fame thread?

http://www.detroityes.com/mb/showthr...Cadillac-Place

[Detroit500]

Wow... After reading that other thread it was fascinating... I never realized there were no links between the different towers in the original design. Kind of defeats the idea of "city within a city" complex.

[EastsideAl]

EastsideAl.... are you sure this was just "crazy suburbanite thinking"... you didn't mention that when you posted the last time this topic came around back in 2010 on a Hall of Fame thread?

http://www.detroityes.com/mb/showthr...Cadillac-Place

Huh? The only post I made on that thread had to do with the design history of the Ren Cen, and didn't deal with this subject at all. So I have no idea what you're trying to say.

[Dexlin]

So, despite the tendency of some white suburbanites to think that all decisions made by the members of the Detroit City Council [[excuse me, "those crazy n-----s on the Clowncil") are motivated by a racial hatred of white people, this one wasn't particularly. [[Well, unless you know something about the race of Dennis Archer, or of the population around the New Center area, that I don't.) It was, plain and simple, just not a very good deal for the city.

Thank you for the actual explanation, and not the fevered dreams of the same people who to this day shamelessly misrepresent the "Hit 8 mile" speech as explictly racist. You know, the speech where these folks literally omit the sentence immediately preceding its most popular line. But, really, I digress. lol

[Gistok]

Here is an old New York Times article that talks about the move of City Hall to the old GM HQ...

http://www.nytimes.com/1996/09/23/us...t-shuffle.html

And here's an older DYES thread on it dating to 2008...

http://www.atdetroit.net/forum/messa...tml?1217036317