Michigan Central Station

[AgentSkelly]

Interesting twist...like I mentioned before, when Lee Iacocca was at the helm of Chrysler, he was looking for a replacement for their Highland Park headquarters and actually was interested in MCS; but when he talked with the city, they weren’t interested in selling it to Chrysler. And visibility was one of the requirements; it’s why when they moved to Auburn Hills, you know where Chrysler is...

[Tadman]

Interesting, I had no idea the city turned down Iacoca. Talk about a short-sighted move. Thirty more years of deterioration for the building and the city and it's that harder to get it going again.

That said, Corktown (the neighborhood surrounding MCS), at least on US12/Michigan Ave, is coming around and downtown itself is thriving. I could easily see the next Q-line between downtown and MCS with a higher-end transit line to Dearborn and/or the airport.

Can you imagine how much better off Corktown would be if 2,500 Chrysler workers had been present since 1985? That was a really rough area. The first time I visited was around 2002 when it was at its worst. There were no windows, literally none, in place. There were no fences. The bums and vandals had thoroughly had their way with the building. The surrounding neighborhood was downright bleak - I wouldn't call it scary, because it was too desolate to be scary. Scary requires people. Today, the windows have been replaced and fences surround the building in an attempt to make the building look like something other than a post-WWII Dresden motif.

PS I'm so amped to see this!

[tonyt]

Hate to tell everybody but Dearborn is not "way out". As a matter of fact the eastern (and some of northern) border of Dearborn is the city of Detroit. The 261 bus is about a 25 minute trip down Michigan Ave (US 12) to downtown Detroit, and it is about 20 minutes from the Michigan Central Station. A Ford employee working at the mythical Michigan Central Station Office Building can take the same 261 bus and be at a meeting at the Ford Motor Co. HQ in "way out" Dearborn in ~25 minutes (add a 5 minute walk to the 20 minute trip).

[tonyt]

By the way, Slows BBQ and the Mercury Bar are good locations to eat at and are very near the MCS. The Detroit Police Athletic Field at Michigan and Trumbull just opened up today in Corktown at the old Tiger Stadium site.

[AgentSkelly]

Interesting, I had no idea the city turned down Iacoca. Talk about a short-sighted move. Thirty more years of deterioration for the building and the city and it's that harder to get it going again.

That said, Corktown (the neighborhood surrounding MCS), at least on US12/Michigan Ave, is coming around and downtown itself is thriving. I could easily see the next Q-line between downtown and MCS with a higher-end transit line to Dearborn and/or the airport.

Can you imagine how much better off Corktown would be if 2,500 Chrysler workers had been present since 1985? That was a really rough area. The first time I visited was around 2002 when it was at its worst. There were no windows, literally none, in place. There were no fences. The bums and vandals had thoroughly had their way with the building. The surrounding neighborhood was downright bleak - I wouldn't call it scary, because it was too desolate to be scary. Scary requires people. Today, the windows have been replaced and fences surround the building in an attempt to make the building look like something other than a post-WWII Dresden motif.

PS I'm so amped to see this!

The background as I was told by a retired AMC/Chrysler engineer was that Iaccoca wanted a building that could house all the essential functions of Chrysler. Highland Park where Chrysler had its HQ, was like 100 different buildings that required "coordination" if you wanted to go somewhere. He looked at MCS as could house all the people that needed to work with each other; they would still need other facilites and actually planned on using the newly acquired AMC facilties for the other people. The answer from the city was they didn't want to sell it to him per say, the engineer said he thinks they wanted a weird 99 year lease on the building or something along those lines. And obviously, Chrysler moved to Auburn Hills and created the CTC that holds EVERYONE and has that shopping mall feel.

[Tadman]

Interesting story, thanks for the fill-in. I assume in the 80's it was a far easier sell to move it all to the burbs in regards to employee morale and talent acquisition. People actually thought the burbs were cool at that point.

Last I heard, the brass shut down the top floor where Eaton, Lutz, Schremp, Zetsche et al... had their offices because Marchioni wants to be near the engineers, not isolated on the top floor. I also once heard Lutz had the smoke alarms cut off so he could burn a stogie up there.

It would be interesting to see if Chrysler makes a move downtown and where they go. Right now they have Chrysler House but it's too small for the whole show.

[Gilbert B Norman]

There's Something Happening if these two reliable news-sources are to believed.

Detroit Free Press

Crain's

Stay tuned; but don't get any hopes up that passenger trains will use the facility.

[Ridgefielder]

Amtrak/LD service is probably a stretch. But I could certainly envision some kind of shuttle between MCS and Ford World Headquarters in Dearborn.

[benboston]

Amtrak/LD service is probably a stretch. But I could certainly envision some kind of shuttle between MCS and Ford World Headquarters in Dearborn.

They could use DMUs and operate it similarly to the planned Indigo Line in Boston

[mtuandrew]

Proposals to redevelop the train station, which has become symbolic of Detroit's ruins, have come and gone over the years. Negotiations with the depot owner, Manuel (Matty) Maroun, have been described by those familiar with recent discussions as complex and difficult.

You could say that again. Maybe with a big enough MCS payoff from the Ford board, the Marouns would relax somewhat on the Gordie Howe Bridge (a Bill Ford pet project.)

Even if Detroit created a regional commuter rail system, I'm not convinced it wouldn't use Amtrak's New Center Station and pass through the city from suburb to suburb. Maybe someday in the future?

[Steve B]

The story about the city not wanting to sell the building to Chrysler doesn't add up. Chrysler announced its plans for the Auburn Hills tech center in December 1984, when Conrail owned and used the MC Depot. Conrail sold the station in Dec. 1985 to the Kaybee Corp. Chrysler announced in Sept. 1992 it was also moving its HQ to Auburn Hills, and the city of Detroit didn't own the station at that time, either. It has never owned the station and has never told any of the various owners what to do with it, other than occasionally fine or complain about code violations.

[Steve B]

Mark Longton Jr., a small-time developer, bought the depot in Dec. 1989 but lost it to foreclosure in 1991, according to Crain's Detroit Business. Moroun appears to have acquired it by Oct. 1992.

A Nov. 8, 1990 Detroit Free Press article discussed how Longton patroled the depot and grounds with his .45 and dog, firing into the air as needed to scare off intruders. That's more security than Moroun ever provided for decades.

[mtuandrew]

Unless this scheme was in that brief period in 1991, when the (municipal?) court controlled the building, after the 1987 AMC purchase, and before Mopar moved its HQ to Auburn Hills. It’s a fine story anyway.

[Steve B]

If the city had owned it from 1991 to 1992 (I haven't seen any evidence or proof of that), history seems to indicate that it would have bent over backwards to go along with any requests from Chrysler. Mayor Young was accomodating to a fault when GM built the Poletown plant in the early '80s, and also when Chrysler built its Jefferson North plant later in the decade.

[Jeff Smith]

https://detroit.curbed.com/2018/5/30/17 ... rd-morouns" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

We’re getting closer to a likely announcement from Ford in mid-June, as the auto company looks to be creating a campus in Detroit. Crain’s first reported that long-time train depot owners the Morouns have transferred ownership of the long-vacant train station to a New York law firm.

The article states, “A warranty deed dated May 22 was recorded May 23 by the Wayne County Register of Deeds, transferring ownership from the Moroun-owned MCS Crown Land Development Co. LLC to New Investment Properties I LLC.”

The nearby Detroit Public Schools book depository building also transferred ownership to a (slightly) different entity—New Investment Properties II LLC.

The entities aren’t clearly identified as Ford, and the company isn’t specifically addressing it at this point. Dawn Booker from Ford’s real estate division told Crain’s, “We are very excited about our return to Detroit this year beginning with our electric vehicle and autonomous vehicle teams relocating to the historic former factory in Corktown. We expect to grow our presence in Detroit and will share more details in the future.”
...