Opened in 1926, the 38-story Book Tower was once Detroit’s tallest building and an early emblem of the city’s wealth and prestige. Fast forward to 2015 and the ornamented landmark, vacant since 2009 following sustained decline, was acquired by hometown billionaire Dan Gilbert.
Unveiled in 2023, his $317 million mixed-use makeover of the tower and attached 13-story Book Building (1917) through his development arm Bedrock incorporates office space, event venues, residences and 117 extended-stay Roost Hotel rooms. Group-capable dining concepts include Parisian-inspired Le Suprême with private dining for 24, and 14th-floor Kamper’s outdoor lounge.
Restoration highlights include the three-story, marbled-arched lobby-level atrium, canopied by a spellbinding glass-paneled skylight. Housing the all-day Bar Rotunda cafe and wine bar, this spectacular public space was the setting for my conversation this June with Visit Detroit CEO Claude Molinari and Christopher Moyer, senior director of communications.
“We would have had to break in to meet here a few years ago,” said Molinari, as he and Moyer discussed how other historic restorations, downtown’s resurgence and other future-forward developments have put Motor City back in pole position. Recent major events especially are giving international visibility to the turnaround that long seemed out of reach for Detroit.
“Attracting record crowds and viewership, hosting the NFL Draft this April galvanized Detroit,” Molinari said. “Now, just six weeks later, we are readying for another high-profile event with the reopening of Michigan Central Station.”
Vacant since 1988, the storied 1913 rail terminal is another monument that was in decline and transformed into a beacon of opportunity and optimism. Before attending the station’s all-star reopening celebration, I spent three eye-opening days experiencing the new Detroit. It was clear from arrival that the revival party was already well underway.
[Related: Detroit’s Innovation and Creativity Bring in New Meetings Business]
Detroit’s New Multi-Lane Economy Drives Events
Monuments to hometown heavyweight boxing hero Joe Louis include the riverfront bronze The Fist sculpture and a statue in the lobby of nearby Huntington Place, where conventioneers can listen to a stirring audio recording of Louis’ 1938 rematch knockout of Germany’s Max Schmeling. Fighting spirit defines Detroit, including the group market’s rebound across an expanding field of industry-driven conventions and tradeshows.
Relying solely on automotive manufacturing first drove Detroit up, then down, as the decline of the automotive industry and other economic upheaval financially drowned the city, culminating in 2013 with the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history. In the decade of restructuring and recovery since, the Detroit region has ramped up an increasingly diversified innovation economy.
As if to announce that point, Detroit Metropolitan Airport (DTW), rated No. 1 in customer satisfaction among mega-airports by J.D. Power in 2023, offers a beguiling view of
the future. Pioneering programs include facial ID and the world’s first “parallel reality” display, which allows each of up to 100 customers to see their personalized flight information on a large digital screen in the concourse at the same time.
I also noted the digital screen welcoming attendees of the RTX Invention Convention U.S. Nationals 2024, an annual showcase of student inventors hosted by The Henry Ford campus in nearby Dearborn.
With an industry mix that now includes Big Tech, fintech, cybersecurity, robotics, AI, health care and retail, Detroit is back at the forefront of transportation and mobility. Representative drawcard bookings include The Battery Show, North America's largest event in advanced battery manufacturing and electric vehicles. Scheduled for October 2024 at Huntington Place, the four-day “cross-market global marketplace” is among the major industry events signifying Detroit’s status as the place to meet and do business.
Scaling Up for Success
With its massive outdoor video screen, Huntington Place, featuring 723,000 square feet of exhibition space, 100 meetings rooms and the 40,000-square-foot Grand Riverview Ballroom, is hard to miss. The award-winning, sustainability-focused building will be an even brighter beacon following approved expansion plans that include a skybridge-connected 25-story, 600-room JW Marriott hotel. Located on the adjacent former Joe Louis Arena site, the $397 million project, slated for early 2027 in time for the NCAA Men's Final Four basketball tournament, will reportedly offer 50,000 square feet of flexible space.
The property will be Detroit’s second-largest hotel by key count, behind the 1,328-room Detroit Marriott at General Motors’ Renaissance Center. Other future flags include Detroit’s first five-star hotel and a 210-room Edition planned for Bedrock’s $1.4 billion mixed-use Hudson’s Detroit skyscraper, which topped out this April.
Gilbert, who co-founded Quicken Loans, is a man on a mission, having renovated dozens of abandoned buildings in and around downtown Detroit in the last decade. Another revitalization leader was late Little Caesars Pizza founder Mike Ilitch, whose downtown legacy includes relocating his headquarters to the iconic Fox Theatre and building Comerica Park and multipurpose Little Caesars Arena.
The sports facilities are home of the Ilitch family-owned Detroit Tigers of MLB (Comerica Park) and NHL’s Detroit Red Wings (Little Caesars Arena), with the NBA’s Detroit Pistons also playing at Little Caesars Arena. These venues, along with Ford Field, home of the NFL’s Detroit Lions, are within easy walking distance of each other, forming a uniquely compact event campus. Another delegate advantage is the currently free People Mover monorail, which encircles downtown with 12 stations, including Huntington Place.
New hotels are planned for the Fox and by Little Caesars Arena as part of the emerging 50-block District Detroit, which offers a wealth of group-capable restaurants, bars and boutique hotels.
The iconic event-capable Motown Museum is undergoing a phased $65 million expansion of the current campus to a 50,000-square-foot entertainment and educational destination.
[Related: Major Renovations Debut in Chicago, Detroit and Wisconsin]
Detroit Owns the Moment
Designed by the architects behind NYC’s Grand Central Terminal, Michigan Central Station went from glory to a decayed, vandalized ghost. Following a six-year, $950 million restoration by Ford Motor Company, the beloved Beaux Arts landmark now anchors Michigan Central, a 30-acre technology and cultural district in historic Corktown that is putting Detroit on track for the future.
Celebrating 121 years in 2024, Ford is an anchor tenant at the station, which offers 640,000 square feet of space for creative collaboration among companies, universities, startups, students and other stakeholders. Echoing Ford’s futuristic “Road of Tomorrow” from the 1939 New York World’s Fair, concepts include an “electric road” that wirelessly charges stationery or moving electric vehicles.
Launched a year ago, neighboring Newlab is a fast-growing hub of companies and startups focused on fields that include advanced aerial mobility, energy equity and multimodal logistics.
Streamed live on Peacock followed by a primetime NBC special, the sold-out Live From Detroit: The Concert at Michigan Central was the main event of an 11-day reopening celebration. Produced by Detroit-raised rap legend Eminem, who closed the show, the sold-out spectacle, staged at the station, featured performances by local legends such as Diana Ross, Jack White and Big Sean.
Speaking with open, upbeat and reenergized Detroiters throughout my visit—along with experiencing the amazing culinary and cultural scene—reminded me of how the late Anthony Bourdain championed Detroit.
“That’s a status symbol to say you’re from Detroit,” Bourdain once said. “It implies something. You come from a place where all this great music…great cars…and cool things (are from). I’d love to be able to say that I came from Detroit. That would be like the coolest things I could ever say.”
I could not agree more.
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