Ford rejuvenates Detroit train station with a $950 million campus.

DETROIT – Ford’s most recent venture in Motor City is the renovation and reopening of a deserted train station, long viewed as a symbol of Detroit’s decline, which will now serve as the automaker’s new technology campus.

The project, which costs $950 million, includes the 18-story former Michigan Central Station – the state’s premier transit building – an adjacent 270,000-square-foot building, and other supporting facilities.

The “Michigan Central” campus and station, encompassing 30 acres, was first announced in 2018 and was set to open by 2022. However, the reopening was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the extensive renovation work required for the station. Ford is commemorating the restoration of the century-old train station on Thursday.

After Thursday’s event, the train station building’s ground floor will be open to the public until June 16, before the first commercial tenants move in this autumn.

The timing of the new campus coincides with a critical period for Ford investors, as the company continues to restructure its operations. This is also happening as many businesses are trying to downsize office space and occupy their current buildings with employees who have become used to working from home during the pandemic.

In Detroit, a striking contrast has emerged: In April, Ford’s local competitor General Motors announced it would downsize from its towering Renaissance Center headquarters on the city’s riverfront to two floors in a nearby under-construction building.

Nonetheless, Ford Chair Bill Ford Jr. believes that the investment in the historic train station is a vital part of the automaker’s future, particularly in terms of talent acquisition and retention.

Bill Ford purchased the derelict building after years of trips to Silicon Valley for his Fontinalis venture capital firm and during his tenure as an eBay board member. He has consistently advocated for the traditional automotive industry to compete with newer tech companies in both product and talent acquisition.

While Ford acknowledged that attracting top talent to Detroit is “getting better,” he admitted that convincing workers from California or the East Coast to relocate to Detroit and work for Ford is “a tall order.”

He believes that showcasing a place like Michigan Central, not only for its beauty but also for the type of work that will be conducted there, will make it a valuable resource for the company moving forward.

The Michigan Central campus is located in Detroit’s Corktown neighborhood, southwest of the main business district and about 10 miles from Ford’s world headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan.

The campus spans a total of 1.2 million square feet of commercial space, including retail, restaurants, and hospitality. It was awarded $300 million in state, local, and historic rehabilitation tax incentives, officials said.

Ford officials went to considerable lengths to restore the station to its original splendor after decades of decay and vandalism. The project involved 3D scanning the rooms, matching materials, and referencing historical photos to recreate parts of the building.

Particularly for the train station’s first floor, where a grand room features large windows, an arcade, and a spacious concourse filled with marble and terrazzo flooring, Mankato stone, and other unique materials.

Architects and designers chose to leave some graffiti on the walls to represent the station’s dormant years after it closed in 1988.

As a testament to Ford’s commitment, officials tracked down the facility’s original limestone to a quarry in Indiana, which had since closed. Michigan Central collaborated with the owners to reopen the quarry.

“It has been painstakingly and lovingly restored to its original condition wherever possible,” said Josh Sirefman, Michigan Central CEO, during a tour of the project. “It’s probably in its most pristine condition before we start filling it with lots of things.”

About two-thirds of the tower has scheduled tenants or planned use cases, according to officials, despite challenges in national commercial real estate. This includes a yet-to-be-named restaurant and hotel, pending rezoning approval.

The adjacent building, known as the Detroit Public Schools Book Depository, currently houses over 600 employees from nearly 100 startup companies.

“It truly is the start of the ecosystem that I want to create,” said Bill Ford. “There’s going to be a lot of experimentation taking place down there.”

Ford plans to accommodate at least 2,500 employees in the building, mainly from the company’s electric vehicle and connected services teams. Approximately 1,000 of these employees are expected to move into the station’s tower by the end of this year, according to Ford.

Other occupants of the building could include local universities, other businesses, and a restaurant, although officials declined to provide a full list of expected tenants. Google, a founding partner of the project, operates its “Code Next” program, which teaches students how to code, from the Book Depository building.

Ford anticipates that future automaker employees will be able to collaborate with other occupants of the station’s tower as well as the startups occupying the Book Depository building.

The revival of the train station and surrounding campus is the latest in a series of projects undertaken by Bill Ford, a great-grandson of company founder Henry Ford, in Motor City.

He played a key role in moving the Detroit Lions, owned by the Ford family, from suburban Pontiac to a new stadium, fittingly named Ford Field, in downtown Detroit in 2002. He was also part of the team that brought the Super Bowl to the city in 2006.

He also transformed the company’s River Rouge Assembly plant into a “green” production facility amidst calls for its closure. It is now a tourist destination for the production of the Ford F-150 full-size pickup.

Ford, who served as the automaker’s CEO from 2001 to 2006, views Michigan Central as a continuation of these projects. He referred to the effort as a “legacy project” for both himself and those who have had the opportunity to work on it.

“I’m very proud of both of those [previous projects], but I think this will sort of put a stamp on it because this will be a wonderful place to work but it will also be a wonderful place for the public to come,” said Ford.