On Thursday, December 14, 2017, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan and billionaire investor Dan Gilbert broke ground — on the site of the former Hudson’s department store (see below) — on their new project: a “shimmering glass and steel” skyscraper that will rise to be Detroit’s tallest building.
For the City, each new project “marks another milestone on the road to recovery;” however, “some of those mileposts stand out as more important than most,” and “it’s hard not see the Hudson’s site project in that light.”
Indeed, Gilbert has called the location the City’s “retail holy ground,” but it’s been vacant since the ’80s.
Thursday’s groundbreaking was a linking of Detroit’s past, present and future, which “brought forth” what Detroit Free Press business writer John Gallagher called “a mix of pride, nostalgia and hope.” Joseph Hudson, patriarch of the Hudson’s department store family, was a guest speaker.
The new building (top-most image is the latest rendering, from September 2017), Gilbert announced Thursday, will carry the Hudson name, in some fashion — a nod to Detroit’s “storied” history. Nevertheless, the downtown structure will “feature the latest technology [and] the coolest environmental advances.”
“Detroit is finally building anew on a site that meant so much for almost a century,” wrote Gallagher. “Detroit is getting its swagger back.”
For more on how it all happened, read the full story.
