Ford spends $950 million to rehabilitate Detroit train station campus | Wilnesh News

Detroit – Ford’s Latest projects in Auto City is the restoration and reopening of an abandoned train station that for decades was a symbol of Detroit’s decline and is now a new technology campus for the automaker.

The $950 million project includes an 18-story former train station called Michigan Central Station – once the state’s iconic transportation building – with an adjacent 270,000-square-foot building and other amenities.

The 30-acre Michigan Central campus and station were initially announced in 2018 and expected to open in 2022. Ford is Celebrate recovery Thursday at the century-old train station.

Following Thursday’s event, the ground floor of the train station building will be open to the public until June 16, before the first commercial tenants begin moving in this fall.

The new campus comes at a precarious time Ford Investors As the company continues to restructure its operations. At the same time, many companies are trying to downsize office space and house employees accustomed to working from home during the pandemic into existing buildings.

In Detroit in particular, a stark contrast emerged: In April, Ford’s crosstown rival General Motors It has been announced that the towering Renaissance Center headquarters on the city’s riverfront will be downsized to two floors of a building under construction nearby.

However Ford Chairman Bill Ford Jr. He said he believed investment in the historic train station was an important part of the automaker’s future, including in terms of talent acquisition and retention.

“We’re in a war for talent, a war for industries and a war for companies,” Ford, who spearheaded the project, told CNBC. “You need to provide talent with two things: First, you need to provide them with something that’s really interesting. problems to solve, and then you have to provide them with a great place to work. At Michigan Central, we meet both requirements.”

Bill Ford decided to purchase the dilapidated building after years of traveling in Silicon Valley. Fontinaris venture capital firm and during his time as a member of the venture capital firm eBay Board of Directors. He has long been outspoken about the need for the traditional auto industry to compete with emerging technology companies on products and access to talent.

Ford said things are “getting better” in attracting top talent to Detroit, but noted that convincing workers from California or the East Coast to move to Detroit and work for Ford “is a tall order.”

“If you can show them a place like Michigan Center, not just for the beauty of it, which is incredible in and of itself, but then talk about what’s going to happen there, then I think it becomes very empowering. value resource companies moving forward,” he said.

Michigan Central Campus is located in a trendy neighborhood southwest of Detroit’s main business district. Known as Corktown. Approximately 10 miles from Ford World Headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan.

The Michigan Center campus totals 1.2 million square feet of commercial space, including retail, restaurants and restaurants. It received $300 million in state, local and historic restoration tax incentives, according to officials.

After decades of destruction and decay, Ford officials went to great lengths to restore the station to its original glory. The project involved 3D scanning rooms, matching materials and referencing historical photos to reconstruct various parts of the building.

This is especially true for the first floor of the train station, where there is a grand room with huge windows, arcades and a large hall filled with marble and terrazzo floors, Mankato stone and other unique materials.

The 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 measure of Ford’s determination, officials traced the facility’s original limestone to a quarry in Indiana, only to discover that it had closed. Michigan Center works with property owners to reopen quarries.

“Whenever possible, it has been lovingly and lovingly restored to its original condition,” Michigan Central CEO Josh Sirefman said during a tour of the project. “When we started It’s probably in its most pristine state before you activate it with a lot of things.”

Amid challenges facing commercial real estate nationwide, about two-thirds of towers have tenants booked or use cases planned, officials said. It includes an unnamed restaurant and hotel pending rezoning approval.

The adjacent building, known as the Detroit Public Schools Book Depository, already houses more than 600 employees from nearly 100 start-up companies.

“This is really the beginning of the ecosystem I want to create,” Bill Ford said. “There’s going to be a lot of experimentation there.”

Ford plans to build homes At least 2,500 employees In the building are mainly members of the company’s electric vehicle and connected services teams. Ford said it expects about 1,000 of those employees to move into the station tower by the end of the year.

Other building occupiers could include a local university, other businesses and a restaurant. However, officials declined to release a full list of prospective tenants. Googlea founding partner of the project, operates its “Next Code” planteaching students how to code at the Book Depository.

Ford said he hopes future automaker employees will collaborate with other users of the station tower and with startups in the book storage building.

he is pushing detroit lions owned by ford family In 2002, he moved from suburban Pontiac to a new stadium in downtown Detroit called Ford Field. He was also part of the 2006 team that brought the Super Bowl to Detroit.

Amid calls to close the company’s Red River Assembly Plant, he redeveloped it as a “green” production facility. Now, it has become a tourist destination where the Ford F-150 full-size pickup truck is produced.

Ford, who was the automaker’s chief executive from 2001 to 2006, described the Michigan center as a continuation of such programs. He calls the work a “legacy project” for himself and those who are able to work on it.

“I’m very proud of both (previous projects), but I think this is going to be an exclamation point because it’s going to be a great place to work, but it’s also going to be a great place for the public to come to. Yeah,” Ford said.