Ford Motor is converting an abandoned train station, which for decades was a notorious symbol of Detroit's decline and neglect, into a new technology campus for the automaker and a multi-use site for the city.
Michael Wayland / CNBC
DETROIT- Ford latest project from the Motor City is the restoration and reopening of an abandoned train station that for decades was a symbol of Detroit's decline and is now the automaker's new technology campus.
The $950 million project includes the 18-story former Michigan Central Station – once the state's most prominent transportation building – an adjacent 25,000-square-foot building and other ancillary facilities.
The 30-acre Michigan Central campus and train station was originally announced in 2018 and was scheduled to open by 2022. However, the coronavirus pandemic and extensive work to renovate the station delayed the reopening. Ford is celebrating the restoration of the century-old station on Thursday.
Following the event on Thursday, the ground floor of the station building will be open to the public until June 16, before the first commercial users move in in the fall.
The new campus comes at a sensitive time for Ford investors as the company continues to restructure its business. This also comes as many companies look to downsize office space and fill their current buildings with employees who have adapted to working from home during the pandemic.
The newly restored room at the rear of the building features a photo of Michigan Central's main hall before its renovation.
Michael Wayland / CNBC
A stark contrast has emerged, particularly in Detroit: In April, Ford's rival from the other city General Motors announced that it would move from its towering headquarters in the Renaissance Center on the city's riverfront to two floors in a nearby building under construction.
Nevertheless, Ford CEO Bill Ford Jr. said he believes investing in the historic station is a crucial part of the automaker's future, including in terms of attracting and retaining talent.
“We're in a war for talent, for our industry and for our company,” Ford, who led the project, told CNBC. “And you have to offer talent two things: first, you have to give them really interesting problems to solve, and second, you have to give them a great place to work. With Michigan Central, we've met both criteria.”
Bill Ford decided to buy the dilapidated building after years of traveling to Silicon Valley for his venture capital firm Fontinalis and during his tenure as a member of the eBay Board member. He has long advocated that the traditional automotive industry must compete with newer technology companies in both product and talent acquisition.
Ford Motor released this photo of CEO Bill Ford, the great-grandson of company founder Henry Ford, when the automaker announced the purchase of Michigan Central Station in June 2018.
ford
Ford said he was “getting better at attracting top talent to Detroit,” but noted that convincing workers from California or the East Coast to move to Detroit and work for Ford would be “a big task.”
“If you can show them a place like Michigan Central, not only its beauty, which is incredible on its own, but then talk about the things that are going to happen there, I think that will be a really valuable resource for the company going forward,” he said.
Campus Station
The Michigan Central Campus is located southwest of Detroit's main business district in a trendy neighborhood called Corktown. It is about 10 miles down the road from Ford's headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan.
The Michigan Central Campus includes 1.2 million square feet of commercial space, including retail, restaurants and hospitality, and has been awarded $300 million in state, local and historic redevelopment tax credits, according to officials.
The restored large waiting room in Ford's Michigan Central Station in Detroit.
Michael Wayland / CNBC
Ford employees went to great lengths to restore the station to its original glory after decades of vandalism and decay. The project included 3D scanning of the rooms, matching materials and using historical photographs to recreate parts of the building.
This was especially true on the ground floor of the station, where there is a large space with huge windows, an archway and a large hall with marble and terrazzo floors, Mankato stone and other unique materials.
Architects and designers decided to leave some graffiti on the walls to commemorate the station's years of inactivity after its closure in 1988.
A testament to Ford's determination was that officials traced the plant's original limestone to a quarry in Indiana, only to find that it had since closed. Michigan Central worked with the owners to reopen the quarry.
Some graffiti from when Michigan Central was abandoned for over 30 years was intentionally preserved to represent this part of the station's history.
Michael Wayland / CNBC
“It's been carefully and lovingly restored to its original state as much as possible,” said Josh Sirefman, CEO of Michigan Central, during a tour of the project. “Before we start activating it with a lot of things, it's probably in its most original state.”
Given the challenges in the national commercial real estate market, about two-thirds of the tower has tenants or uses planned, officials said, including an as-yet-unnamed restaurant and hotel whose rezoning must still be approved.
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,” said Bill Ford. “There's a lot of experimentation going on down there.”
Ford plans to house at least 2,500 employees in the building, primarily employees from the company's electric vehicle and connected services teams. About 1,000 of those employees are expected to move into the fueling tower by the end of this year, Ford said.
Other tenants in the building could include local universities, other businesses and a restaurant, but officials declined to release a full list of expected tenants. Googlea founding partner of the project, runs its Code Next program, which teaches students to code, from the Book Depository building.
Ford said he expects future employees of the automaker to be able to work with other employees in the station tower as well as the startups in the Book Depository building.
A photograph of Michigan Central's arcade before its renovation is located in the newly restored room at the east end of the building.
Michael Wayland / CNBC
“Legacy Project”
The revitalization of the station and the surrounding campus is the latest project that Bill Ford, a great-grandson of company founder Henry Ford, has undertaken in the Motor City.
He was instrumental in the move of the Ford family-owned Detroit Lions from the suburb of Pontiac to a new stadium in downtown Detroit, aptly named Ford Field, in 2002. He was also part of the team that brought the Super Bowl to the city in 2006.
And he converted the company's River Rouge assembly plant into a “green” manufacturing facility despite calls to close it. Today it is a tourist destination because it produces the full-size Ford F-150 pickup truck.
Ford, who served as the automaker's CEO from 2001 to 2006, described Michigan Central as a continuation of such projects, calling the project a “legacy project” for himself and for those who were privileged to work on it.
“I am very proud of these two [prior projects]but I think it will add a special touch to it because this will not only be a wonderful place to work, but it will also be a wonderful place for the public,” Ford said.
The renovated “reading room” next to the large waiting room in Ford’s Michigan Central Station in Detroit.
Michael Waylans / CNBC