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Correct Henry Ford ll helped bring the Renaissance Center to life and GM bought it in 1996 and moved into it leaving the GM HQ in Detroit. In 2004 GM completed a $500 million renovation of the Renaissance Center now ts called GM headquarters thus the GM logo on he building. I've been there it's got a hotel in the central tower that is managed by Marriott International witch s nice for the visiting executives who have business with GM.
GM only fills a portion of that complex. the center tower is a hotel. The side towers depend on which tower. They are a mix of companies, law firms, medial professionals, . GM is mostly in two of the side towers. Some subsidiaries like On star have a couple of floors in the 400 tower. The base is three floors of giant mostly empty shopping and dining spaces.
the building was never a success. It has enough retail and dining spaces it could house 12 oaks mall, but there are maybe three retail places and about five restaurants not counting the food court.
The building is designed to be self contained, not part of a city and it sets itself apart form the rest of the city. It belongs in a suburb not a downtown. Although it makes a great landmark, it should be torn down and replaced.
Oh and the construction is terrible. Most of the money GM spent was trying to make it safe. Being high up in one of the towers during high winds is quite an experience.
GM only fills a portion of that complex. the center tower is a hotel. The side towers depend on which tower. They are a mix of companies, law firms, medial professionals, . GM is mostly in two of the side towers. Some subsidiaries like On star have a couple of floors in the 400 tower. The base is three floors of giant mostly empty shopping and dining spaces.
the building was never a success. It has enough retail and dining spaces it could house 12 oaks mall, but there are maybe three retail places and about five restaurants not counting the food court.
The building is designed to be self contained, not part of a city and it sets itself apart form the rest of the city. It belongs in a suburb not a downtown. Although it makes a great landmark, it should be torn down and replaced.
Oh and the construction is terrible. Most of the money GM spent was trying to make it safe. Being high up in one of the towers during high winds is quite an experience.
GM only fills a portion of that complex. the center tower is a hotel. The side towers depend on which tower. They are a mix of companies, law firms, medial professionals, . GM is mostly in two of the side towers. Some subsidiaries like On star have a couple of floors in the 400 tower. The base is three floors of giant mostly empty shopping and dining spaces.
the building was never a success. It has enough retail and dining spaces it could house 12 oaks mall, but there are maybe three retail places and about five restaurants not counting the food court.
The building is designed to be self contained, not part of a city and it sets itself apart form the rest of the city. It belongs in a suburb not a downtown. Although it makes a great landmark, it should be torn down and replaced.
Oh and the construction is terrible. Most of the money GM spent was trying to make it safe. Being high up in one of the towers during high winds is quite an experience.
Not to mention that from inside it is ugly and incredibly easy to get lost in. Signage is horrible.
It is terribly inaccessible. Either take the crosswalk tunnel from Millender or play frog ger across Jefferson. Crossing Jefferson takes two light cycles and you still have to avoid people taking a right out of the tunnel and ignoring pedestrians.
Plus that is all people think of when they think of Detroit's skyline. It is ugly and blocks the architectural gems that we have.
And... the Chrysler headquarters building is ugly, too. (They've only been sticking advertisements on it for a few years now.) Of course I don't typically favor the glass buildings. I'd much rather look at the Book-Cadillac (my favorite), the Guardian, the Stott, the Dime Building, 1 Woodward, etc...
Last edited by jaynarie; 09-19-2017 at 12:01 AM..
Reason: spaced out frog ger because it made it into ******
Not to mention that from inside it is ugly and incredibly easy to get lost in. Signage is horrible.
It is terribly inaccessible. Either take the crosswalk tunnel from Millender or play frog ger across Jefferson. Crossing Jefferson takes two light cycles and you still have to avoid people taking a right out of the tunnel and ignoring pedestrians.
Plus that is all people think of when they think of Detroit's skyline. It is ugly and blocks the architectural gems that we have.
And... the Chrysler headquarters building is ugly, too. (They've only been sticking advertisements on it for a few years now.) Of course I don't typically favor the glass buildings. I'd much rather look at the Book-Cadillac (my favorite), the Guardian, the Stott, the Dime Building, 1 Woodward, etc...
My mother worked at the Penobscot Building when she was younger she was an elevator operator it's a beautiful building.
Been in GM Headquarters and the Ren Cen quite a few times when I used to live in Detroit and worked at the SE corner of Howard and Cass. Had a few friends who worked in the GM headquarters and used to do the approx. 1 mile walk over for lunch. It was an interesting building by Portman, riverfront was nice, but it was in Detroit. A place I will never return to alive or dead.
My mother worked at the Penobscot Building when she was younger she was an elevator operator it's a beautiful building.
It unfortunately has not been well cared for. It is in desperate need of a cleaning from the outside, the red light never works, and while I've not been in the office space, I know it is no longer Class A.
I wish it would get an owner who cared for it properly.
I once went inside the CTC for a meeting. It has all the warmth of a 1990's mega shopping mall, but with security tighter than that at an international airport.
This accurately describes Honda R&D Ohio's interior to a T as well, but with a much more "school lunch room" feeling when you get on the main design floors. It's just an endless wide open cube farm.
The building itself has won a bunch of architectural awards, for reasons I don't fundamentally understand, but from a distance it looks like a modern prison (especially since all of the employees were required to wear matching white jumpsuits). That also was about their level of security. 10 years ago they wouldn't even allow a phone in the building with a camera so my employer had a special, ancient, brick-phone that was cameraless... I have no idea how they've handed the smart phone age. The driveway up to the building is like 1/2 mile long with the security shack basically on the curb of the main road. An ED-209 would have been right at home there professing that you had 10 seconds to comply. The campus itself is beautiful though. It's very Japanese... all the way down to the flotation rings tethered to posts around ALL of the retention ponds. I've never seen that before or after anywhere else (barely visible in the picture. The little red things around the pond along the sidewalk).
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