Cadillac Place

For the downtown Detroit, Michigan office tower known as "Cadillac Tower", see Cadillac Tower.

"General Motors Building" redirects here, for the office tower in New York City with that name, see General Motors Building (New York).

Cadillac Place (General Motors Building)
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. National Historic Landmark
Main entrance
Location:	3044 West Grand Blvd. Detroit, Michigan United States
Coordinates:	42°22′7″N 83°4′32″W
Area:	3.7 acres (1.5 ha)
Built:	1919-1923 2002 renovation
Architect:	Albert Kahn; Thompson-Starrett Co.
Architectural style:	Neo-classical
Governing body:	Private
NRHP Reference#:	78001520
Significant dates
Added to NRHP:	June 2, 1978
Designated NHL:	June 2, 1978

Cadillac Place is a landmark high-rise office complex in the United States, located in the New Center area of Detroit, Michigan. The ornate class-A office building was constructed of steel, limestone, granite, and marble between 1919 and 1923 and listed as a National Historic Landmark in 1985. The building houses several agencies of the State of Michigan under a 20-year lease agreement approved in 1998. At the end of the lease, the State has the option to purchase the structure for $1. The 2002 renovation to house State offices was one of the nation's largest historic renovation projects. Upon completion it was renamed Cadillac Place as a tribute to Detroit's founder, Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac. Cadillac Place currently houses over 2,000 state employees including the Michigan Court of Appeals for District I. The building's former executive office suite serves as the Detroit office for Michigan's governor and attorney general, and several Justices of the Michigan Supreme Court have offices in the building.

History

After much pressure by the General Motors Board of Directors, William C. Durant agreed in 1919 to construct a permanent headquarters in Detroit for the company he formed in 1908. The corporation purchased the block between Cass and Second on West Grand Boulevard and removed the 48 structures from the site to begin work.

Groundbreaking was held June 2, 1919 and the Cass Avenue wing was ready for occupancy in November 1920 while the remainder of the building was under construction. The building was originally named for Durant, but an internal power struggle led to his ouster in 1921 and the structure was renamed the General Motors Building. However, the initial “D” had already been carved above the main entrance and in several other places on the building where they remain today.

The structure served as General Motors world headquarters from 1923 until 2001 when it moved the last of its employees to the Renaissance Center on the Detroit River. In 1999, General Motors transferred the property to New Center Development, Inc. a non-profit venture controlled by TrizecHahn Office Properties which acted as developer and began renovation on the upper floors which GM vacated in 2000. The Annex was constructed shortly after the main building and in the 1940s, it was connected to the adjacent Argonaut Building with a pedestrian bridge on the fourth floor. A parking structure was constructed to the east across Cass Avenue and also connected with a pedestrian bridge. A third bridge was constructed across Grand Boulevard in the early 1980s to connect the building with New Center One and the St. Regis Hotel.

Architecture

Cadillac Place rises 15 stories to a total height of 220 feet (67 m) with the top floor at 187 feet (57 m). The building has 31 elevators. It was originally constructed with 1,200,000 square feet (110,000 m²) and expanded to 1,395,000 square feet (129,600 m²). Designated a National Historic Landmark on June 2, 1978 it is an exquisite example of Neo-Classical architecture.

Designed by noted architect Albert Kahn, the structure consists of a two-story base with four parallel 15-story wings connecting to a central perpendicular backbone. Kahn used this design to allow sunlight and natural ventilation to reach each of the building's hundreds of individual offices. The entire building is faced in limestone and is crowned with a two-story Corinthian colonnade. In 1923, it opened as the second largest office building in the world (behind the Equitable Building in New York City).

The base of the building is surrounded by an arched colonnade supported by Ionic columns. The interior features a vaulted arcade with tavernelle, an Italian marble, covering the walls. The arcade was originally lined by stores and an auditorium which could be used for corporate functions or by community groups. The auditorium space was later converted into an auto showroom. On the lower level were two swimming pools; one was converted into a cafeteria. Tile with a water-theme gives a hint to the original use of the cafeteria space. A depressed driveway extending between Cass and Second divides the lower level of the main building from the lower level of the Annex. When the Fisher Building was constructed across Grand Boulevard in 1927, the two were connected with an underground pedestrian tunnel that also connects north to the New Center Building allowing workers and visitors transverse all three buildings without venturing into the elements.

The entrance is set into a loggia behind three arches of the Grand Boulevard facade. It intersects the arcade to form a large elevator lobby with a coffered ceiling. Floors on the ground level are gray Tennessee marble. On the upper stories, floors are also gray Tennessee marble while corridor walls remain their original with white Alabama marble.

To the south of the main building is the five-story Annex which served as the original home of General Motors Laboratories. In 1930, the laboratories moved across Milwaukee Avenue to the Argonaut Building and for many years after the Annex housed the Chevrolet Central Office. In 2009 when the Argonaut Building was sold, a fourth-floor pedestrian bridge connecting the two was removed and the Annex facade restored.

Between 2000 and 2002, the building was thoroughly renovated to house the State of Michigan offices. Architect Eric J. Hill participated in the redevelopment which was headed by Albert Kahn and Associates, the original architects. In addition to upgrading existing systems, reconfiguration of some spaces and redecoration, the project installed central air conditioning. When the building was first occupied, it was cooled in the warmer months simply by opening windows. Later, General Motors simply installed window units to cool various offices and work areas. During the renovation, large-scale systems replaced almost 1,900 window units that were left when GM vacated the structure.

Photo gallery

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  Main entrance from West Grand Blvd.

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  Interior shopping arcade

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  Second Avenue facade

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  Entrance loggia

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  Rear annex addition from Cass and Milwaukee Street

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  View from Grand Blvd and Woodward Ave.

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  Grand Blvd colonnade

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  Cadillac Place (left) and the Fisher Building

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  New Center summer events.

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  The Fisher Building along with Cadillac Place are National Historic Landmarks in the City's New Center area.

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  Cadillac Place, formerly the General Motors Building

See also

• Fisher Building
• Henry Ford Hospital
• New Center, Detroit
• Penobscot Building
• Wayne State University

References

• Fogelman, Randall (2004). Detroit's New Center. Arcadia. ISBN 0738532711. 
• Hill, Eric J. and John Gallagher (2002). AIA Detroit: The American Institute of Architects Guide to Detroit Architecture. Wayne State University Press. ISBN 0-8143-3120-3. 
• Meyer, Katherine Mattingly and Martin C.P. McElroy with Introduction by W. Hawkins Ferry, Hon A.I.A. (1980). Detroit Architecture A.I.A. Guide Revised Edition. Wayne State University Press. ISBN 0-8143-1651-4. 
• Sharoff, Robert (2005). American City: Detroit Architecture. Wayne State University Press. ISBN 0-8143-3270-6. 

External links

• http://www.buildingphotos.com/detroit/DE-3044wgrand.shtml
• Cadillac Place at Emporis.com
• New Center Council
• SkyscraperPage.com's Profile on Cadillac Place
• The Mechanical Modernization Of A Classical Icon