Cadillac Place, formerly known as the General Motors Building, is an important tall office building located at 3044 West Grand Boulevard (between Cass and Second Streets) in the New Center area of Detroit, Michigan, United States. It was named after Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac (1658–1730), who was the Royal French founder of the earlier French and British settlements of Fort Detroit and the later City of Detroit. Cadillac Place is a National Historic Landmark in Michigan, added to the list in 1985.
History
Under pressure from the General Motors Corporation Board of Directors, William C. Durant (1861–1947) agreed in 1919 to build a permanent headquarters in Detroit for the company he founded in 1908. The corporation purchased the block between Cass and Second Streets, facing West Grand Boulevard, and removed 48 smaller buildings from the site to begin construction. Albert Kahn (1869–1942) was hired as the architect to design the large, multi-winged building, which was one of the largest office buildings in the United States at the time.
Groundbreaking occurred on June 2, 1919, and the Cass Avenue wing was completed and ready for use in November 1920 while the rest of the building was still under construction. The building was originally planned to be named after Durant, but a disagreement within the company led to his removal in 1921. After this, the structure was renamed the General Motors Building. However, the letter "D" had already been carved above the main entrance and in other places on the building, and it remains visible today.
The building was completed in 1922 and served as General Motors’ world headquarters from 1923 until 2001. It is located about 2 miles (3.2 km) southwest of the Detroit/Hamtramck Assembly, where Cadillac luxury cars are currently built.
In 2001, General Motors moved all of its employees to the Renaissance Center on the Detroit River. In 1999, General Motors transferred the property to New Center Development, Inc., a nonprofit organization controlled by TrizecHahn Office Properties. This group began renovating the upper floors that General Motors vacated in 2000. The Annex, a smaller building, was constructed shortly after the main building and connected to the nearby Argonaut Building with a pedestrian bridge on the fourth floor in the 1940s. A parking structure was built across Cass Avenue and linked to the main building with another pedestrian bridge. A third bridge was added across Grand Boulevard in the early 1980s to connect the building to New Center One and the St. Regis Hotel.
The building now houses several government agencies of the State of Michigan under a 20-year lease agreement approved in 1998. At the end of the lease, the state had the option to buy the structure for $1. In 2011, the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (a state organization) purchased the building.
The renovation of the building between 2000 and 2002, to make space for state offices, was one of the largest historic renovation projects in the nation. After the project was completed, the building was renamed Cadillac Place to honor Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac, the founder of Detroit.
Today, Cadillac Place houses over 2,000 state employees, including the Michigan Court of Appeals for District I. The former executive office suite is now the Detroit office for the state’s governor and attorney general. Several justices of the Michigan Supreme Court also have offices in the building.
Architecture
The building has 15 floors and reaches a total height of 220 feet (67 meters), with the top floor at 187 feet (57 meters). It contains 31 elevators. Originally built with 1,200,000 square feet (110,000 square meters) of space, it was later expanded to 1,395,000 square feet (130,000 square meters). Designated a National Historic Landmark on June 2, 1978, it is a beautiful example of Neoclassical architecture.
Architect Albert Kahn designed the building. It has a two-story base with four 15-story wings connected to a central backbone. This design allows sunlight and natural air to reach each office. The building is covered in limestone and has a two-story colonnade with Corinthian columns at the top. In 1923, it became the second largest office building in the world, after the Equitable Building in New York City.
The base of the building is surrounded by an arched colonnade with Ionic columns. The entrance is located behind three arches on the Grand Boulevard side, forming a large elevator lobby with a coffered ceiling.
Inside, there is a vaulted arcade. The walls are covered in Italian marble called tavernelle from quarries near Chiampo, Vicenza, Veneto. Ground-level floors are made of gray Tennessee marble. The arcade originally had stores and an auditorium for meetings or events. Later, the auditorium was changed into an auto showroom. On upper floors, the floors are also gray Tennessee marble, and the corridor walls are covered in original white Alabama marble.
Two swimming pools were on the lower level, but one was later turned into a cafeteria. Tiles with a water theme hint at the pool’s original use. A driveway between Cass and Second streets separates the lower level of the main building from the lower level of the Annex.
When the Fisher Building was built across Grand Boulevard in 1927, the two buildings were connected by an underground tunnel that also extends to the New Center Building. This allows people to move between the buildings without going outside.
To the south of the main building is the five-story Annex, which was once the home of the General Motors Research Laboratory. In 1930, the laboratory moved to the Art Deco Argonaut Building. Later, the Annex housed the Chevrolet Central Office. In 2009, after the Argonaut Building was sold, a pedestrian bridge connecting the two buildings was removed, and the Annex’s exterior was restored.
Between 2000 and 2002, the General Motors Building was completely renovated to house the State of Michigan offices. Architect Eric J. Hill worked on the project, which was led by Albert Kahn and Associates, the original architects. The renovation included updating systems, reorganizing spaces, and adding central air conditioning. When the building was first used, it was cooled by opening windows during warm months. Later, General Motors added window units for cooling. During the renovation, large-scale systems replaced nearly 1,900 window units that remained after General Motors left the building.
Photo gallery
- View of the Grand Boulevard entrance from above
- Second Avenue entrance
- Exterior view facing southwest
- Grand Boulevard entrance
- Elevator lobby facing the Cass Avenue entrance
- Ceiling of the Grand Boulevard entrance