I live near there. The buildings are a shambles, grafitti is everywhere. The most recent photo is ve

Today, the former Ford complex in Highland Park, Michigan considered by many to be the birthplace of modern manufacturing is largely vacant, while some buildings have been razed to make way for shopping plazas and parking nascar tickets for sale lots. Though the remaining buildings possess National Historic Landmark status, they re in a state of disrepair and thus off-limits to the scores of visitors that flock to Highland Park each year. Now, the Woodward Avenue Action nascar tickets for sale Association (WA3) is one step closer to righting nascar tickets for sale this wrong with a purchase agreement to buy the former administration building and an adjacent executive garage.
Preliminary plans call for the creation of an automobile heritage nascar tickets for sale welcome center nascar tickets for sale in the two buildings, which would include displays, a theater and a combination gift and snack shop. The center would also serve as a hub for automotive history tours of Detroit, such as WA3 s current In The Steps of Henry, which features stops at area landmarks significant to the life of Henry Ford. The organization also plans to rent the administration building s upper floors to automotive-themed businesses, though it isn t yet clear if a viable business model can be built around historical, automotive-themed exhibits and attractions. nascar tickets for sale Assuming that WA3 can raise the additional $125,000 necessary to complete the purchase from the buildings current owner, National Equity Corporation, rehabilitation of the two buildings could take as long as five years.
Longer-term, the ultimate goal of WA3 is to acquire the rest of the Highland Park facility from National Equity, eventually opening the factory itself to public tours. On a grander scale, WA3 imagines a future Highland Park complex complete with a test track, wind tunnel exhibit, automotive museum, and permanent home for the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America . Before that can happen, however, the group must successfully complete the purchase of the administration building and garage; once this is finalized, WA3 plans to file the paperwork necessary to declare the structures a world heritage designation, giving it the same status as Australia s Great Barrier Reef, Peru s Machu Picchu, Egypt s Pyramid Fields and our own Statue of Liberty.
The Highland park plant isn t the only historic piece of Ford real estate on the market now, either. Years before Highland Park, Ford s first experiments with the automobile began in a coal shed behind a duplex house located at 56 and 58 Bagley Avenue in Detroit, Michigan. Today, both shed and duplex are gone (though a faithful representation of the shed was constructed at Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan, using bricks salvaged from Ford s duplex), replaced by the Michigan Building in 1925. While the addresses don t quite match (the office building is located at 220 Bagley Avenue, likely shuffled in a Detroit street renumbering), nascar tickets for sale the Michigan Building does bear a plaque commemorating the site as the Birthplace of the Ford Automobile. In recent months the 13-story office structure has hit the commercial real estate market nascar tickets for sale , priced at $3 million. For the money, the buyer gets more than office space and a piece of automotive history; the sale also includes the once-glorious Michigan Theater, in recent years gutted to serve as a parking structure for the Michigan Building and considered to be one of Detroit s must-see ruins.
The building nascar tickets for sale s seller nascar tickets for sale advises that Detroit is enjoying the most dynamic growth in decades and the Michigan nascar tickets for sale Building may be one of the last opportunities to use generous tax incentives in purchasing and renovation. Optimism aside, Detroit has seen little commercial growth in recent years, and the Michigan Building s central location, ties to automotive history and famous parking structure can t alter those economic realities.
I think this whole plan would be wonderful. However, I m a little confused by this statement above: The building’s seller advises that “Detroit nascar tickets for sale is enjoying the most dynamic growth in decades. in light of the fact that the City of Detroit declared bankruptcy on 7-18-2013!
Tax incentives, supporting infrastructure upgrades, property acquisitions and clearances: investments made to businesses by the City of Detroit failed in growing jobs for Detroiters. The costs are not redeemable even though Businesses were/are attracted to downtown Detroit, Chrysler and General Motors Plants are producing nascar tickets for sale profitable products for their owners..
A lot of businesses receive tax incentives leaving nascar tickets for sale little to no money to pay the cost for city services. Companies nascar tickets for sale like Detroit Axle which received tens of millions of dollars in tax incentives, tens of millions in supporting infrastructure upgrades and another tens of millions in union concessions while it s CEO received tens of millions of dollars in Bonuses on top of his tens of millions of dollars in salary nascar tickets for sale has since relocated to a more business friendly state.
Places like the Ford and Packard Plants, Union Train Station, Hudson s Department Store and other abandoned manufacturing/warehouse sites that became brownfields served as a burden around the neck of Detroit.
It is sad that the great Motor City to the world, is in the shape it is in this July 19th of 2013. There will be a need to reshape this City and many things of the past will look to some like just so much junk that needs to be cleared away. But there must be balance in the future of this City in keeping nascar tickets for sale in touch with its history, and heritage. I hope it can be done, and the City comes back from the corpse it seems it is today.
doofus47 says:, I worked a block away from the old Ford Plant for a Cord Products Tool Die and Display company in the old Studebaker Plant. I believe the old Packard Plant and Old Chrysler Jefferson Plant both were Old Studebaker Plants.
Bankruptcy just means they will be brooming out the overpriced help credit, reducing the city administration to a reasonable size, and getting on some sound financial footing. BTW the plant is in Highland Park, a suburb inside Detroit boundaries, but not part of it. They are having major financial difficulties, too, but are not under an emergency manager, yet. There is the start of reinvestment in the city along the Woodward corridor. From downtown to mid-town, along with the 3 mile M-1 light rail project for a mass transit project to nowhere that is also supposed to jump start things.
Was reading an article last evening in the paper on Detroits Bankruptcy. The population has dropped from 1.8 million in the heyday to 800,000 . The article states that residents to not report crime as it takes police 55 minutes to make a call verses 11 minutes for other comparable cities. They said many crimes are not even reported.
The reasons for Detroit s utter collapse lie in populist politics, intransigence in the face of an urgent need to make changes, and fiscal irresponsibility unparalleled anywhere else in democratic nations.
I am surprised that the Ford administration does not come to the rescue. This is a vital part of Ford history. nascar tickets for sale My guess is that since Edsel Ford died and someone else took over, they do not give a rip about the Ford history!
As to Detroit s bankruptcy, another poster here made the optimistic observation that as a result of it the city s government will be restructured and emerge on some sound financial nascar tickets for sale footing. When a private entity declares Chapter 11 it is basically re-sized to fit within its current financial and marketplace realities. This can result in some drastic downsizing: witness nascar tickets for sale what the New GM looks like today vs. the GM of even five years ago. What will be restructured in Detroit? Will its government and the services it provides be re-sized to a sustainable level, scaled to the meager tax revenue it can collect? Or will it be perpetually on economic life support, continuing to spend money its residents don t provide, subsidized by the state or federal government?
Well, a score is only twenty, so scores of visitors could easily be correct. It s analogous to a radio ad promising prompt, temporary relief ; the announcer always gives temporary the sort of emphasis that would be placed on the word permanent, so we hear what we want to hear despite the truth being told.
I live near there. The buildings are a shambles, grafitti is everywhere. nascar tickets for sale The most recent photo is very dated. The best that could happen is to move a section to Greenfield Village and The Henry Ford , and let the Ford family pay for it if it is such a jewel. For fear of their lives, nobody would venture into Highland Park to see an old dilapidated factory. Detroit is in bankruptcy and the city of Highland Park should be as well. Well intentioned nascar tickets for sale preservationist should set their sights nascar tickets for sale on worthwhile projects.
High School in 1941 My Father nascar tickets for sale went to work at the Rouge till the war broke out while My Grandfather and various uncles worked at Highland Park I remember being in Detroit in the early 50 s what a beautiful city it was You can tell by the way the city was laid out just how grand it was if You dare to venture there to look around.Urban blight is a terrible thing for big cities when all the manufacturing propping it up goes away, watch hard core pawn.sometime.
Ahhh. The spinmeisters are at work again. It is great to be positive and optimistic. But sometimes the spin stories are just too outrageous. As one who grew up in Detroit during its glory years, I can assure you, anyone pointing to Bagley Avenue today and boasting of boom can only be talking about the sound of collapsing, abandoned and demolished buildings.
I once worked on Bagley Avenue just a couple of blocks from the Michigan theater in the old national headquarters of AAA Automobile Club (another business that picked nascar tickets for sale up and ran from the madness going on in the city). There was an incredibly beautiful theater in that building too the United Artist s theater with a stainless steel marquis and art deco interior that was jaw-dropping! GO there and look at what s there now! And the wonderful world famous Trader Vic