In a changing Detroit, GM moves headquarters out of the iconic Renaissance Center

General Motors recently made a huge decision. It’s relocating its headquarters out of the giant Renaissance Center complex along the Detroit waterfront and into a smaller, newer structure downtown, which it says will better meet the needs of its workforce. In some ways, it’s a reflection of how GM, and Detroit itself, are adapting to changes in how people work and live at this stage of the pandemic.

The Renaissance Center is a 5.5-million-square-foot cluster of round towers. GM’s logo adorns the top of the main one — the tallest building in Detroit and the most recognizable in the city’s skyline. A street-level shopping mall connects the buildings and displays GM vehicles, past and present.

The complex looks like a museum to GM, which makes sense, according to Wayne State University’s Andrew Guinn, since “well, they own the place.” Guinn is a go-to researcher on economic development in Detroit. He explained that the vision of the Renaissance Center in the 1960s before it was built as an island-like destination in Motor City that one could drive to has always been flawed.

“The idea at the time was really to kind of create a piece of suburbia in downtown Detroit, putting almost a fortress downtown that white suburbanites would feel safe to come, work and shop in struck many Detroiters as not the solution that the city needed,” Guinn said.

And the Renaissance Center has struggled to attract corporate tenants for much of its existence.  

Now, GM is moving out. It will move to a modern office building wrapped in glass about a mile north of the Renaissance Center. Its new location is part of a revitalized street that now hosts high-end shops and restaurants.

“When I was a kid, downtown Detroit was kind of rough,” said Jeremy Greer, a valet at a boutique hotel across from GM’s future headquarters.

At one point, nearly a third of the city’s land was vacant or abandoned. It lost more than half its population as the auto industry expanded operations outside Detroit’s core and into the suburbs.

“A lot of buildings you see now as open were closed, boarded up, vandalized, graffiti all over,” Greer said. “And now they’re apartment buildings, people living there — restaurants, shops, like that.”

Detroit has spent years working on its revival. Last month, it celebrated a milestone: According to the Census Bureau, the city gained population for the first time in seven decades. It was a small increase of fewer than 2,000 people, but an increase nevertheless.

Pandemic-related changes have helped, noted Wayne State’s Guinn.

“Detroit has a lot of assets for the post-pandemic and the high-tech future,” he said. “During the pandemic, people did move to the city because you could acquire a lot of land. You could build a house or acquire an old house and build it out for not a lot of money.”

In fact, since 2017, Detroit’s property values have more than tripled.

Across the street from what will be GM’s new headquarters is a pop-up store, Made in Detroit, which sells Detroit-centric T-shirts and mugs along with its own vodka. Sarah Judd, one of the people behind the brand, has an unobstructed view of the carmaker’s future home.

“‘Born in Detroit’ is the brand, and that’s our claim to fame, if you want to call it that,” she said.

Right now, Judd relies on traffic from suburban visitors, who come for Detroit Tigers games. The baseball stadium is nearby.

“It’s definitely noticeable for us when there’s a Tiger game. We get a lot more traffic. People are out, you know, before the game, checking out the city because now there’s things to check out,” Judd said.

Judd hopes that GM’s arrival across the street will bring even more customers. As for the Renaissance Center, GM said it’s committed to finding a new use for it, but it’s not clear yet what that would be.