USA TODAY International Edition
Ford to spend $740M on train station project
Ford will spend nearly $740 million to renovate the Michigan Central Station and other sites the automaker purchased in Detroit’s Corktown neighborhood, the company said last week.
Ford announced in June that it had bought the properties, including vacant land, to form a new tech campus in the neighborhood west of downtown that would focus on self-driving vehicles.
In a statement last week, Ford Land said the “total investment in the development of our five Corktown neighborhood sites ... will cost approximately $738 million.”
The company said it also is “actively working with federal, state and local economic development groups and officials, seeking at least $250 million in tax or other incentives to support the development of the five Corktown sites.”
The sites include Michigan Central Station, the Book Depository, a former brass factory, a former hosiery factory and development of 45 acres of vacant land.
The costs include “the building and land purchase, as well as expected building exterior and infrastructure rehab costs over the next four years, which takes into account the requirements of restoring a historic building such as the train station,” Ford said.
“The project would not be financially feasible without the support of incentives,” Ford Land said.
When Ford announced its plans for the train station to much public fanfare, it said it envisioned as many as 5,000 people working there when the project is complete.
The Beaux arts-style train station, designed by the same architectural firms as Grand Central Terminal in New York, opened in 1913 as the world’s tallest train station. It served as Detroit’s main depot until it was closed in 1988.
Ford purchased the empty station from the Moroun family, which had owned it for about 25 years and had installed windows and, more recently, a freight elevator.
Executive Chairman Bill Ford outlined his vision for the renovations in June and said they included public access to the station’s waiting room.
“This beautiful space will be completely restored and be open to the public,” he said.
“We’ll have restaurants and coffee shops and bars and retail all going on down here. We’re also going to work with the community to see what they would like to happen here.”
The station is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.