proud and assured
DETROIT - ON THE MOVE
BY KAY KRITZWISER
The Globe and Mail
May 26, 1979 Saturday
DETROIT
WAYNE S. DORAN walked across his surprisingly man-scale office -
considering its eagle height on the executive floor, 39 stories higher
than the Detroit River below - and took down a faded old photograph. It
had been taken in 1901. A long narrow street, forerunner of Woodward
Avenue today led into a solid mishmash of warehouses, flour mills and
unlovely wharves stretching along the waterfront.
Mr. Doran is president of Renaissance Centre, the $350-million complex
which Detroiters like to refer to as their vote of confidence in their
city. When the site clearance of 33 acres began in 1972, the waterfront
looked much like that old photograph.
We looked down at it now. A big freighter was pushing up river. Below
us dozens of tiny cars (like Dinky Toys) made tidy squares of color in
lines along the waterfront.
So I dared the question.
Yes, but is it just for automobiles? How do people get at the
waterfront? (You do hear that question on both sides of the river.) Mr.
Doran, an affable, informal man was patience itself. Give us time, he
said. (Man's old cry.)
People think we're miracle workers. Right away they want a big park.
They have no understanding of what is involved. We had to make a holding
pattern in the beginning. We're still in a period of transition.
Water was once the only means of transportation. When that picture was
taken there were no architectural critics and environmentalists to push
for preservation of the waterfront. It was a question of getting raw
materials up by water, manufacturing those materials on land, putting the
product back on the water to the consumers. The undoing process is very
difficult. We have to go step by step.
Mr. Doran, who is also president of the Ford Motor Land Development
Corp. a subsidiary of Ford Motor Co. knows exactly how the steps have
gone since Nov. 24, 1971. That was the day Henry Ford II, chairman of
Ford and the FMLDC announced the centre project to Detroit Council. In
short order, the ground breaking ceremony was held in 1973. The first
office tower was opened on July 1, 1976, the Detroit Plaza Hotel opened
on March 15, 1977 and the formal dedication took place on April 15,
1977.
That was a celebration to go down in history, literally, for here was
this dream achieved so near the site where the explorer Antoine de la
Mothe Cadillac founded Detroit 276 years ago. Detroit is the twin city of
Florence. In an appropriate gesture, that Italian city sent its mayor
Elio Gabbuggiani for the dedication ceremony.
You have to look at the practical side of the centre. The statistics
dazzle: that in so short a time as six, seven years, this largest
privately-financed real estate development in history should be backed by
a 51 member partnership (from Automobile Club of Detroit to Detroit Free
Press), the largest investment group ever assembled for a major real
estate project, aided by a first mortgage loan of $200-million, the
largest ever made for a single real estate development. Wait, we're not
out of the statistical woods yet.
Five financial institutions participated in the permanent financing
instead of the customary one. The last workmen still have not left the
premises of the handsome World of Shops, but Phase 11 plans were
announced last September. The next move will include two structures, 21
stories at a cost of possibly $70-million as an added complex of office,
retail and parking space.
The cars below were peeling off now from the parking lots. Has
Renaissance Center made its dreamed-of renewal in downtown Detroit?
Mr. Doran had no doubts. Detroit has turned itself around radically
since the 1969 riots. Now it's a case of blacks and whites working
together. I think people are turned on by the discovery of the
possibilities of their waterfronts - and not just in Detroit. We had a
big regatta down there last summer and weekend activities are coming up
for next summer. It's a challenge to us.
People, he said are walking around now at night in the neighborhood.
On Friday and Saturday nights when one would expect the area to be
deserted, people line up to get into restaurants like Rembrandt Roadster,
The Soup Kitchen and Rhinoceros. Greek Town, a neighborhood of shops,
crafts and cafes has the kind of appeal that brings out the people. The
14 restaurants and lounges within Detroit Plaza Hotel are downtown
magnets for Detroiters as well as visitors from outside.
The New York-based economic and management consultant firm of Stuart
Matlins Associates Inc. recently reported the results of a survey made
for Detroit Renaissance Inc. Though the centre has been opened for less
than two years, it has already pumped as much as $1 billion into
Detroit's economy. It has attracted business never before in operation in
Detroit (World of Shops is sprinkled with glossy boutique names from
Europe like Cartier, Ungaro, Lanvin, Courreges, Charles Jourdan and
Detroit people are buying, I was told).
About half the people interviewed, (40 per cent suburbanites, 27 per
cent from outside the Greater Detroit area) said they come to downtown
Detroit more frequently since the opening of Renaissance Centre.
I arrived at Renaissance Centre from the Windsor airport through the
tunnel and out of that drafty darkling hell of taxi, bus and car stink
and racket that seems to characterize our big new hotels today, before
one can enter their palace lobbies.
You have to back off to see Renaissance Centre. From the Windsor side
it stands proud and assured. Blocks away up Brush Street there you get
the prophetic view of what Renaissance really means.
Now here is the simple grandeur of form to match a Michelangelo, a
Brunelleschi, A Donatello. In this case, the latterday Renaissance man is
John Portman who designed the original project and Phase 11. He is also
the innovative genius behind Atlanta's Peachtree Plaza and the Los
Angeles Bonaventure.
What does it remind me of, seeing it from this distance? Yes, those
electric hair curlers which fit onto upright rods in a neat functional
cluster. I don't think Portman would mind that flippant image.
Architecture should lift people; make them want to use and participate in
their urban environment, he has said.
Inside the complex it's difficult to get a feel of the shape, anymore
than you can see all of Notre Dame of Paris at one glance. Officially it
is described as five glass-encased towers rising from a four-level
14-acre podium structure. The towers consist of the 73-story Detroit
Plaza hotel and four 39-story office buildings linked in one
megastructure.
Eventually, I look at it my way, exploring by myself. Early evening,
seven-ish.
I didn't think The Globe and Mail would like me to order a bottle of
champagne to watch Detroit's new world go round from The Summit, the
Detroit Plaza Hotel's lounge 73 stories high. (On that April night in
1977 when Renaissance Centre was opened officially, guests drank 14 cases
of Mumms Cordon Rouge and Blanc de Blanc.
So I settled for a humble martini and let The Summit do one magic
circuit. A receptionist welcomed me into the circular glass tower's
elevator. It is glass-walled for the view and for this swift,
heart-stopping ascent, the earth falls away and I am a lark climbing. The
lighting in the lounge (the girls all covered, flowing) is meant for
view-watching, not for clods to read company reports by. The practical
cocktail napkins are printed with a map for horizon points of interest
and the windows are numbered to match. The big Canadian Club sign makes
siren blinks across the river. Could Hiram Walker of Windsor ever have
foreseen me toasting him from this eyrie?
Now we look down on the green lotus flower roof of the year-round
swimming pool and health club. It's on the third level named for Ontario
where you find the Ontario exhibit hall, Essex, Windsor and Kent meeting
rooms. Smoke blows across the floodlit buildings.
This cocktail circuit completed, I go back to the vertical mirror. I
get off at Level 3. I see a sign Renoir above a meeting room. And Monet.
And Michelangelo. I keep running into beautiful tapestries, stunning wall
hangings, bronze sculptures.
(Later, Beverly Kremola, public relations representative for the
centre gives me a tour of the considerable art commissioned by the
complex from 21 artists, all from Michigan except two from Georgia.
The Detroit Plaza (it's a Western International Hotel) includes 1,400
guest rooms and suites above the atrium lobby in the glass core. Once
your eyes stop jumping about uncertainly over the gleam, the vistas, the
movement of banners, you see that the atrium extends to eight stories
over the promenade level at its base.
Five levels of aerial walkways connected by spiral staircases (people
size) and escalators cross the atrium lobby. You see people just
standing, momentarily forgetful of why they are there, bemused. I suppose
there are pertinent things people like to know about a hotel? Well,
smashing writing paper in the rooms but no peanut nibbles at The Summit.
For the vending machines a supply of 26,000 tins of soda bought at one
time, but no free shower caps for the bathrooms and I mind that!
I like the staff voices (1,800 employees, chiefly from Detroit). Black
or white, friendly, obliging.
High up the atrium walls, young trees in concrete pods, permanently
green, forever blowing in an artificial wind. Unreal. But for greenery
any given day count on 700 mums, 5,000 grape ivy plants, 3,000
philodendrons, 189 weeping fig trees and 33 kentia palm trees and a staff
to give them daily care.
So many private places to sit. Sit in a pod and soon a bright orange
trolley bar comes by lest one thirst.
I sat at the edge of the reflecting pool, its bottom thick with coins.
The teenaged girls, about 10 of them, black, white, equally came up to the fountain. Whinnying and frisky as young colts, they counselled each other. Then they turned their back to the fountain and threw their coins over their left shoulders.
As a sign, I suppose that would look silly in a survey?
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