Hudson’s Detroit, the Motor City’s first new skyscraper in nearly half a century, is a symbol of Detroit’s transformation from bankruptcy to boomtown.
The $1.4 billion project includes a recently opened office building as well as retail on the site of the former J.L. Hudson’s department store and a skyscraper that will eventually feature high-end condos and a five-star hotel.
Detroit “was probably at the bottom of the barrel in this country – from crime and unemployment to everything in between,” Dan Gilbert, the billionaire who has helped catalyze Detroit’s revival, said in an interview with CNN. “It’s been a 180-degree comeback.” Gilbert’s real estate company developed the complex at the former Hudson’s, a shopping mecca for generations that closed in 1983.
Detroit’s population is growing for the first time in nearly 60 years. General Motors is moving its headquarters to Hudson’s. JPMorgan is growing in Detroit, too, having announced a big push to invest $100 million in the city more than a decade ago…