We're Not Allowed in the Ren Cen Anymore

Detroit — One of my favorite things to do in Detroit on a drizzly spring afternoon is to drop into the food court at the Renaissance Center. Normally, I will shake off the cold and relieve myself before ordering a cup of coffee and a moist cinnamon bun dripping with glaze and watch the fishermen troll for walleye along the river.

So imagine my surprise earlier this week to find that the Renaissance Center is now completely closed to the public. Locked in perpetuity. The cafe is gone. The Burger King. The tables. The napkins. The salt shakers. General Motors has removed its name plate from the facade, and its rotating display of classic cars has been towed away.

“Where you going?” barked a sleepy-eyed security guard. “It’s closed. Can’t you read the signs? Unless you’re going to the hotel or Joe Muer’s, but they’re not open yet.”

“How about the Italian consulate?” I said somewhat hopefully.

The remaining tenants in the Renaissance Center, besides the Marriott and three restaurants, are the Italian and Japanese diplomatic attachés. Apparently, no one told the Italians and the Japanese that the war was over.

“Okay, but you can’t take no professional video,” he warned.

We ignored him. The cultural impact of an icon abandoned in the middle of the night simply required documentation.

Imagine walking up on the Empire State Building or the St. Louis Arch and being told to pound cement.

It’s no secret that the building’s owner, General Motors, beat it out of its five towered headquarters on the Detroit River. With much fanfare, the 117-year-old automobile company announced last month that it had moved its world headquarters into a veritable broom closet of suites in Dan Gilbert’s half-finished, publicly financed Hudson’s Tower complex just a few blocks up on Woodward.

GM has all but turned its back on the Motor City. The company has collected billions of dollars over the years from the state to keep its employees in Michigan. To smother the criticism, General Motors is keeping a skeleton crew of a few hundred employees downtown so the locals don’t feel disrespected.

Executives with General Motors and Gilbert’s development team have convinced the public that they are going to transform the 5 million-square-foot riverfront property into condominiums, retail space and open parkland just as long as the public kicks in $350 million.

Gilbert and GM are lobbying Lansing hard for the cash and prizes but a spokesman for Matt Hall, the speaker of the Michigan House who holds the dice in this game of Municipal Monopoly, was surprised to learn the public has been locked out of the building.

“That’s the first we’re hearing of it,” the spokesman said.

Representatives for General Motors did not immediately respond to questions.

The Renaissance Center, financed with private money, took four years to build and opened in 1977. The public was always welcome to ride the 700-foot outdoor elevator.

As a comparison, the Hudson two-tower complex—financed in part with public money—broke ground nine years ago. Even so, the main 49-story tower still lacks pipes and walls. The shorter block, where GM now rents four floors, is closed to the public.

Unable to get an audience with either Consul General, we left the Renaissance Center with security tailing us at a respectful distance.

Over at the GM headquarters, a security guard snapped our photograph through the plate glass window.