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Ford Motor Co.’s first workers moved into Michigan Central Station this week, and the automaker plans to have at least 1,000 employees working in three buildings in Detroit’s Corktown neighborhood by the end of the year.
The employees, part of Ford’s Model e Customer and Integrated Services teams, are moving from the company’s Dearborn headquarters.
Ford will occupy three 25,5000-square-foot floors within Michigan Central Station, for a total of 76,500 square feet of workspace in the building. After purchasing the historic train station building for $90 million in 2018, Ford spent about $940 million to renovate the building and surrounding campus over six years and reopened it in June.
The office space on each floor is open, with conference rooms, co-working space, kitchenettes and unassigned desks equipped with computer monitors.
The Ford employees on the Michigan Central campus will have access to parking at the Bagley Mobility Hub at 1501 Wabash St.
Ford will have about 1,000 employees working in Corktown before the end of the year, Josh Sirefman, CEO of Michigan Central Innovation District LLC, told Crain’s. Those workers will be located at Michigan Central Station, The Factory at 907 Michigan Ave. and at Michigan Central Station’s neighbor, the renovated Book Depository building that houses Newlab.
Ford is committed to having 2,500 employees at the Michigan Central campus by the end of 2028, a spokesperson told Crain’s.
“What this means to the city to have this kind of Ford presence is enormous,” Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan said at the opening event Tuesday. “I’m glad to have you back in the city of Detroit.”
Duggan commended Ford’s efforts of respectfully joining the community, citing the company’s plans to develop 600 affordable housing units in the historic neighborhood.
The addition of the Ford employees in Michigan Central Station will also integrate directly into the growing innovation ecosystem that is developing across the campus, Peter Stern, president of Ford integrated Services, told Crain’s.
Stern said the Integrated Services team has had a year of anticipation while construction on the office space was underway. Now that the team is able to work in the building, he hopes to work with the startups at Newlab and harness the companies’ “entrepreneurial spirit.”
“Across the street at the Book Depository there are 100-plus startups, and they have great ideas, so our job is to listen,” Stern said.
Newlab at Michigan Central is home to 119 startups and 670 members. The innovation hub fosters mobility-focused startups, and moving Ford’s electric vehicle team to Corktown to work alongside those at The Factory will only add to the collaboration, Stern said.
There’s the potential for Newlab’s startups to take up residence in the train station building as they continue to grow, but all companies interested in joining the Michigan Central community will be vetted on how they contribute to the campus’ growing innovation ecosystem, Sirefman said.
“Ford invested to create this place, but as an open platform, and what we mean by that is that it’s about lots of companies, lots of participants and this open ecosystem,” Sirefman said. “So what you see happening is this incredible community that’s been growing … The whole point is to create this community where collaboration happens.”
Despite owning the building, Ford is not Michigan’s Central’s first tenant. In July, Google Code Next, an immersive computer science education program focused on helping Black, Latinx and Indigenous high school students pursue careers in tech, began operations on the 23,000-square-foot fifth floor.
Ford is also planning a hotel to take some of the space in the upper floors of the 18-story tower, but details have not yet been made public.
Last month, Michigan Central announced Yellow Light Coffee & Donuts will open a satellite location in a 650-square-foot space in the building’s retail arcade later this fall.
Ford spent about $940 million on the overall 30-acre campus, but has not said specifically how much was spent redeveloping the old train depot, which sat vacant for 30 years before the automaker purchased it from the Moroun family.
After Michigan Central Station reopened to the public in June, nearly 170,000 people visited for self-guided tours this past summer. Michigan Central launched public guided tours led by Detroit History Tours on Tuesday.
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