The restored building is to include a mixture of Ford and other employees as part of its autonomous and electric vehicle campus, and part of the plan includes turning some of the top floors into hotel space. 

Ford finalized its $90 million train station purchase from the Morouns in May 2018. Matthew Moroun confirmed the purchase a month later, on June 11, and then about a week later, on June 19, Ford held a large event in front of the building formally revealing plans to turn it into the anchor of the campus, the most recent price tag for which was close to $1 billion. 

Contractors on the project include:

• Christman/Brinker, a joint venture between Lansing-based The Christman Co. and Detroit-based Brinker Group; subcontractors include Livonia-based RAM Construction Services and Detroit-based Grunwell-Cashero Co. 
• Quinn Evans, architect of record on the building restoration; 
• Detroit-based Hannah-Neumann/Smith, architect of record on post-restoration and ground-floor activations; 
• Detroit-based engineering firm Giffels Webster; and 
• Boston-based Mikyoung Kim Design, landscape architect. 

Ford also bought a former Detroit Public Schools Community District book depository building, which reopened last spring after a yearslong renovation, plus, in later years, other properties around the area.

In the old Albert Kahn-designed book depository — which was once a U.S. Post Office building — Newlab has built its new Detroit headquarters and its Mobility Studio, where tech and mobility companies can set up shop. Some 1,100-1,400 people are expected to work out of that building.

Ford has also purchased other properties in the area recently, including a portfolio that includes 1.1 acres and three buildings totaling nearly 29,000 square feet, as well as the Assemble Sound portfolio that consists of a historic church dating back a century and a half plus two other properties at 17th Street and Rose Street.

The Dearborn-based automaker’s arrival in Corktown has been one of the catalysts for a slew of new development in the area.

Developers have built new restaurants, a brewery, hotels and multifamily housing such as apartments, townhomes and condos, and the city received a large grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to help fuel the development of more than 800 units of new rental housing — primarily affordable housing — in the neighborhood and to the north.

There have also been concerns about gentrification as rents and real estate prices have increased in anticipation of Ford completing the depot project and bringing several thousand employees to the area, both its workers and others. 

Well in advance of its opening, it had already started altering the landscape of Corktown and the broader southwest Detroit area.