From rubble to revival, Detroiters hope new Hudson's development can
help reshape the city
[October 10, 2025] By
COREY WILLIAMS
DETROIT (AP) — Before the arrival of sprawling suburban malls featuring
amusement park rides and stores peddling anything from jeans to jelly
beans, there was Hudson's in downtown Detroit.
The towering department store mirrored the growth and opulence of the
auto-manufacturing town, but its fortunes — like the city’s — soured
with population shifts and economic downturns.
In 1998, more than a century after J.L. Hudson's Co. opened shop, the
25-story building was demolished, leaving — literally and figuratively —
a deep hole as a reminder of what Detroit used to be.
Until this year.
Standing on the Woodward Avenue site are a gleaming 45-story tower and a
12-story office building. The new 1.5 million-square-foot
(140,000-square-meter) Hudson's Detroit development also contains retail
space and will feature high-end condos. General Motors Corp. is
relocating its headquarters there and a five-star hotel is slated to
open in 2027.
“People are saying this isn’t your father’s or grandfather’s Detroit
anymore," said Dan Gilbert, whose property management company Bedrock
developed the $1.5 billion construction. “You don’t even have to look at
the numbers. You can just feel it walking around — you’re going to feel
a different Detroit.”
A reversal of fortune
The old Hudson's building commanded attention and demanded respect,
according to Jeremy Dimick, director of collections at the Detroit
Historical Society. The new one is just as impressive. Its tower rises
685 feet (210 meters) over downtown Detroit.
Its arrival is the latest chapter in the city's recovery.
Mired in debt, Detroit once struggled to pay its bills and keep the
streetlights on. It filed for bankruptcy in 2013, when its credit rating
was at junk bond status.
The city emerged from bankruptcy in 2014, built up a general fund
balance of more than $1 billion, and has since recorded 10 consecutive
years of budget surpluses. Moody’s Investment Services gave Detroit its
11th consecutive credit rating upgrade this year and named the Hudson's
development in its report.
“You feel the energy when you’re walking downtown,” said Gilbert, whose
company, Bedrock, owns more than 100 properties in downtown Detroit.
“There’s been just significant change."
‘The reason to go downtown’
Launched in Detroit in 1881, the J.L. Hudson store initially specialized
in clothing for men and boys. After occupying various downtown spaces,
it set up shop at the Woodward Avenue site a decade later and expanded
its wares, according to the Detroit Historical Society.
The building grew over the years. About a dozen of its eventual 25
stories were used as retail space in what was considered the world's
tallest department store for more than half a century.
Dimick called it a Detroit institution.
“That was the reason to go downtown,” he said. "It had been around so
long that it became this multigenerational experience of shopping. ‘I
went there with my parents and I’m going to take my children.'"
The grand department store offered fine linen, tableware and kitchen
appliances. Factory workers could find overalls there. But most of all,
Hudson's provided holiday magic.
Bedecked in color, sounds and excitement, it was the center of downtown
festivities. Thousands of shoppers entered the store every day, moving
from department to department on escalators and in elevators. The
longest line was of children waiting to sit on Santa's lap and whisper
wishes of gifts.
[to top of second column] |
This 1940s photo provided by the Detroit Historical Society shows
the exterior of The J.L. Hudson Company Department Store in Detroit.
(Detroit Historical Society via AP)
 For 76-year-old Randye Bullock, a
childhood trip to Hudson's was far more than shopping.
“My grandparents made a point of dressing me up and we’d take the
streetcar to Hudson's. It was like we were going to Sunday dinner
somewhere,” said Bullock, a retired public relations executive.
Her most vivid memories are of the store's toy department.
“I did look forward to going every year around Christmastime because
that's when they introduced their new toys,” Bullock said. “I liked
dolls and stuff, but I also liked trains."
Detroit historian Michael Hauser remembers Hudson's as a “store for
everybody.”
“You had the budget basement store,” Hauser said. “Two whole floors
of fashion, home goods. They had their own cafeteria. You didn’t
have to be wealthy in order to dine or shop.”
Reminiscing about hot fudge sundaes at Hudson’s soda counter,
Gilbert — the billionaire owner of Quicken Loans and the NBA’s
Cleveland Cavaliers — said the new Hudson’s will try to replicate
that magic.
“It will feel like back in the day,” he said.
A city — and a store — in decline
It was a grand and exciting time to be a Detroiter until — like many
big manufacturing hubs — the city began to change. New freeways were
built. Middle- and upper-class families left the city for new
suburban homes with big yards.
In the mid-1950s, Northland Center — then the largest mall in the
U.S. — opened just north of Detroit, providing more options for
suburban shoppers.
Detroit reached its population peak of 1.8 million that decade
before a trickle of people leaving became a flood, taking their
money with them and hitting Hudson's bottom line. The city's
population only started to see growth again in 2023.
The old Hudson’s building downsized and eventually closed in 1983.
It was imploded into a hulking mound of rubble, stone, steel and
dust on Oct. 24, 1998.
“It was sad,” remembers Bullock, who watched the implosion from her
brother-in-law's downtown apartment.
What was left was worse.
“If you put all your stock, memory and nostalgia into this one
place, when that place goes away it leaves you with a literal and
figurative hole,” Dimick said.
Gilbert, 63, says it will take decades to get a return on his
Hudson's investment, but that isn't the point of the development.
“We’re doing this for ourselves," the fourth-generation Detroiter
said, "but we’re also doing it for the city.”
All contents © copyright 2025 Associated Press. All rights reserved
 |
