As the cliché goes, there's good news and there's bad news. Bad news, at least to me, first.
McMillan Packard,
Woodward Avenue at Philadephia,
Detroit Michigan. Albert Kahn design (reinforced concrete, straight-lines, limestone-skinned) , built in
1926, 40K square feet or so.
Packard as a standalone brand was gone about 1956. Assume McMillan business went about that time.
I found
no other mages from the McMillan days save this 1948 advertising. However, let's further assume it bumped around from empty to other stuff .. from 1956 til until 1974 when it got a reuse.
I went to this place several times after it opened. Had just gotten my driver's license. To this day, I did
not know the history of the building. My only memory of it was it was a BIG-*** McDonalds. Biggest I'd ever been in before or since.
Obviously made the local news. Biggest in Michigan, third biggest in world -- at the time. 260 people capacity, and INDOOR parking for 100 cars (the back-end of old dealership) too boot.
Dunno how long it was Mickey D's. I know it kept getting robbed while I was in HS. Look at the dirty/buckling facade so they didn't do much to maintain it.
This part of town like other areas (Woodward between downtown and Six Mile Rd) was in decline back then (late 60's-late 80's). I would NOT go there at night .. let's just put it like that.
Now 50 years later, its been coming back -- that's the good news. Makes me smile. Detroit's comeback is going pretty well by most accounts.
Stay with me. Good news is coming. A little more background
Aerial photo above from 1973. Red box is McMillans/McDonalds, and nearby/one street over, is Green box on
40 Hague Street called Packard Showroom.
It's history is as a "Packard Showroom", buillt two years after McMillan in
1928. They were practically touching, separated by a narrow alley. Must have been related somehow I reckon.
I CANNOT find any more history on the Packard Showroom. But more to come.
McMillan's/McDonald's was
razed in 2005 (so much for urban reuse back then
) and replaced with this non-descript thing above. The dreaded urban "strip mall", concrete "block". Lotsa security cameras, few doors or windows, etc.,
Not exactly a "Neiman Marcus" neighborhood when the "dollar store" shows up (no diss - I shop at my nearby dollar General right now). They cater to the majority of the clientele in some of these areas.
Fast forward a bit.
Red circle below is the Family Dollar, and Green circle, again
40 Hague Street, is the "Packard Showroom" 100 years old, 39K square feet, BEFORE its new life for the 21st Century.
sources:
$8M Packard showroom redevelopment may start soon,
40 Hague | Residential apartments in Detroit's North End
Just finished last year, and
$8M later, meet the "40 Hague". 38, middle income, loft apartments, IN Detroit proper. Amazing.
Thats the good news. A really neat re-purpose of a 100 year old, Kahn, Packard showroom for the 21st century... and beyond ... this building will stand another 500 years its so durable.
Only if Detroit's comeback (and again it IS coming back) started 30 years ago, or better yet if its decline never happened (e.g., no riots, no hollowing-out of the inner city, etc) at all.
McMillan Packard building might still be around and righteously reused like its "cousin" around the corner on Hague perhaps.
