General Motors and Bedrock have announced the conceptual changes they propose of the Renaissance Center in Detroit. The changes involve removing two of the four office towers along with the current ground floors at the base of the complex. The ground floors will be replaced with a similar design that has glass walls rather than concrete.

Earlier this year General Motors announced they were moving their world headquarters from the Renaissance Center, which they bought in 1996, to the New Hudsons site built by Bedrock. GM’s move brought speculation about the future of the Renaissance Center, whether it be completely torn down or repurposed in some way. The conceptual design is a middle solution between the two.

As stated , GM bought the Renaissance Center in 1996, and my speculation is one of the reasons why it could is that it gained extra money in that year when EDS was spun out of GM and was provided a multi-million dollar payment.

I worked at the Renaissance Center from 2004 to 2015. In 2004 EDS, which was the company I worked for, consolidated their Detroit office space into one of the two smaller towers on the east side of the complex. Through work force reductions and acquisition of EDS by Hewett Packard, the company slowly vacated floors and eventually entire tower it was in and by 2015 only occupied one floor in the north east tower (Tower 100).

While I disliked the morning and evening commutes, I very much enjoyed working at the Renaissance Center. It was the center of all of the major events in Detroit, including Super Bowl XL in 2006, Detroit Red Wings and Pistons championship parades, the Final Four, and Red Bull aerial races, not to mention the yearly Fireworks. I am happy that GM and Bedrock have found a way to keep a good portion of the original complex.