At 2240 West Grand Boulevard in Detroit, Michigan, there is a 16-story apartment building called the Lee Plaza Hotel that has been abandoned. Real estate entrepreneur Ralph T. Lee, who had constructed and sold mansions and flats for over $10 million, developed Lee Plaza. In 1997, Lee Plaza was permanently shuttered, and the structure was left foreclosed.
At 2240 West Grand Boulevard in Detroit, Michigan, there is a 16-story apartment building called the Lee Plaza Hotel that has been abandoned. Real estate entrepreneur Ralph T. Lee, who had constructed and sold mansions and flats for over $10 million, developed Lee Plaza. In 1997, Lee Plaza was permanently shuttered, and the structure was left foreclosed.
Given that it is the only tall structure west of downtown, the Lee Plaza Hotel stands out lonely against the backdrop of Detroit. Even after more than two decades of being vacant, the 15-story structure, which is covered in orange brick and embellished with intricate stone carvings, is still rather impressive.
History of Lee Plaza Hotel
Lee Plaza was a residential hotel that debuted to great acclaim in 1929, but Lee promptly sold it to the Detroit Investment Co. The Detroit Investment Co., like many other enterprises, struggled financially during the start of the Great Depression, and the Lee Plaza passed through a number of hands, some of whom Ralph T. Lee had a stake in. Ralph Lee and the Lee Plaza were both bankrupt by 1935.
Up until 1943, the ownership of the structure was in dispute in court. Luxury apartment living had, however, lost its appeal at that point. Residents moved out, and the hotel began renting out rooms to transitory visitors. The structure was converted into a senior citizens’ complex by the city of Detroit in 1968. The Lee, however, started to lose occupants in the 1980s, and it was ultimately closed in 1997.
On November 5, 1981, Lee Plaza was included in the National Register of Historic Places. According to the nomination form for the structure’s listing on the National Register of Historic Places from 1981: “The 1920s saw an increase in the demand for apartment homes. Due of the amenities and services offered, the residential hotel idea was especially well-liked by wealthy single men and women. The Lee Plaza was one of the few apartment hotels that combined the amenities of a luxury hotel with the multiroom apartments and long-term residential features of an apartment building, despite the city’s abundance of hotels and expanding number of apartment buildings. It was unquestionably Detroit’s largest and most complex institution of its type.
Corrado Parducci, a decorator best renowned for his work on the Guardian and Penobscot buildings, was responsible for most of the interior décor. The main hallway, dubbed “peacock alley,” was particularly stunning due to its dazzling architecture and vibrant colors.
Six of the more than 50 terracotta lion heads that were taken from Lee Plaza in 2000 were found in a brand-new housing complex in Chicago, Illinois. Between 20 and 30 of the lions’ heads were recovered when the police became involved, but they were stored instead of returned to the Lee Plaza Hotel.
In spite of being 17 floors high and being just near to Northwestern High School, the copper roof of the Lee Plaza Hotel was mysteriously removed in late 2005. Window frames are no longer present. Since then, much of the Lee Plaza’s architectural features have been removed.
The city searched for a redeveloper, and in 2015, Craig Sasser, a developer, revealed plans for a $200 million makeover of Lee Plaza and the neighborhood. Nevertheless, after Sasser failed to buy the site, Harold Ince, interim executive director of the Detroit Housing Commission, declared in October 2016 that the proposed renovation appeared to be dead. Requests for Proposals (RFPs) for the 17-story Lee Plaza Tower on West Grand Boulevard at Lawton Street were released by the city in December 2017. In March 2018, the city received three plans to renovate the historic tower, but in the end concluded in July that none of them were practical ways to repurpose the 1929 structure.
A more official announcement outlining the restoration of the structure was made on January 20, 2022. A multi-year, multi-phase development will take place. At a budget of $59 million, phase 1 will renovate the main lobby on the first level and build 117 affordable senior homes on floors 2 through 10. Construction is expected to be finished in 2024. With a projected completion date of 2025, Phase 2 would cost $20 million and would result in 60 to 70 market-rate units on floors 11 through 16.
