- General Motors is leaving the Renaissance Center, the building the company has called its global headquarters since it purchased the building in 1996.
- In 2025, General Motors is moving its headquarters from the Renaissance Center one mile north to the soon-to-be-completed Hudson building in Detroit.
- The Renaissance Center is scheduled to be redeveloped.
After nearly 30 years, General Motors is moving its global HQ away from the Renaissance Center and will call the soon-to-be-completed Hudson’s Detroit building its new home. General Motors CEO Mary Barra made this announcement during a press conference at the new Hudson location on Monday, April 15.
Hudson’s Detroit is the city’s latest high rise and is built on the site of the former JL Hudson Department Store. So, while the company is relocating, General Motors is still staying in downtown Detroit.
“It’s important to all of us at GM that we continue to call Detroit our home, for a long time to come,” Barra says about the move.
The move one mile north is scheduled to formally happen in 2025, but that’s probably in part due to the building’s December 31, 2024, expected finish date. General Motors will feature its cars on display and have space for community events. According to General Motors, the company will have a multi-level, 15-year lease.
The Renaissance Center was built in 1973 for Henry Ford II and it represented a rebirth for Detroit after the riots in the summer of 1967 decimated the city.
Until 1996, GM headquarters consisted of a series of buildings further north, on West Grand Boulevard in Detroit, across from the Fisher Building. One of those buildings was the studio of chief designer Harley Earl, and that space today is occupied by the College for Creative Studies, for teaching next-generation car designers.
Details about the RenCen’s future are still up in the air. The plan is to redevelop the building, but there aren’t any details about General Motors selling off its home. The company notes that it plans to work with Detroit, Wayne County, and the team at Bedrock, the property-development operation founded by Dan Gilbert.
What do you think will happen to the RenCen after GM moves its headquarters? Tell us your thoughts below.
Wesley Wren has spent his entire life around cars, whether it’s dressing up as his father’s 1954 Ford for Halloween as a child, repairing cars in college or collecting frustrating pieces of history—and most things in between. Wesley is the current steward of a 1954 Ford Crestline Victoria, a 1975 Harley-Davidson FXE and a 1959 Ford Fairlane 500 Galaxie. Oh yeah, and a 2005 Kia Sedona.
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