Detroit — General Motors Co. leveraged the automaker’s more than 120-year heritage and its success during Detroit’s Golden Age to design the company’s new global headquarters at the Hudson’s Detroit complex downtown that opens Monday.
Nods to GM’s past are hidden throughout the company’s roughly 200,000-square-foot space: fabric from the Chevrolet CX concept interior and 1956 Cadillac repurposed in upholstery, wallpaper featuring 300 of GM’s nearly 50,000 patents and miniature, camouflaged replicas of some of the company’s most well-known models built into walls.
The goal of the new global headquarters is to “create a beacon of who we want to be and who we were,” said David Massaron, vice president of infrastructure and corporate citizenship. “We really tried hard to play off the heritage of who we are,” he added as he sat in a living room-style meeting area that looks like a set from the 1960s period drama “Mad Men.”
The Hudson’s Detroit office building, once the site of J.L. Hudson Department Store, is GM’s fourth office location in Detroit. GM’s first home in Detroit was at 127-129 Woodward Ave., on the west side of the street between Fort and Congress. The company was there from 1911-23. GM then moved in 1923 to the Albert Kahn-designed General Motors Building, now called Cadillac Place, at 3044 West Grand Boulevard. GM purchased the Renaissance Center along the Detroit River downtown in 1996.
Maintaining a presence in Detroit, even with a smaller footprint, “continues the tradition of the Motor City,” said Warren Browne, an auto supplier consultant and former GM executive who worked at the carmaker for 40 years.
“GM’s DNA is inextricably linked to Detroit, and this is a site that is steeped in history,” Massaron said. “We love the ability to honor that history and be part of that, because the heritage of who GM is helps inform what our products are and helps our products connect with people.”
While there are callbacks to GM’s previous headquarters and other significant buildings at Hudson’s (meeting rooms are named after the streets where the buildings stood), the Warren Technical Center has a particularly large presence to match the location’s growing role in the company. Roughly 25,000 engineers, designers and other employees are based at the Tech Center, designed by famed midcentury modern architect Eero Saarinen.
Designers chose the modern, sculptural front desk in Hudson’s in tribute to a half-moon “teacup” desk in Warren. Drawings, shapes and lighting throughout the new headquarters reference the architectural wonder of the domed shape of Warren’s Design Auditorium.
Saarinen “had this conviction that we looked at as an inspiration,” said Rebecca Waldmeir, GM’s architecture and experience design manager. “The idea is that when you’re designing a space in multiple spaces, that they should sing the same message together. And so we said, how could we do that? How could we sing some of that same message?”
A once-lost sculpture by artist Harry Bertoia, commissioned for Flint’s Genesee Valley Mall in 1970, hangs in the Hudson’s office building atrium. GM acquired the piece from the city of Southfield for $1 million as a companion to Bertoia’s first public commission: a decorative screen for the cafeteria at the Tech Center that now sits in the Cadillac House, where buyers can customize bespoke Cadillac Celestiqs.
“Our products connect with people because they’re works of art, and you see that with the Bertoia here,” Massaron said. “That helps reinforce the soul of who we are, because artists are a reflection of us, and your vehicle is really a reflection of you.”
Goodbye, RenCen
GM’s move to Hudson’s Detroit marks the end of an era at the Renaissance Center, which has served as the automaker’s headquarters for three decades.
Under plans announced in late 2024, GM and Bedrock founder Dan Gilbert are pursuing an estimated $1.6 billion overhaul of the Renaissance Center that would significantly reduce its footprint and open the riverfront to public use.
“What we wanted to do is find a way to unlock that space to make it an asset for Michigan, an asset for the community,” Massaron said.
A look inside GM’s space in the Hudson’s building
A tour of the new GM’s space in the Hudson’s building in Detroit.
The proposal calls for demolishing Towers 300 and 400, the river-facing buildings that house restaurants such as Joe Muer Seafood and Andiamo Detroit Riverfront, along with the podium retail space. About 1.25 million square feet would be removed from the 5.5 million-square-foot complex, freeing about 6 acres for a public park and entertainment space.
The redevelopment envisions converting Tower 100 to residential use, keeping Tower 200 as office space and reconfiguring the central 73-story tower by reducing the number of hotel rooms and adding luxury apartments. Bedrock has committed $1 billion to the project, with GM pledging an additional $250 million.
The developer is also seeking at least $250 million in public support, including $75 million already approved by the Downtown Development Authority, along with further funding through Michigan’s transformational brownfield program. Recently introduced Senate legislation could increase the program’s statewide cap.
Shortly after GM announced in 2024 its upcoming departure, the automaker occupied 614,000 square feet of Tower 400, according to CoStar reports at the time. Varying portions of office space in towers 100, 200 and 300 were vacant at the time, most notably Tower 200 with 66% vacancy, according to CoStar.
Despite renovations over the years aimed at the opening the space to the public and improving walkability in the “confusing, maze-like mall,” Massaron said the RenCen no longer fit GM’s needs.
Opened in 1976 in the aftermath of the violence in 1967 between police and Black Detroiters, the RenCen was intended to be a city within a city. Massaron said it was built as “a fortress of solitude of just the people there.”
“It created division. There was some very unfortunate racial undertones to it,” Massaron said. “And it also took away from the vibrancy of why people want to be in cities. People want to be in cities because you flow out into the world and you get to interact with all different types of people.”
Bedrock has said it built the 12-story Hudson’s office building on a speculative basis. The design reflects post-pandemic needs with amenities including a seven-story enclosed atrium with shared work areas and a café, a fifth-floor tenant lounge, a pickleball court, a fitness center with private training rooms, meeting and events space, concierge services, underground parking and bicycle storage.
Bedrock broke ground on the Hudson development in 2017. State officials approved more than $600 million in total tax breaks across several Bedrock projects, including Hudson’s, over 30 years. Bedrock also received a $60 million city tax abatement for the project in 2022.
The broader $1.4 billion development includes a neighboring 685.4-foot-tall skyscraper, Michigan’s second-tallest building, which will feature a hotel and luxury condominiums when it opens in 2027.
“You can walk out of this building and be around downtown,” Massaron said. “That type of interaction, that type of vibrancy that comes from a downtown was really not the way the Renaissance Center was designed.”
