After investing six years and big money to completely revitalize the Michigan Central Station site, Ford officially showed off the result of that work this past June. Some mobility-focused tenants have already moved into the reborn train station as well, and as Ford Authority reported just yesterday, the first Blue Oval workers were slated to join them this week. Now, that has officially happened, and it seems as if the first Michigan Central Station based Ford workers are all mostly part of the company’s Model e EV-focused division, too.
According to The Detroit News, Michigan Central Station will now serve as the official headquarters for Model e, which was spun off into its own entity over two years ago, and they’ll also be joined by the company’s Integrated Services software team. For now, Ford occupies the ninth and tenths floors of the building, while the eighth floor will serve as a meeting space. Altogether, those three floors have room for 500 total workspaces, and by the end of the year, Ford estimates that it will have around 1,000 workers based in the revamped building.
“We felt like the space was going to be really conducive to the culture we had created, and wanted to continue to create and foster and strengthen, and just felt privileged to be a part of building out Detroit again and rebuilding the city,” said Model e CEO Marin Gjaja. “It’s a metaphor for what we’re trying to do with the company and a lot of the people who work at Model e, as well as integrated services, are very mission-oriented and mission-driven. And we know that we need to have great workspaces and differentiated workspace to attract talent and keep talent.”
FoMoCo dropped around $1 billion into the massive Michigan Central Station rejuvenation project, which includes some of the surrounding area such as the old book depository that has been transformed into a startup hub of sorts called Newlab. Following the site’s grand opening a few months ago, Google’s Code Next program became the very first tenant as a special computer science education program focused on helping Black, Latinx, and Indigenous high school students pursue careers in technology. Michigan Central Station will also soon see a host of other entities move in, including Yellow Light Coffee & Donuts, as well as the Boys & Girls Clubs of Southeastern Michigan, which recently relocated its headquarters from Farmington Hills to Newlab and also plans on occupying the fifth floor in Michigan Central.
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One Billion Dollars spent on this … Bill Ford, you should have not wasted that money on that old building and EV production. You should have spent that money used on that old building and EV madness on what is needed. #1, both the Maverick an Bronco Sport manufacturing being done in the USA … not Mexico. #2, begin making available for sale in the USA the Ford Transit Connect Courier in both the wagon (passenger) variant an cargo van variant. Bill, you’d had the profit needed, and made hundreds of thousands happier with vehicles needed … not EV types of vehicles no one really wants that has all but bankrupt Ford Motor Company. #3, stop with all the focus groups that has killed great selling vehicles like the humble station wagon, the Focus, the Fusion, and Thunderbird. Hard words, oh hell’yeah … but words that’s needed to be said for the past few years.