Notes from the Road: Detroit

Motoring on high test

When I heard PCMA EduCon was heading for the Motor City, I had to go. The Detroit I knew in a previous work life has gone from a beat-up junker to a supercharged beauty that is the envy of the ‘hood. Downtown, especially, is thrumming with life, not to mention fun and classy new boutique hotels in rejuvenated historic buildings, intriguing restaurants and event spaces.

Meet and Stay

Downtown is oriented toward the Detroit River, which separates it from Windsor, the Canadian city across the expanse. (Fun fact: Due to a quirk of geography, Detroit is actually north of Canada.) PCMA EduCon was similarly oriented—gathering in Huntington Place, the riverfront convention center with 1.2 million sq. ft. of meeting space, and choosing Detroit Marriott at the Renaissance Center (1,329 guest rooms, 100,000 sq. ft. of meeting space) as its preferred hotel. Linking  them is Detroit International RiverWalk—which extends a total of three miles along the river—and Hart Plaza, a 14-acre park that hosts festivals, concerts and many other events.

Other downtown hotels worth considering with a strong meetings focus are Fort Pontchartrain, a Wyndham Hotel (367 guest rooms, 32,000 sq. ft.), DoubleTree Suites by Hilton Hotel-Downtown Detroit-Fort Shelby (203 guest rooms, 18,535 sq. ft.) and Courtyard by Marriott Detroit Downtown (260 guest rooms, 6,668 sq. ft. of meeting space).

Yet a lot of what’s brought energy and excitement back to the downtown area is the miraculous rebirth of many truly magnificent buildings that had fallen into disrepair or worse. Several have been repurposed as hotels.

Check out Detroit Foundation Hotel (100 guest rooms, 5,655 sq. ft. of meeting space), for starters. Located in the former Detroit Fire Department Headquarters, a five-story Neoclassical building dating to 1929 near Huntington Place, its ground floor restaurant, The Apparatus Room, retains the arched portal that was the fire engine door as well as the brass fire pole and hardwood and tile finishes.

A few blocks from Huntington Place is Cambria Hotel Detroit Downtown (154 guest rooms, 18,000 sq. ft. of meeting space), in an art deco icon designed by famed industrial architect Albert Kahn for pioneering radio station WWJ.

On broad Woodward Avenue, once one of America’s elegant shopping districts, Shinola Hotel (129 guest rooms, largest event space for up to 350 attendees) occupies five historic buildings, including one built in 1936 to house the Singer Sewing Machine Company.

In Corktown, which is downtown-adjacent, The Godfrey Hotel Detroit (227 guest rooms, 8,600 sq. ft. of meeting space, including a 5,100-square-foot ballroom) is part of the Curio Collection by Hilton; it incorporates the old Walker-Roehig Building and boasts a beauty of rooftop lounge, the city’s biggest, with a retractable glass ceiling and walls.

Experience

No Motor City visit is complete without lending an ear to the Detroit Sound at the Motown Museum and its guided tour through Hitsville, U.S.A., the unprepossessing house that was the original headquarters and music recording studio for Motown Records. Immerse yourself back in the day when young talent like Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder and Smokey Robinson rose from the street corners to international fame.

Two more hallmarks of Detroit culture are Detroit Institute of Arts, with its spectacular Diego Rivera murals plus one of the most significant collections of art in the country; and The Henry Ford, in nearby Dearborn, with its Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation and Greenfield Village, a tribute to 300 years of American perseverance and, among much else, Thomas Edison’s lab where he had his lightbulb moment and the Wright Brothers’ shop where they taught us to defy gravity.