Renaissance Center looks to future. Should taxpayers help pay the bill?

• GM and Bedrock have a $1.6 billion plan to remake Detroit’s Renaissance Center by removing two towers and adding public space
• The 5.5 million square-foot property is rapidly losing occupants, including building owner GM
• The plan hinges on $350 million in public money to reimburse some of the costs

DETROIT — A top aide to billionaire Dan Gilbert says urgency is growing for the state to help fund a $1.6 billion development plan to redevelop and save the city’s iconic Renaissance Center.

The RenCen “cannot survive in its current form,” Jared Fleisher, vice president of government affairs and economic development for Bedrock Detroit and related companies, told Bridge Michigan. 

The building, designed for offices and mall-like retail, has had a dramatic reduction in occupancy and tenants. GM workers alone went from 6,000 in 2008 to fewer than 1,000 early this year. 

Bedrock joined forces with RenCen owner General Motors to pitch the new vision for the property, announced late last year, that calls for $250 million in state funding. 

That’s a tough prospect in a Legislature increasingly skeptical of corporate incentives, but Fleisher contended alternatives are worse, including letting it “rot” or GM’s threat to demolish the five towers it owns.

“Detroit hasn't been this ascendant in 70 years,” Fleisher said. “For 15 years, we've sent an image of Detroit building up that has changed hearts and minds. We don't want to send an image of Detroit crumbling.”

Related:

• RenCen seeks rebirth, visitors seek directions: A day inside Detroit landmark
• 2 Detroit RenCen towers could be torn down as part of new plan
• GM to exit RenCen, relocate to Hudson’s site that has received big tax breaks
• GM layoffs in Michigan an 'unmistakable sign the auto industry is slowing'

Fleisher said time is of the essence for the Legislature to expand its subsidy to support the redevelopment, the first step in a series of approvals before the companies can count on public support. 

A joint venture agreement between Bedrock and GM to develop the RenCen expires in mid-April. GM will hold its annual shareholder meeting on June 4. 

Many Detroit-area community leaders support the plan, which would demolish the two towers closest to the Detroit River, replace office space with housing in another tower, swap hundreds of the 1,300 hotel rooms in the tallest tower for more housing and then add public park spaces to better connect downtown to the riverfront. 

But in Lansing, the move prompted widespread and bipartisan criticism from Speaker of the House Matt Hall, R-Richland Township, state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, D-Royal Oak, and others. 

Hall told reporters recently he is opposed to publicly funding a project that involves demolition of the privately owned RenCen. 

GM has already been scrutinized since a Bridge Michigan report in June disclosed that the auto giant received millions in state subsidies to create electric vehicle battery jobs that so far have been delayed; the automaker since sold its stake in one of the projects.

"I just don't agree with … using your tax dollars to do it,” Hall said.

The RenCen is “probably one of the most valuable parcels in the state of Michigan,” he added. “... There could also be private sector solutions that don't require state subsidy to do it.”

Some Detroiters agree. 

“The riverfront is now seen as having a higher, better use to produce profit, but taxpayers are expected to make that transformation,” said Donna Givens Davidson, president & CEO of the nonprofit Eastside Community Network.

The Renaissance Center has been GM’s headquarters since 1996, but it is moving in early 2026 to two floors in the Bedrock-owned office building under development on the former JL Hudson’s site, about a half-mile away.

Fleisher said GM and Gilbert, founder of Quicken Loans and a leader in Detroit downtown development, consider the redevelopment a “civic commitment.”

Bedrock is seeking the $250 million from the state through Michigan’s Transformational Brownfield Program, Fleisher said. The program would have to be expanded to allow the request to reach a vote of the Michigan Strategic Fund.

Developers of properties awarded that designation by the Michigan Strategic Fund are allowed to receive reimbursements from the state tax money generated by a project, including income taxes, sales taxes and property taxes. 

However, the program is on the edge of its $1.6 billion cap, because of earlier transformational brownfield awards — such as the planned Grand Rapids soccer arena and Bedrock’s JL Hudson’s property downtown. 

Bedrock is asking legislators to raise that cap as the first step toward the RenCen project, Fleisher said. 

While the public perception may be that the request is to fund the partial demolition, Fleisher said the development team says $137 million would pay for public components of the projects, like the costs to build public spaces and a promenade to connect downtown to the RenCen-area riverfront. The rest would cover remaking obsolete portions of the property. 

Another $100 million in public funding will be sought from Detroit’s Downtown Development Authority, which is chaired by plan supporter and outgoing Mayor Mike Duggan.  

Approval of the Detroit tax plan would have to come after the Legislature agrees to expand the transformational brownfield funding and before reaching the Michigan Strategic Fund.

“Detroit is the window through which people see Michigan,” Fleisher said. 

“Having a Detroit that is continuing (its) extraordinary momentum truly is something that benefits the entire state,” he added.