The hotel was designed for Statler Hotels by George B. Post and Louis Rorimer in the Georgian architectural style, with English Renaissance Revival roots evident. It consisted of 18 floors: sixteen above grade and two basement floors. Construction began on the original 800-room portion in 1914 and was completed in 1915. Harry Houdini stayed at the hotel in October 1926, during his last engagement at the nearby Garrick Theater. The Detroit Statler became part of the Hilton Hotels chain in 1954 along with all other former Statler Hotels. Hilton proceeded to remodel and modernize the hotel's interior during the 1960s. In 1974, Hilton ceased their management, and the structure was renamed the Detroit Heritage Hotel until it was abandoned in 1975. After sitting vacant for 30 years, the structure was eventually demolished following approval by the Detroit Historic District Commission. Demolition of the building floor by floor began in August 2005 and was completed in time for the Super Bowl XL; the process took months due to the hotel's strong concrete structure. During the demolition process, a vacant four-story building once occupied by the Automobile Club of Michigan also known as the DAIIE building on a neighboring lot caught fire. The fire destroyed much of the structure's roof and upper floor. The cause of the blaze was determined to be hot metal material that had been dropped from the Statler Hotel onto the Automobile Club building's roof. The building's structure required the onsite treatment of 750,000 gallons of PCB-contaminated water following demolition.
2014 Apartment Proposal
On 26 March 2014, a 200-250 unit apartment building was announced to be built on the former site of the Statler Hotel. At the time of its proposal, this building would have been one of the first entirely newly constructed apartments in downtown Detroit since the early 1990s. Detroit City Council gave the project a go ahead after approval The proposal is vastly under scale for its surroundings and in a time when development downtown is occurring at a pace not seen since the 1920s due to an increase in demand for downtown living. The property is owned by the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation and some critics have stated that the land should go to a developer that is capable of producing a larger, higher quality building in scale with the value of the property's location.
Facts
A lawsuit by preservationists temporarily delayed the city's plans to demolish the former hotel building.
The hotel had proven so popular that a 200-room addition was added onto the back of the hotel along Washington Boulevard.
According to the original blueprints, one of the penthouse roof levels lies at 226' above the street, and Sanborn Maps list the other at 232' above the street. The full structural height is unclear.
The hotel was situated within six feet of the Detroit People Mover elevated railway.
