Renaissance Center

르네상스 센터

The Renaissance Center, called the RenCen, is a landmark group of buildings in downtown Detroit, Michigan, on the Detroit International Riverfront. It has seven connected towers. At the center is a 74-story hotel tower, the tallest building in Michigan, and around it stand four shorter office towers, with two smaller towers to the east. A large square podium joins the towers and holds public spaces, a conference center and shops.

See it on the 3D globe →

At a glance

Country: United States
Location: Detroit, USA
Built: 1977
Height: 221 m
Type: Skyscraper

Quick answers

Where is Renaissance Center?

Renaissance Center is in Detroit, USA, United States.

When was Renaissance Center built?

Renaissance Center was built in 1977.

How tall is Renaissance Center?

Renaissance Center is about 221 m tall.

A cluster of seven glass cylindrical towers on the Detroit River, headquarters of General Motors.

It was built in the 1970s as an urban renewal project and imagined as a 'city within a city' to help save the declining city of Detroit. When it was done it was the largest private development in United States history, and the central tower was then the tallest hotel in the world. With about 5.5 million square feet it is one of the largest commercial complexes in the world.

A big idea from Henry Ford II

The idea came from Henry Ford II, chairman of the Ford Motor Company. In 1970 he joined other business leaders to form a non-profit called Detroit Renaissance to spark building in the city. The principal architect was John Portman, who also designed the Westin Peachtree Plaza in Atlanta, the Embarcadero Center in San Francisco and the Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles. Mayor Roman Gribbs promoted the plan as the anchor of a rebuilding from bridge to bridge, between the Ambassador Bridge and the MacArthur Bridge.

Glass, concrete and a rotating restaurant

The first phase opened on July 1, 1976. The first five towers were covered in about two million square feet of glass and used some 400,000 cubic yards of concrete. It cost 337 million dollars and employed 7,000 workers. The cylindrical central tower first opened as a Westin hotel, and its top three floors held a restaurant called The Summit that rotated to give a 360-degree view. The two shorter towers were added in 1981, but other planned phases were never built.

GM and a new chapter

General Motors bought the complex in 1996 for its world headquarters and renovated it in the early 2000s. The work softened its Brutalist interior and added a glass atrium and a public plaza on the riverfront. Activity has dropped a lot since the COVID-19 pandemic, and General Motors moved its headquarters away in early 2026. The complex is now planned to be partly demolished and redeveloped.