The Park Avenue Building was built in 1922 and was located at 2011 Park Avenue at the corner of West Adams Street on the edge of downtown Detroit’s Grand Circus Park. The Park Avenue Building was a twelve-story giant that was designed in Beaux Arts architecture by noted-architect Albert Kahn. ...

The Park Avenue Building had a concrete and stone exterior with arched-windows on the first floor mezzanine and the top floor only. The rest of the buildings windows were rows of rectangular, twin casement windows. The entrance to the Park Avenue Building featured stone-bordering and stone-arched mezzanine that was located between the first floor and second floor. Above each of the limestone-arches, the façade featured stone-sculptures of a lions drinking from a trophy that were each surrounded on both sides by limestone-sculptures of men in various occupations. These limestone-sculptures adorned the entire mezzanine exterior, wherever there was the limestone-arches and was the most prominent façade feature of the Park Avenue Building. The top floor of the Park Avenue Building also featured limestone-arched windows. Surrounding the top floor windows, there was sculptures of limestone-quoins and circular, target-like designs that decorate the center of each of the archways between each window on the top floor. The cornice of the Park Avenue Building featured limestone-dentils that surrounded the entire roofline.

The Park Avenue Building had a rectangular floor plan that consisted of a main lobby, restaurant space, and retail space all on the first floor. The rest of the floors at the Park Avenue Building featured office space. Some of the former tenants at the Park Avenue Building included doctors offices, lawyer offices, architectural firms, and a credit bureau. The Park Avenue Building seemed to keep a decent occupancy all the way through the 1970’s and 1980’s, but most of the building’s tenants had all left by the 1990’s.

The Park Avenue Building has remained abandoned since 2000, when the restaurant, which was the Park Avenue Building’s last tenant, closed for good. The Park Avenue Building had numerous plans throughout the years to make a recovery, but no plan has ever come to fruition.

As of 2017, the Park Avenue Building is in deep trouble. The Park Avenue Building is in the middle of a battle to save it’s life. While the owner would like to tear down, the preservationists are trying to save the historic location. We certainly hope that the Park Avenue Building will get a second chance at life.

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