1st floor of Ford Piquette plant, birthplace of Model T, opening to public

DETROIT — The Ford Piquette Avenue Plant Museum in Detroit this month will open the historic plant's first floor to the public for the first time in decades.

Following a year-long renovation project, the former front office area of the plant known as the birthplace of the Model T is now a wide open space suitable for temporary exhibits and event rentals even during the day, when the museum is open.

Up until now, areas of the second floor that are part of the museum (and a berth for 65 historic vehicles) have been available for weddings and other rentals, but only for after-hours events.

"The hope is some day to bring the first-floor space back as close to the original and make it a part of the museum with exhibits," President Jill Woodward said.

But for now, it will help generate revenue to sustain the museum's operation and fund additional restoration projects at the 119-year-old plant, the birthplace of the Model T and earlier Ford vehicle models before it.

"We can now monetize this (first-floor) space at any time during the week, increase hospitality for bus tours and tour groups and connect with the public in new ways through museum programming," Woodward said.

The 4,100-square-foot area the museum is calling the Piquette Assembly Room once housed the office of Ford Motor Co.'s first general manager, James Couzens, and accounting and administrative offices for the automaker from 1904 until 1911 when production of the Model T moved to Highland Park. A cash safe remains as a reminder of the past.

Ford sold the plant to Studebaker in 1911, which operated there until the early 1930s after the Great Depression. Subsequent tenants include Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Co. (now 3M) and General Linen & Uniform Service from the 1980s until just before the pandemic.

The assembly room space can accommodate 200 strolling or 150 seated guests.

It brings the total space the museum has reclaimed in the plant to more than 45,000 square feet, or more than two-thirds of the plant's total space, Woodward said.

The museum will officially open the space July 28-30 with "EVs: Then and Now," a one-weekend exhibit of antique and modern electric vehicles from the 1900s through the 1920s. Sponsored by Emily and Henry Ford III, the exhibit will feature a dozen electric vehicles of past and present.

They include a 1912 Baker on loan from Our Next Energy CEO Mujeeb Ijaz's, other privately owned vehicles on loan from the Gilmore Car Museum in West Michigan, Stahls Automotive Foundation Museum in New Baltimore and The Henry Ford and modern-day electric vehicles on loan from Ford, including a 2000 Ranger and the prototype of the Ford F-150 Lightening. The vehicles on display were made by companies including Edison Electric, Milburn, Baker and Riker.

The exhibit will include historical presentations and a panel discussion, "EVs: Today and Tomorrow," with industry leaders: Ijaz, Dave Pericak, director of EV Truck Programs for Ford; Pina Vyas, business transformation leader for DTE Energy Co.; and Michael Tercheck, e-mobility OEM sales director, Freudenberg Sealing Technologies.

The new space is attracting attention even before its official opening. The museum has already hosted events and booked $11,000 in rentals for it. Several are fittingly hosted by Ford. They include an event that will bring a modern Ford Bronco into the plant, and a video shoot for an undisclosed app commercial that has already taken place and a possible video shoot with Expedia Australia, Woodward said.

The $50,000 cost to remove asbestos and old mismatched flooring, update HVAC, install electrical services and restore the concrete floors, wood windows and freight elevator in that part of the plant is expected to more than pay for itself in just the first year. Woodward projects annual revenue for rentals of the space will be $60,000-$75,000.

The museum is operating on an $833,000 annual budget.

The first-floor renovations are part of a broader, $8.5 million restoration project underway at the plant.

Since restoration efforts began 23 years ago, the national historic landmark has seen new historically accurate windows, flooring, roofing with wooden beams made of the same old-growth wood fortifying the structure and restored masonry, among other projects, at a cost of $2.5 million-$3 million. But the bulk of the work is still ahead, Woodward said.

Remaining projects include the addition of bathrooms on all three floors, classrooms for expanded field trips, installation of centralized heating and cooling systems, a new electrical system, expanded building security systems, new programming, a new passenger elevator, additional event spaces and paving the gravel lot across Piquette Avenue for parking.

"Our greatest artifact is the building itself. It's one of the oldest auto plants in the world," Woodward said, noting people come from as far away as New Zealand to see it.

The surrounding Milwaukee Junction area of Detroit is at a tipping point, now, she said.

"We just want to be part of that renaissance."