Workers have been restoring the dilapidated Michigan Central Station in Detroit since Ford bought it for $90 million in 2018.
The vision Ford Motor Co. leaders had in 2018 when the automaker bought the shell of Detroit's long-abandoned Michigan Central Station is starting to come together.
During a media tour last week, Ford showed off the progress that has been made in the more than three years since the automaker paid $90 million for the hulking depot and adjacent properties.
The train station, shuttered in 1988, was the symbol of Detroit's late 20th century decline and had been stripped of its precious metals.
Rain, ice, sleet and snow deteriorated the plaster and terra cotta tile over time — parts of the original building that are slowly being restored with painstaking detail, said Rich Bardelli, construction manager for the project. After Ford took ownership of the station, its construction contractors spent a year stopping leaks and building an HVAC system to dry out the waterlogged structure. More than 1,700 of the Guastavino terra cotta ceiling tiles had to be replaced.
Hundreds of ornate rosettes and leaves made of cast iron had been ripped out by scrappers over the years. But after Ford's purchase, some of the rosettes began being dropped off by individuals who had come to possess them. Engineers in Ford's additive manufacturing unit used the original rosettes to make reproductions with 3D printers and resin.
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