The Cass Building is a low-rise office building at 455 West Fort Street, at the southeast corner of First Street, in
Detroit
Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...
,
Michigan
Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...
. It is also known as Detroit's Work Place.
Description
The building was designed in 1910 by the architectural firm of
Smith, Hinchman and Grylls as a warehouse on the western edge of the city's central business district. In 1972, the
reinforced concrete
Reinforced concrete (RC), also called reinforced cement concrete (RCC) and ferroconcrete, is a composite material in which concrete's relatively low tensile strength and ductility are compensated for by the inclusion of reinforcement having hig ...
building was purchased by the firm and remodeled as its new headquarters. The structure was stripped to its shell and new exterior walls constructed. The north and west facades were covered with tinted glass in a specially designed framing system that is almost invisible at first glance. The edges of the panes of glass comprise the wall abut giving the appearance of one sheet with no support. Four adjacent panes are fastened at their corners by an x-shaped bracket.
The architectural firm relocated its offices in the early 1990s and the structure currently houses several employment agencies, daycare providers and Neighborhood Legal Services, which focus on meeting the needs of local Detroit residents.
Detroit People Mover
The Detroit People Mover (DPM) is a elevated automated people mover system in Detroit, Michigan, United States. The system operates in a one-way loop on a single track encircling downtown Detroit, using Intermediate Capacity Transit System lin ...
Station
Fort/Cass is one-block east across Fort Street from the building and
Cobo Center
Huntington Place (formerly known as Cobo Hall, Cobo Center, and briefly as TCF Center) is a convention center in Downtown Detroit, owned by the Detroit Regional Convention Facility Authority (DRCFA) and operated by ASM Global. Located at 1 Was ...
is one block south.
References
External links
Emporis Cass Building
{{Detroit
Office buildings in Detroit
International style architecture in Michigan
Office buildings completed in 1910
1910 establishments in Michigan
1910 in Detroit