Overlooking Campus Martius Park, the First Federal Building is a twenty-five-story, black-granite-clad, L-shaped International style office building. Actually, it is two rectangular steel frame towers connected by a utility core containing the elevator shafts and building entrances. The building's two primary entrances are located within glass curtain-walled structures enclosing the spaces between the primary towers and the utility core on the east and south elevations. Aluminum-framed revolving doors provide access to a three-story lobby area defined by floor-to-ceiling windows that served as the main banking floor for the bank. A landscaped plaza with two flagpoles and a rectangular planter containing small mature trees and flowers was located in front of the two towers.
This prominent but irregular site at Woodward and Michigan Avenues is the former home of the Majestic Building, designed by Daniel Burnham of Chicago in 1896 as one of the city's first skyscrapers. Organized in 1934 by 103 investors, the First Federal Savings and Loan Association of Detroit purchased the site in 1962 and cleared it to construct its new headquarters.
Designed by the Detroit firm of Smith, HInchman and Grylls to convey stability and permanence, the building's two-story ground floor originally contained the banking room and a convenience store. Construction of an underground parking garage by the city beneath Kennedy Square allowed First Federal to maximize the size of its development. Following a merger in the 1990s, the savings and loan became part of Charter One Financial, which elected to sell the building and lease back a portion, including the basement, ground floor, and two office floors. The building changed hands a number of times and eventually underwent a significant renovation to convert it to condominiums in the early 2000s. By 2007, however, the development was met with financial troubles and the building was sold once again, this time to Greektown business owner Dimitrios Papas.
(Text excerpted from the Detroit Modern Civic Center/Financial District Tour script developed by the City of Detroit Historic Designation Advisory Board staff.)
