The Building

Mission Statement

To provide for the safety, health and welfare of the tenants, employees and general public of the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center in an environmentally appropriate, economic and professional manner.

Coleman A. Young Municipal Center, located in the heart of Detroit’s Central Business District, was designed by Harley, Ellington and Day Architects, and built by General Contractor the Bryant and Detwiler Company. Clad in white Vermont marble, the elegant seat of local government rises 20 stories (just shy of 318 feet) above street level at its highest elevation. The marble used in the first floor corridor and the Office unit’s 13th floor corridor is Italian Loredo Chiaro; other corridor walls and floors are Italian Travertine. Three exterior walls are white Vermont marble, while the Randolph Street exterior is bricked to facilitate building expansion. In all, 28 varieties of marble, filling 295 railroad cars, were specified for the building.

The Coleman A. Young Municipal Center (originally known as the City-County Building), was planned, financed, built and now operated under the Detroit-Wayne Joint Building Authority, incorporated in 1948 under provisions of a special state legislative act. The raging Korean conflict of the early 1950s created a serious shortage of construction materials. Only through the personal intervention of President Harry S. Truman, who was aware of the project’s importance to the community, were priorities secured. The historic words of President Dwight D. Eisenhower during the formal dedication ceremony acknowledged the unrivaled significance of the new structure.

• “…This new edifice overlooks the spot where Cadillac planted the flag of France two and one half centuries ago, the location of the Fort where through a generation the British flag flew, the site of the old Indian Council House where the Governor and Judges first established the government of the territory of Michigan one hundred and fifty years ago. So situated, it binds together the memorable enterprise and achievements of a historic past with the tremendous advances in all human activities that Detroit shall surely make in the years ahead.”

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