One Kennedy Square
One Kennedy Square is a 10-story mid-rise office building in downtown Detroit, Michigan, United States. It is located adjacent to Campus Martius Park and the Detroit Financial District.
History
One Kennedy Square stands on the former site of the original Detroit City Hall, which was demolished in 1961 after the city government moved to the City-County Building in the 1950s. The site was briefly occupied by the Old City Hall Park, until Kennedy Square, a public plaza with an underground parking garage, opened in 1965. Kennedy Square was primarily constructed of concrete, and included a fountain which fell into disrepair and was decommissioned in the 1970s.The garage was partially demolished in 2001, and reconstructed with portions of the original walls and foundation, reopening in the fall of 2002. A proposal to build a mid-rise office building on the site was considered as early as 1996, and became integral to the redevelopment of Campus Martius Park in the 2000s.
In 2005, the Detroit Downtown Development Authority sold the development rights to the site to Southfield-based developer REDICO for $1, and leased the parking garage to REDICO. Construction on One Kennedy Square began in the spring of 2005 with little media coverage. Ernst & Young and Visteon were soon announced as its planned primary tenants. The building was completed in 2006 at a cost of $54 million, and the first tenants moved in in January 2007. Visteon never occupied the building, instead opting to sublease its space to other corporations.