Circa-1950 site plan for what would have been Metro-Detroit's first
regional shopping center. Wartime building material shortages put
the brakes on construction. A more conventional -Gruen-designed-
mall opened on the site seven years later.



One of Victor Gruen's earliest shopping center plans was commissioned by Detroit's J.L. Hudson Company in 1950. The retail store chain was considering expanding into suburban locations and were eyeing a 97.8 acre tract, 14 miles northeast of the urban core, for development as a regional, automobile-oriented shopping center.

The space-age design complex envisioned by Victor Gruen was to be anchored by a circular Hudson's department store, which would have had a rooftop parking deck. The shopping venue was to be open-air, comprising nine store blocks; these arranged in a circle around a center parking area. The buildings would be connected via walkways and plazas in between, with an underground service tunnel providing out-of-sight freight access to the stores.

The plan was quite revolutionary for its time. However, building material shortages due to the Korean conflict put the project on indefinite hiatus in 1951. Six years later, a more conventional design, open-air shopping mall opened on the site. See accompanying article, in the following section, for details.