The Professional Plaza Tower, also known as the 'Hammer and Nail' building due to its two iconic illuminated signs (now removed), is a high-rise building located at 3800 Woodward Avenue in Midtown

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 t ...

Michigan Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...

. It was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

in 2016.

History

The Professional Plaza Tower was built as part of the ambitious

Detroit Medical Center The Detroit Medical Center (DMC) is a for-profit alliance of hospitals that encompasses over 2,000 licensed beds, 3,000 affiliated physicians and over 12,000 employees. Located in Midtown Detroit, the DMC is affiliated with medical schools from Wa ...

urban renewal Urban renewal (also called urban regeneration in the United Kingdom and urban redevelopment in the United States) is a program of land redevelopment often used to address urban decay in cities. Urban renewal involves the clearing out of blighte ...

plan carried out in the 1960s. The project, which envisioned a peripheral ring of residential and commercial buildings, including three neighboring twelve-story towers, surrounding the central hospital complex, was never fully realized; however the Professional Plaza Tower, constructed between 1964 and 1966 to house the offices of physicians, surgeons, and dentists, succeeded in bringing medical professionals back into the city, and rapidly established itself as an anchor to the Medical Center. The tower went vacant in 2014, when its last tenants moved out. Slated for demolition, it was bought by Detroit-based Roxbury Group in January 2015, and reopened in October 2017 after a $22 million renovation which turned it into a 72-unit residential apartment with ground floor retail.Runyan, Robin (October 16, 2017)
Inside the Plaza, formerly the Hammer & Nail Building, in Midtown
''Curbed Detroit''. Retrieved January 24, 2018.

Architecture

The tower stands twelve stories high and has a square footprint. It was designed by architects Gerald Crane and Norbert Gorwic in the International Style.Professional Plaza Tower
National Register of Historic Places Registration Form. Retrieved October 4, 2020. The largely unaltered exterior consists of a glass and aluminum curtain wall, punctuated on each of the four sides with three concrete columns extending from the base to the roof. The first and twelfth floors are recessed, and the penthouse is faced with precast concrete panels. The main feature of the building were two

neon sign In the signage industry, neon signs are electric signs lighted by long luminous gas-discharge tubes that contain rarefied neon or other gases. They are the most common use for neon lighting, which was first demonstrated in a modern form in D ...

s, each consisting of three hammers and a nail, displayed on the penthouse walls of the north and south façades. The signs were installed in the 1980s, when the Carpenters Union occupied the top two floors of the tower, and taken down in 2016: one was returned to the Union,Aguilar, Louis (April 15, 2016)
‘Hammer and Nail’ building strikes new upscale life
''The Detroit News''. Retrieved June 1, 2016. while the other was restored and is now displayed in the building's lobby.

References

{{authority control Residential skyscrapers in Detroit National Register of Historic Places in Detroit Office buildings completed in 1966 1966 establishments in Michigan Woodward Avenue International style architecture in Michigan Detroit Medical Center