Lee Plaza

The Lee Plaza is a vacant 15-story high-rise apartment building located at 2240 West Grand Boulevard, about one mile west of New Center along West Grand Boulevard, an area in Detroit, Michigan. It is a registered historic site by the state of Michigan and was added to the United States National Register of Historic Places on November 5, 1981. Designed by Charles Noble and constructed in 1929, it rises to 15 floors and is an excellent example of Art Deco architecture of the 1920s.HistoryThe Lee Plaza Hotel was built in 1928 for Ralph T. Lee, a Detroit developer. Noted residential architect Charles Noble designed the building. It was constructed to be an upscale apartment with hotel services. Decorated with sculpture and tile outside, the structure rivaled the Book-Cadillac and Statler Hotels for architectural notice in Detroit during the 1920s. The building opened in 1929, but Lee quickly sold it to the Detroit Investment Co. Like many companies, the Detroit Investment Co. had financial issues at the beginning of the Great Depression, and the Lee Plaza went through a series of owners, some of whom Ralph T. Lee had an interest in. By 1935 both Ralph Lee and the Lee Plaza were bankrupt.The ownership of the building was tied up in court until 1943. However, in that time luxury apartment living had fallen out of favor, residents left, and the hotel started renting rooms to transient guests. In 1968, the city of Detroit turned the building into a senior citizens' complex. However, in the 1980s, the Lee began losing residents, and the building was finally closed in 1997.