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A flicker of light: Detroit aims to sell and re-energize former lighting facilities

Posted By: Detroit News on May 6, 2025.  For more information, please click here to read the source article.

The 10 former Detroit Public Lighting Commission substations scattered throughout the city are the stuff of what some would call ruin porn.

Once key parts of the city’s public lighting system, the former substations are prime examples of American industrial architecture from the early 20th century — lots of red brick and stone, huge open floor plans, and minimal but tasteful ornamental flourishes.

In a city that has reinvented former industrial and commercial sites into everything from lofts to restaurants, Detroit officials hope private owners can revive the former substations with solid financing and a clear development plan.

So far, one has sold. The former substation on the 14100 block of Greenfield Road in northwest Detroit, which resembles an old neighborhood library, sold for $115,000 in December.

Against a red brick exterior, the front windows and main door have arches of white stone. Above the door, the former use of the building remains clear in stone lettering: Greenfield Substation Public Lighting Commission.

“It may become a coffee shop,” said Jill Bryant, director of real estate for the City of Detroit Building Authority, the department that is in charge of maintaining the former substations.

Kamel Borjak, who owns Detroit Complete Auto Care, which is not far from the Greenfield substation, is just content that something is going in the long-vacant site. The former substation is located on a busy commercial strip.

“All I know is that building has been empty for years,” Borjak said. “As long as it’s not another liquor store, I wish the new owners luck.”

He owns three businesses along Greenfield in the area.

“Honestly, this area is great for business,” Borjak said.

Out of power

The substations have been out of use since at least 2016, Bryant said. In the mid-2010s, the city essentially exited the public lighting business after it went into bankruptcy protection in 2013.

The city began a $200 million modernization plan to hand over the grid to DTE Energy, which was already powering most Detroit homes and buildings. Then came the formation of the Public Lighting Authority, a state-created entity.

The nearly 100-year-old substations were left behind in the transition, becoming part of the vast inventory of empty buildings the city still owns. As city officials focused on wiping out blighted homes, it took years for the city to get the money to clean up the former substations to make them safe enough to sell, based on various city documents.

The city owns 15 former substations. In December and January, city officials began to amp up the marketing of 10 of them by using Commercial Summit LLC, a commercial real estate firm.

But reinventing these old substations may not be easy. A tour of two substations for sale, one on Canfield in Midtown and another at Custer and Beaubien, reveals facilities filled with transformers, electrical equipment and other debris.

The blight and the charm of the buildings were on full display.

The exteriors of both substations are red brick with ornamental flourishes. But once beautiful, arched windows are now bricked over. At the former Canfield substation in Midtown, part of the exterior had decorative brown tiles. The other site in the city’s North End neighborhood was actually two buildings.

Inside both former substations, the rooms were often lined with industrial tiles that have been trendy for years. The rooms were cavernous with high ceilings to fit the industrial electrical equipment. Much of that equipment was still strewn throughout the buildings.

In 2023, Detroit approved a $500,000 contract with Pro V Group, a Dearborn firm, to decommission more than a dozen substations all over the city; recycle and dispose of transformers; remove and recycle switch equipment; remove debris; and sell materials that could be sold. The proceeds go to the lighting department. The contract runs through the end of the month.

Restaurants, art galleries

The average size of the substations for sale is around 4,000 square feet, Bryant said. List prices range anywhere from $40,000 to $325,000.

Besides the Greenfield substation that has been sold, another one on Detroit’s southwest side is under a purchase agreement, and several others have received applications from potential buyers of the city-owned properties, city officials said.

“We have had people who looked at some of them, and they talked about restaurants, art galleries, yoga studios and health-and-wellness-type businesses,” as potential new uses, Bryant said. “… The city is looking at many re-adaptive uses really across the board,” noting that they can be zoned for residential, commercial and even light industrial.

Others who have applied to become new owners have considered them for light industrial use or to support a nearby existing business, Bryant said.

But Detroit officials want tangible plans for what’s next for these buildings. The city intends to sell only to buyers who plan to develop the properties in some way, Bryant said.

The Greenfield Road purchase involved two buildings, a 3,800-square-foot main structure and a 936-square-foot garage, according to city records. The new owner couldn’t be reached for comment, and public records only list a limited liability corporation as the owner.

Fascination with old buildings

For years, the various substations were among the empty historical buildings that have fascinated those who often document and wax poetic online about Detroit’s architecture.

“I dig these little structures; they’re physical evidence that even nondescript buildings with little in-and-out traffic used to be complete with stunning ornament,” wrote a local photographer, Eric Hergenreder, on the Facebook site Historical Detroit Area Architecture about a former substation in the Core City neighborhood.

Hergenreder also runs a website, eherg.com, that has dozens of Detroit buildings and places he has researched. Like many social media posts of substations, he delved into the history of the Stanton substation, noting the original architects.

Clean-up costs

For potential buyers, the cost of clearing out that equipment will likely be one of the obstacles to adapting the substations. So are the potential costs for environmental cleanups.

“Adaptive reuse is going to prove to be a challenge” for many of the former substations, said Dan Austin, who runs HistoricDetroit.org, a website and a Substack page dedicated to documenting Detroit’s architecture. “We have already seen the struggles to find saviors for many of our unused schools and churches,” referring to the scores of blighted former schools and places of worship in the city.

A 2020 study by Detroit found 63 vacant school properties in the city, 39 of which are owned by the city and 24 by the Detroit Public Schools Community District.

Like so many of Detroit’s historic buildings, Austin said the city would “be a more beautiful place” if those with a vision for the substations “came forward with a way to repurpose them instead of them becoming yet another vacant lot.”