David Stott Building

History

The skyscraper is named after David E. Stott (1853–1916), an English-born businessman who owned a mill company, the David Stott Flour Mills, and was on the boards of multiple other companies, including the Stott Realty Company. First conceived in 1921, the tower was built by the Stott Realty Company in honor of its founder twelve years after his death. Construction began on June 1, 1928, and the tower opened on June 17, 1929; it cost $3.5 million to build. The advent of the Great Depression brought an halt to all major construction in Detroit: as a result, the David Stott Building was the last skyscraper built in the city until the mid-1950s.

Architecture

The tower stands 38 stories tall, with three additional floors below street level; when it opened, it was the fourth tallest building in downtown Detroit. It was designed by architect John M. Donaldson of Donaldson and Meier in the Art Deco style. The building's design, characterized by a strong sense of verticality, was profoundly influenced by Eliel Saarinen's 1922 Chicago Tribune Tower design. Verticality is emphasized by the near absence of ornamentation, and by a relatively small footprint which yields a slender profile.

The building rises from a reddish granite base and incorporates buff-colored brick, marble (on the first three floors from the street), and limestone as its surface materials. As with many of the other Detroit buildings of the era, it boasts architectural sculpture by Corrado Parducci. The building features a series of setbacks from the 23rd floor upward. The tower's tiered summit is brightly lighted with uplights on each facade and complements the similarly lighted Westin Book Cadillac Hotel downtown. The David Stott Building neighbors 1001 Woodward to the southeast. SkyBar Detroit opened in 2011 on the 33rd floor of the David Stott Tower.