January 31 • 2019 31
jn

NEW CENTER IS BACK
Was it, therefore, a gamble to open a 
clothing store in New Center? Lutz 
responds with a vehement no. What 
she realized, sitting in the Fisher 
Building lobby with Rosenzweig, is 
that a huge population of office work-
ers and diverse residential neighbors 
have been dramatically underserved 
for years. “The building and the neigh-
borhood were bustling, but the busi-
ness community missed the memo.
” 
Rosenzweig says 35,000 daily 
employees can be found in New 
Center. “Right now, Corktown is the 
big deal because of Ford. After Ford 
moves in, there will be 6,000 daily 
employees in Corktown. New Center 
has five, six times more than that 
already.
” 
Those populations are growing daily 
— literally hundreds of new people 
will be moving into residential devel-
opments opening in the next five years. 
“If you’
re looking to open a business 
today, you should be looking at New 
Center,
” Rosenzweig insists. 
The way Lutz sees it, those still-emp-
ty storefronts are a tremendous 
business, economic development 
and urban planning opportunity. “If 
nobody occupies these storefronts,
” she 
reasons, “then nothing in these neigh-
borhoods will change.
” 
That said, she pays tremendous 
respect to her retail neighbors, like the 
Fashion Place and Russel’
s Pharmacy, 
that held down the fort for the neigh-
borhood and its underserved foot traf-
fic for so many years. 
She also credits the Platform for 
its thoughtful, local business-forward 
redevelopment strategy, and for being 

wonderful partners in recreating the 
building’
s image and occupancy inclu-
sively and compassionately. 
The retail corridor emerging with-
in the Fisher and New Center more 
broadly is much loved and lauded by 
thousands of neighborhood residents 
and workforce members, and Lutz 
wants to make sure the broader Metro 
Detroit business community knows 
there’
s more demand to meet. 
Retail can thrive in Detroit and 
engage in a meaningful conversation 
about neighborhood development 
and urban planning at the same time. 
Every new business makes a measur-
able profit and difference. Lutz is hum-
ble, but Rosenzweig sings her praises, 
sharing anecdotes of an elderly couple 
who drove from Armada to Detroit to 
see the store, their first time in the city 
since 1994, and of the other businesses 
that the Peacock Room has helped 
to attract and support (“The tailor 
downstairs, William & Bonnie, is going 
gangbusters”). 
“Rachel delivered exactly what we 
were hoping, which is that new ener-
gy,
” he says. 
One hundred years ago, we built 
beautiful public spaces in which to 
work, play and live. We then spent 
a decade slowly abandoning them, 
replacing them with surface lots, and 
plastering them over with drywall and 
drop ceilings. But good bones, good 
buildings last, standing in wait for 
imaginative people to fill them with 
new community assets. Rachel Lutz 
and the Peacock Room set a standard 
for just how thoughtfully and success-
fully we can do the work of honoring 
and refilling those spaces. ■

The photos on the far 

left from the Detroit 

Historical Society show 

the room’
s original look.

Today, the space 

contains vintage 

clothing, including 

tophats and bejeweled 

purses, embossed 

stationery full of swear 

words and devotional 

candles featuring 

illustrations of James 

Baldwin and Ruth Bader 

Ginsburg. 

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