City of Detroit
The abandoned Mammoth Building at West Grand River and Greenfield on Detroit’s west side.
The long-abandoned Mammoth Building on Detroit’s west side could soon meet its demise.
The city of Detroit filed a lawsuit Friday against the owners of the three-story, 135,000-square-foot building at West Grand River Avenue and Greenfield Road to force them to correct numerous violations or demolish the structure.
Built in 1949, the building was home to the Federal Department Store, a discount retailer founded in Hamtramck, until the 1970s. Kingsway Department Stores operated out of the building in the 1980s. It was replaced by the Mammoth Department store, which closed in 2000, according to the lawsuit.
The building has been vacant since and is crumbling and strewn with graffiti.
“Many of us have great memories of this building,” Detroit City Council President James Tate said at a news conference Friday. “Those great memories have been eclipsed by this blight that is dragging the community down. No longer are we going to stand to allow our community to not receive what they deserve.”
Park High Apartments bought the building in 2002 and has allowed it to deteriorate to the point of becoming a danger to the public, the suit states. The building is open to trespass, and a pedestrian bridge connecting the old department store with another structure across West Grand River is at risk of collapsing.
Since March 2022, the city has conducted at least eight inspections of the building and issued eight correction orders for more than 80 violations of city code. A majority of the violations remain unresolved, the city alleges.
City of Detroit
The abandoned Mammoth Building is open to trespass and is a danger to the public, the city said in a lawsuit.
With hundreds of vacant commercial structures across the city, Detroit is stepping up enforcement of its building codes. In February, the city sued a pastor over his unfinished mega-church near Woodward Avenue and Seven Mile Road. Construction of Perfecting Church began 18 years ago, and the building is a nuisance, the city alleged in a lawsuit.
Detroit is also working with demolition crews to raze about 100 commercial buildings, and another 225 commercial properties are being surveyed for potential demolition bids.
The city also began demolishing a portion of the long-abandoned Packard Plant on the east side in September 2022.
“Owners of these properties fight back,” Conrad Mallett, the city’s corporation counsel, said at the news conference. “They want to keep control of property they think will increase in value as they do nothing. … We are going to have progress. This situation is going to be resolved.”
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