For growing up not too far from Troy, and for my first real job being a sales associate at a metro Detroit Kmart, I really knew nothing about the history of their Troy HQ, located at
3100 W Big Beaver Rd.
The building was designed by Smith, Hinchman, & Grylls (now SmithGroup) and built in the late 60's / early 70's. Its tectonics were not uncommon for that era, but the building stand outs due to the sheer scale of execution. The building is comprised of 23 modules, connected by a series of circulatory bridges. Vertical circulation towers punctate the assemblage, and also provide screened rooftop mechanical enclosures that serve the building. Numerous courtyards are created by the arrangement of these nodes. The result of it all was a massive, maze-like facility that some referred to as "the puzzle palace".
Kmart relocated its operations there from Detroit in 1972, and for over 30 years, this was the command center for Kmart's meteoric rise and subsequent fall, all the way through its first bankruptcy in the early 2000's. The company was restructured, ultimately became Sears Holdings Corporation, and relocated from Troy to Hoffman Estates, Illinois in 2004.
The building has sat vacant ever since, with various redevelopment plans going nowhere. It is now most well-known as an urban exploration bucket list item, located just steps away from one of the country's most profitable, high-end malls (Somerset Collection) -
Aerial view of Troy in the early 1970's. The new HQ is visible in the distance. The beginnings of what would become Somerset Collection are in the middle of the image (roughly that same
view, today) -
Source:
Wayne State University Libraries Digital Collections
A closer aerial view. It's clear from this photo (dated 1973) that the HQ was built in multiple phases -
Source:
Wayne State University Libraries Digital Collections
The exterior, under construction in 1971 -
Source:
Wayne State University Libraries Digital Collections
An earlier postcard, before the company name changed -
Source:
Facebook | Debbie Osman Larson
A postcard view from after the name change (after 1976) -
Source:
Facebook | Robin Gillespie Lyman
Exterior, early 1970's -
Source:
Wayne State University Libraries Digital Collections
Employees referred to the central atrium as "the fishbowl" where numerous corporate parties and events were held over the years -
Source:
Twitter | Midwest Modern
1971 - note the model in the foreground, showing the full development -
Source:
Wayne State University Libraries Digital Collections
One of the exterior monolithic towers -
Source:
Wayne State University Libraries Digital Collections
This looks like the cover of an old employee handbook - "Kmart and You" -
Source:
Facebook | Debbie Osman Larson
After it was vacated, the complex served as a filming location for the poorly-reviewed 2012 remake of "Red Dawn". Remnants of that, like the massive POLICE sign in the fishbowl, were left behind -
Source:
reddit | u/hjc10
It is not in great condition these days (October 2021 photos) -
Source:
Facebook | Renee Hopkins Christensen
Drone footage from 2022 -
• Video Link
Another short video with some interior footage, from 2017 -
• Video Link
Maybe one day I'll do a post about the much older Kresge Headquarters on Cass Ave. in Detroit.