Kales Building

The Kales Building is a high-rise apartment building in downtown Detroit, Michigan. It is located 76 West Adams at the northeast corner of Adams Avenue West and Park Avenue, across from Grand Circus Park, in the Foxtown neighborhood, just north of Downtown. The building was designed by Albert Kahn and constructed in 1914, and stands at 18 floors, with one basement floor, for a total of 19 floors in height. It was originally named the Kresge Building and it was given its current name in 1930. Kahn went beyond the typical Chicago School and styled the Kales Building with a clean-lined detail façade with Neo-classical and Renaissance revival elements such as the hipped roof and arched upper windows.

When completed in 1914, the Kales Building housed the headquarters of the S.S. Kresge Company, forerunner of retailing giant Kmart. Kresge only occupied 9 of the 18 floors. The rest of the floors was leased out to doctors and dentists and the storefronts included a pharmacy. S.S. Kresge Co. moved out of the building in 1930 for a new headquarters at Cass Park and the old headquarters remained a prime location for medical offices. The last tenant, New York Custom Shoe Shop owned by Antonio Bava, moved out of the building in 1986 and it sat vacant until its restoration in 2004.

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