A century old Detroit building that celebrates a lot of Ford Motor Co. history, is getting a new life following a complete renovation. WWJ Auto Beat Reporter Jeff Gilbert got a look.
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00:00This beautiful building on Oakwood just north of the Henry Ford Museum carries
00:05with it a lot of history. It's also a big part of Ford's future. The Ford
00:11Engineering Laboratory is a hundred years old and it recently underwent a
00:15full renovation. Here in the building there are conference rooms sitting
00:20inside a large airy atrium restored to a lot of its original look and feel. When
00:27you have a building that's more than a century old you have to be very careful
00:31because you want to make it functional for the future but you want to honor
00:35that history. Our strategy is a delicate touch so we really honor the
00:41architecture in this case is incredible Kahn building and then we delicately
00:46insert the elements that allow it to function today. Let's take a look at some
00:50of that history well preserved here on what they call Mahogany Row. This is
00:56where Edsel Ford once had an office. Next door sat his father Henry. The
01:01furniture is original on loan from the Henry Ford Museum. There was no Ford
01:05headquarters building back in the 20s and 30s so if Henry was working it was
01:10either at the Rouge or here. I think there's no other place at Ford Motor
01:14where employees will feel as connected to Henry Ford as they will here. They
01:20even have the vault where Henry once stored the company's cash. Now this
01:25building also houses Ford's archives with items now on display that highlight
01:30this building which has served various functions. They even had dance lessons
01:35here. You can feel the history. This building definitely has a distinct
01:40personality and feel and I think the renovations that they were able to do
01:45over the past couple years have really helped to highlight a lot of those
01:49features. Ford says it's well on its way to having 90% of its buildings totally
01:56renovated going forward. In Dearborn, I'm AutoBeat reporter Jeff Gilbert.