From Radio World: https://www.radioworld.com/columns-and- ... bria-hotel
The owners of the Detroit Cambria Hotel have taken an outmoded building designed for live radio broadcasting and adapted it to modern 21st century needs. Here’s how that came about.
Detroit’s WWJ was one of the nation’s pioneer radio stations, first broadcasting in August of 1922. It was owned by the Detroit News, a Scripps Family newspaper. The company never spared an expense to make WWJ a first-class operation. Its first studios were in a few small rooms on the top floor of the Detroit News building, but by 1936 broadcasting had become a big business and WWJ had outgrown its limited space. The solution was to build a dedicated studio building at 600 West Lafayette Boulevard, directly across from the News building. Cost, it appears, was not an object. A five-story Art Deco steel-and-concrete structure was constructed, designed by the noted Detroit architect Albert Kahn. Its 70-foot-tall façade was faced with Indiana limestone, with black granite surrounding the main entrance. Two sculptured-granite emblems graced the front of the building, created by Swedish sculptor Carl Milles. A tunnel underneath the street connected WWJ with the News building.
After WWJ vacated the studio building, it became the headquarters of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). In 2019, the building was purchased by local developers, who planned to demolish the building and replace it with an 11-story condominium building.
Fortunately, that project failed to attract financing, and so their Plan B was to convert the existing structure into a luxury hotel building. A new structure, built over an adjoining parking lot, contained the hotel rooms, and the original WWJ radio and TV buildings were converted into public hotel area. The marriage of these three structures became the new Detroit Cambria Hotel.
