The Cary Building was built in 1906 at a time when the Broadway-Gratiot district was quickly transitioning from a mostly residential area into a shopping district full of florists, dress shops, milliners, corseters and salons.
The Cary Building Co. - made up of the heirs of the late E.M. Cary - hired Richard E. Raseman to design a new five-story building on the site of the old Cary homestead on the northwest corner of Gratiot Avenue and Broadway (then known as Miami Avenue). Ground was broken in early 1906.
The rectangular, five-story building was faced with brick and stone trim, sheathing a reinforced-concrete-and-steel frame. The Beaux Arts-style structure stretches 34 feet along Broadway and 112 feet along Gratiot. The masonry work was done by Max Bartholomal; the carpentry work by John Whitaker; the ironwork by J.T. Whitehead.
In August 1906, the building was about half-built and started seeing most tenants move in early 1907. The Reynard Fur Co. became one of the first, if not the first, tenant to move into the Cary Building, opening Nov. 24, 1906.
"The new store is a commendable addition to the attractiveness of the city's retail district," The Detroit News reported Nov. 23, 1906. "It is very handsomely finished in hardwood and possessing display windows on both Gratiot and Broadway, specially large in size, and equipped with (a) mechanism by which upwards of two dozen figures, on which the latest styles in furs and millinery are displayed, can be kept constantly moving and revolving."
The Boston Cut-Rate Koffee House opened the following month. Lou H. Weitz clothiers moved into the second floor of the Cary in March 1907, relocating from Woodward Avenue. The Sloan Furniture Co. also occupied space on the second floor starting around the fall of 1909. The Parsch Hat Manufacturing Co. also was a tenant in the building's early days.
On Feb. 11, 1912, the Cary Building was the scene of a two-alarm fire that heavily damaged the Lipson-Kroll Co., a millinery and ladies' clothing store. Damage was estimated at more than $12,000, more than $400,000 in 2026 valuation, when adjusted for inflation.
"The conflagration attracted a large crowd of people who were returning home from the Sunday afternoon theaters," the Free Press wrote the following day. "The police flying squadron and other officers had their hands full keeping back the crowd so that the firemen could perform their duties."
In 1914, the Detroit school system established a pre-vocational school inside the Cary Building. Moskin Stores Inc., a national apparel retailer, leased the second floor of the Cary Building in 1930.
The Cary originally had a large and distinctive cornice, but this was removed, likely in the late 1950s following a City crack down on building ornamentation. The move was spurred by a falling section of cornice from the Ferguson Building that killed 79-year-old Myrtle Taggart as she walked under it on June 24, 1958. Several bystanders were also injured.
This led to Mayor Louis Miriani to order inspections of every building downtown and the City issuing citations to nearly 1,700 buildings - an overzealous reaction in the wake of an unspeakable tragedy. In order to avoid the fines, bureaucracy and headaches, owners of almost two-thirds of the buildings in downtown Detroit opted to just remove their cornices instead.
The first-floor storefronts also have been dramatically altered over the years, but the upper floors are largely unchanged other than the cornice being removed.
Inside, the building’s small entrance lobby was remodeled in the 1950s or ‘60s, so it doesn’t retain its original grandeur. The upper floors were likewise insignificant design-wise.
The Cary was individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places on Nov. 25, 1983, as a notable surviving example of an early commercial building.
In the fall of 1984, the Broadway-Randolph area - "the city's funkiest downtown shopping district," according to the Oct. 8, 1984, edition of the Detroit Free Press - got a $715,000 infusion in renovations, the equivalent of about $2.4 million in 2026. The stretch saw new windows, facade-cleaning, removal of "cheesy signs" and more to spruce the place up.
"The results elicit stares at buildings that wouldn't have gotten a glance six months ago - including the Cary Building with its lacy stonework and the Tobin Building with its columns," the Free Press wrote.
"It's not gloomy anymore," Pepper Martin, owner of the Broadway clothing store, told the paper. "My customers feel better. ... And when I walk into work in the morning, I feel better about the whole day."
Steven Ross, head of the local business association, was optimistic but cautiously so. "After all," he told the Free Press, "you can put perfume on a pig, but that doesn't mean people will want to kiss him."
Around the same time, Detroit architecture firm Theodore Pappas & Associates bought the Cary Building for $125,000 ($387,000 in 2026) and planned to spend $300,000 (about $930,000 in 2026) to renovate the lower two floors for shops and the upper three for offices. The firm planned to occupy the top floor.
In 1993, the Metropolitan Ballet Theatre rented three floors of the Cary Building for use as a practice studio.
In May 2012, the Cary Building dropped some bricks, hinting at the level of need for TLC.
That same year, on Dec. 11, 2012, it was announced that Dan Gilbert's Bedrock Real Estate Services had purchased five buildings downtown, including the Cary, which Bedrock planned for residential space on the upper four stories and retail on the ground floor. Kraemer Design Group transformed the 20,000-square-foot structure into office spaces with street-level restaurants and retail.
(The other buildings purchased at the time were the Kresge Building at 1201 Woodward Ave.; 1521 Broadway; 1217 Woodward Ave.; and 1412 Woodward Ave.