Demolition of Southwestern High School in Detroit nearly done

JC Reindl, Detroit Free Press
·2 min read

Demolition of the old and sprawling Southwestern High School in Detroit is nearing completion.

Crews from Adamo Demolition started ripping through the long-vacant school building at 6921 W. Fort St. the week after Christmas, a neighbor said, and little of the structure is still standing this week.

The school site is owned by Dan Gilbert's real estate firm Bedrock, which acquired it in 2020 as part of a $38.5 million deal for nearby office and industrial buildings on 37 acres, including the campus of defunct auto supplier Sakthi Automotive Group USA.

The site also is near the future Gordie Howe International Bridge.

Southwestern High School in southwest Detroit is in the final phase of being completely demolished on Jan. 26, 2023. The footer of the new Gordie Howe Bridge can be seen in the background.
Southwestern High School in southwest Detroit is in the final phase of being completely demolished on Jan. 26, 2023. The footer of the new Gordie Howe Bridge can be seen in the background.

A Bedrock representative didn't return a message Thursday for comment about its future plans for the site.

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Southwestern dates to 1921 and had athletic fields as well as an indoor swimming pool. It closed in 2012 amid falling enrollment across Detroit Public Schools.

The school's alumni include basketball player and sports analyst Jalen Rose and Ben Carson, the famed neurosurgeon and former Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Southwestern High School in southwest Detroit is in the final phase of being demolished on Jan. 26, 2023. A view of what is left can still be seen from Fort Street.
Southwestern High School in southwest Detroit is in the final phase of being demolished on Jan. 26, 2023. A view of what is left can still be seen from Fort Street.

The demolition was the subject earlier this month of a podcast called Mr. P's Tales from the Road.

The podcast's host, who in social media posts identifies himself as Brandon Parsons, a photographer and explorer of abandoned buildings, recalled visiting the empty school nearly a dozen times over the years and said in the podcast that seeing it get demolished "kind of hit me in the gut." He did not respond to a Free Press question for his location.

He noted how demolition also recently got underway at a slew of other prominent empty buildings in the city, including the former American Motors Corporation headquarters, the old Continental Motors Co. plant and the notorious Packard Plant.

“Detroit is losing all of its abandoned buildings," the host said. "I know we’ve had that argument before, where it’s bad for our hobby but it’s good for the city, but it really hits you when these are places that you’ve spent time in them — and they’re gone."

Southwestern High School in southwest Detroit is in the final phase of being demolished on Jan. 26, 2023. A tiny hole in the wall reveals what is left on a classroom wall.
Southwestern High School in southwest Detroit is in the final phase of being demolished on Jan. 26, 2023. A tiny hole in the wall reveals what is left on a classroom wall.

Bedrock announced last summer that it had struck a five-year leasing deal with Highland Park-based Diversified Synergies for about 200,000-square-feet of space in the former Sakthi Industrial Campus, now known as Bedrock's Fort Street Industrial Campus.

Diversified Synergies moved in in August and, depending on business volume, has roughly 300 to 700 workers at the site for its packaging operation, a company official said.

Contact JC Reindl: 313-222-6631 or jcreindl@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @jcreindl. 

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Demolition of Southwestern High School in Detroit nearly done