The final above-ground structure of the Phoenix Center in Pontiac, Michigan, is being demolished.
Leaders for Oakland County and the city say this will spark development downtown.
Historic buildings line both sides of Saginaw Street in downtown Pontiac. It’s where residents and visitors will find businesses like Pontiac’s Little Art Theatre & The Green Room Café.
“It has been an adventure for certain,” Karen Platen Jorgensen, curator for Pontiac’s Little Art Theatre & The Green Room Café, said. “I have met so many incredible people, and I’ve had a lot of hope that things would get better, so I’m still very optimistic, but realistic.”
It feels like a ghost town with very little foot traffic and lots of vacant buildings.
“In the last few years, since COVID, Pontiac, really, kind of like, went off the radar. But prior to that, it was booming. It was really good,” Cici Dedaj, manager of the M1 Grill, said.
Demolition of the Phoenix Center started earlier this year as part of a multi-million dollar revitalization project.
A fence with a “Danger” sign sits in front of a staircase that was once the Phoenix Center in Pontiac, Michigan, on Sept. 14, 2025. The structure is set to be demolished on Sept. 15, 2025.
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“Every city that I’ve seen that’s successful is a walkable city,” Jorgensen said.
The project includes renovating the vacant General Motors building into office space for up to 700 county employees, two new parking garages and two acres of green space.
Remnants of the Phoenix Center in downtown Pontiac, Michigan, are piled up behind a fence on Sept. 14, 2025.
CBS News Detroit
“If that creates more jobs, obviously, people have more money to spend on anything. It doesn’t have to necessarily be here. It could be anywhere in the city,” Dedaj said.
With more people working downtown, leaders are hopeful this will kick-start private investment in retail spaces and housing.
“We’ve had so many buildings here waiting to be transformed, and there really needs to be more of an incentive for those people to come in here and take a risk to do this,” Jorgensen said.
Demolition of the last pieces of the Phoenix Center is scheduled to start on Monday at 7 a.m.
Renovations on the GM building on East Judson Street are expected to start before the end of the year.
Note: The above video first aired on April 8, 2025.