As the University of Michigan swells in size, some fear it’s bulldozing history

This story is part of a series exploring how the University of Michigan’s expansion impacts Ann Arbor, from its economy to its businesses to its history. Stories on this topic will be published throughout the week.

ANN ARBOR, MI - Every building has a story to tell, says longtime Ann Arborite Susan Wineberg.

She would know. An archaeology student at the University of Michigan, she wrote a book that guides readers through the architectural history of hundreds of Ann Arbor buildings.

Her passion is both academic and personal, like how she attended anti-Vietnam War rallies in homes near the Law Quad. You can tell her which house is yours, and she will send you every detail possible within minutes.

Wineberg fears development around Ann Arbor will bury the history she treasures. Her passion for preservation has pitted her against the University of Michigan as it has demolished about 43 acres of Ann Arbor in the last 20 years.

“The university operates on its own time,” she said. “It doesn’t have to follow any local rules, so it’s hard to get their attention and hard to persuade them that something is worth preserving.”

However, the university’s expansion that supports innovations in medicine, research and education is accomplished with input from Ann Arbor and its residents, university planner Sue Gott said.

“As a public university, we work closely with the local community in making plans for physical expansions in Ann Arbor,” she said.

20 years of bulldozing

The 43 acres of demolition, calculated using Washtenaw County map records, includes both existing university land and private property it purchased for growth and development.

In 2006, the university demolished 5.5 acres of its old business school to usher in today’s Ross School of Business. The Central Campus Recreation Building is now a 4-acre lot where its replacement has been under construction since late 2023.

The Munger Graduate Residences were built on three acres once home to Krazy Jim’s Blimpy Burger and nearby homes. The Michigan Marching Band’s new Elbel Field sits on the old Fingerle Lumber property the university purchased in 2018.

Before and after street views of University of Michigan construction projects in 2024

The university has invested in multiple projects during the years to “preserve the architectural integrity” of “university heritage buildings,” Gott said.

“The Michigan Union, Kinesiology Building, Hill Auditorium, Rackham, Ruthven, Intramural Sports Building, Yost, all the heritage residential halls and Law School structures – these are all examples of the university’s priority for preservation and there are many more.”

Wineberg takes no issue with those projects, nor the ones addressing housing. The demolitions concerning her and fellow members of the Old Fourth Ward Neighborhood Association are smaller and historic.

“There was an unstated rule that you didn’t jump (into the Old Fourth Ward) and you didn’t jump Hill Street, and they have done both of those things in the last five years,” she said. “So that makes me quite worried.”

Dr. Samantha Sciancalepore co-owns, with Dr. Regina Daly, Integrative Dentistry at 221 N. Ingalls St., in a 126-year-old building in the historic district, and she sees student high rises and university buildings eventually surrounding it.

“I’m a little bit concerned, specifically down Catherine Street, that the construction is going to make its way up the hill,” she said.

Multiple projects are in Wineberg and Sciancalepore’s ward.

An old apartment building made way for the School of Nursing building in 2014. The Wirt & Mary Cornwell mansion on Cornwell Place, built in the late 1880s and named for the Ypsilanti paper mill family, will make way for Michigan Medicine’s childcare center.

The College of Pharmacy in 2019 replaced three homes on East Huron Street. One was the old Charles Whitman home, built in 1891 by the railroad tycoon and state commissioner of railroads. Another was built for the mother of former regent James Murfin in 1885, while the other was the site for Nu Sigma Nu, the oldest medical fraternity in the country.

“We have all felt like we were protected by being in a historic district,” Wineberg said. “But the minute they buy a property, they don’t have to obey the rules of the historic district.”

State institutions buying homes in the historic district do not need to follow district rules, Ann Arbor city officials have said. Michigan law states public universities are “arms of the state” that have the right to take private property for public use when “necessary for a public improvement.”

The university-owned North Ingalls Building is right across from Sciancalepore’s business, and she sees little traffic come through there. Demolish that instead of historic district buildings, she suggests.

Wineberg believes the university takes action to demolish without resident input.

“And one day, there’s just an empty lot somewhere, and we didn’t get to document them,” she said.

The university and city’s collaboration is “exceptionally strong,” Gott said, pointing to regular meetings with city staff. Relations have improved in recent years, city officials have said, despite the occasional friction over the university acquiring properties that come off tax rolls.

“We routinely consider multiple perspectives in making development decisions,” Gott said.

Wineberg was saddened by the demolition of the Madelon Pound House on Hill Street in early 2023. The interior of the 125-year-old building was both beautiful and quirky, she said, from the iridescent, patterned tiles to the duct work with student-written quotes of Nietzche.

The building housed the Ginsberg Center supporting community engagement and outreach opportunities. The center’s replacement will be in the same spot.

With this replacement, the university has started to alert Wineberg and fellow association members, such as Eileen Tyler, of upcoming demolitions to work on historical documentation and preservation.

“I have to admit, they’ve been helpful in allowing me and Eileen to go into the buildings they’re going to demolish and document them before they’re demolished,” she said.

What makes something historic?

Regent Paul Brown also loves history. A history major, board member for the Michigan History Foundation and son of a historic preservationist, he takes the removal of historic buildings seriously.

He just does not see the university demolishing anything truly significant.

“We can lament the loss of the atmosphere” of Ann Arbor, Brown said, but the developments and subsequent demolitions support the record growth in enrollment on the Ann Arbor campus.

One Ann Arbor building with a historic tie to the university that has remained for years is the Arthur Miller house. The famous playwright and university alum from the 1930s lived at 439 S. Division St., and the university, without a use for it, has tried to sell the house for years.

Miller himself bemoaned the development that transformed campus when he came back to Ann Arbor in 1953. “There are buildings now where I remembered lawns and trees,” he wrote in the magazine “Holiday.”

It seems the only way to get people’s attention to avoid demolition is if someone famous lived there, Wineberg said.

“If it’s the old local butcher’s house, nobody cares,” she said.

Brown thinks the fact a historic person lived in a house is not enough to make it historic.

“There is no perfect definition, and everyone has their own kind of thing that is the most meaningful to them,” he said, pointing to the old Drake’s Sandwich Shop on North University as something he personally misses.

“I’m sure there are a lot of people that said, ‘Oh, that place was dark and old, and I didn’t like their food.’ So, I guess it’s in the eye of the beholder,” Brown said.

The City of Ann Arbor has a broader view of a building’s historic significance. City Manager Milton Dohoney said it’s architectural or engineering uniqueness, time period or place on the National Registry would make it worth protecting.

But just because something is old does not make it historic, Dohoney said.

“It is fair to consider the cost of preserving a portion of the structure while enhancing the site with new design elements,” he said. “The economics of that has to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. For example, keeping an exterior and doing a gut rehab may prove cost prohibitive.”

Finding the balance between preservation and contemporary is part of the urban tension that keeps things exciting, Dohoney concluded.

When it comes to buildings people miss, Brown and Wineberg miss the old Fleming Administration Building, now an empty 1-acre lot on Thompson Street after a 2022 demolition.

Brown loved it since he tagged along with his father Paul Brown, a regent for 24 years, to university Board of Regents meetings. Wineberg loved the old architecture.

“That’s an Alden Dow building,” she said. “Alden Dow was the architect laureate of Michigan. He was considered a really good architect, and all of his buildings are being demolished in Ann Arbor.”

Campus Plan 2050

The university’s Campus Plan 2050 maps out development for the next 25 years, from new dorms to a new recreation building to an automated transit system connecting the Central, North and medical campuses.

Some of this will be done with further demolition, like several dozen properties it purchased in 2023 for another phase of its Central Campus Housing Project.

The most extensive development will take place far from downtown on North Campus with dozens of “proposed development zones.” Highlights include an Innovation District to foster research collaboration, a new hotel and conference center, new student and workforce housing and upgraded campus life amenities.

“The resulting plan identifies development zones within campus boundaries that have future potential,” Gott said. “The plan also provides us long-term guidance on the renovation of existing academic, research, clinical, student life and athletic buildings as well as areas to consider for new developments that advance the priorities of the university’s vision.”

There has been a lot of engagement during the 16 months of finetuning Campus Plan 2050, Gott said, from campus and community members to city officials to online engagement to public open houses.

The overall feedback has been positive, Gott said.

“It’s a comprehensive plan and will take time for people to fully absorb,” she said. “It also covers a long period so it will be a living, guiding document that, by design, will evolve over time.”

Sciancalepore, a recent graduate of the university’s School of Dentistry, sees the need for expansion in some ways.

“I see where the vision is going, but I wonder if we could re-outfit spaces that we already have and use them for a better way,” she said.

While there is still development planned closer to downtown, North Campus is the focus, Brown said. Wineberg welcomes this.

“They used to avoid demolition in town,” she said. “They used North Campus to build a lot of stuff.”

But her Old Historic Fourth Ward, she said, is still a target for university and private development.

“I just see the whole block going eventually,” she said.

Read more stories here about the University of Michigan’s expansion throughout Ann Arbor.

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