KPMG is bringing 420 workers to Michigan Central Station

KPMG plans to move about 420 of its Detroit-area employees into Michigan Central Station next year, leaving the downtown high-rise at 150 West Jefferson where the firm has long kept its local headquarters. Crain's Detroit Business first reported the lease, with the relocation expected in the second quarter of 2027.

The firm is old in this city. KPMG has operated in Detroit since 1916, and its Detroit and Grand Rapids offices together count more than 350 professionals serving clients across the Midwest. Kevin Voigt is the managing partner overseeing the Michigan offices.

For the restored Corktown station, KPMG is another name on a tenant list that has grown quickly since the building reopened. Earlier this year Michigan Central announced its first wave of office tenants. Masco Ventures took 28,000 square feet on the second and third floors of the east wing. Consulting firm Guidehouse leased 35,000 square feet across two floors and made it the headquarters for its Great Lakes region. Architecture firm SmithGroup signed on for 22,000 square feet.

Ford, which bought the property and led the restoration, anchors the campus itself. The automaker expected roughly 1,000 of its employees working across the Michigan Central district by the end of 2024, with a goal of about 2,500 by 2028.

The station's history is the reason any of this carries weight. Designed by Warren & Wetmore and Reed & Stem, the architects behind Grand Central Terminal in New York, Michigan Central opened in 1913 as one of the country's grand rail depots. At its peak it handled more than 4,000 passengers a day. It closed in 1988 and then sat empty for three decades, deteriorating into one of Detroit's most photographed ruins.

Ford acquired the building in 2018 and spent six years on the restoration, a job that ran more than 1.7 million combined worker hours. The station reopened in June 2024 at the center of a 30-acre technology and mobility campus, with a public celebration that ran June 6 to 16.

More is still coming. A NoMad hotel, part of Hilton's luxury portfolio, is planned for floors 14 through 18, with nearly 180 guest rooms including 30 suites and an opening targeted for 2027. The plan reworks the station's historic restaurant and carriage house spaces. Floor by floor, a building that stood vacant longer than many Detroiters have been alive is filling up.