The REX Effect: How Bedrock Closed the Experience Gap at Hudson’s Detroit
How Dan Gilbert transformed a 27-year vacancy into Detroit's most experience-driven mixed-use destination
Vision
When Bedrock broke ground on Hudson's Detroit in December 2017, Dan Gilbert wasn't just filling a vacant lot. He was reimagining what urban office space could become in a city where the traditional playbook no longer worked. The former J.L. Hudson Department Store site, once home to the world's tallest department store, had sat vacant since 1998, a 27-year symbol of Detroit's industrial decline.
Gilbert saw infrastructure as the path to a different future. Not a commodity office tower chasing square footage, but a 1.5 million-square-foot mixed-use ecosystem designed around how people actually work, gather, and experience cities in 2025. The $1.4 billion project would take ten years and require rethinking every assumption about downtown office development. When Phase 1 opened in October 2025, it proved that experience-first design could win even in challenging office markets.
Market & Ideal Tenants
Detroit's office market in 2025 tells two stories. The metro-wide vacancy rate sits at 22.9%, with 772,781 square feet of net vacancy added year over year. But downtown Detroit's CBD has a significantly lower vacancy rate at 21.3%, while Class A office space with fitness amenities shows just 18.4% vacancy, supporting the flight-to-quality thesis.
The disparity is structural. Suburban markets struggle with 23.5% vacancy and asking rents down $0.35 per square foot, while downtown rents increased $0.40 over the same period. Downtown Class A asking rents reached $27.70 per square foot in Q1 2025, commanding premium economics over commodity suburban space.
Hudson's Detroit positioned itself precisely at this inflection point: Class A, amenity-rich, experience-driven, and unapologetically urban. The target tenant profile wasn't speculative. General Motors committed to relocating its world headquarters from the Renaissance Center in January 2026, alongside Accenture, Ven Johnson Law, and Gilbert's own Rock Family Office. These weren't startups chasing flexible space; they were established institutions betting that experience infrastructure would drive talent retention in a hybrid world.
The ideal personas? Knowledge workers who value authentic urban environments, executives prioritizing walkability and cultural amenities, and companies willing to pay premium rents for spaces that solve the talent attraction problem. In a market where return-to-office rates hover around 50-55% of pre-pandemic levels, buildings must earn their occupancy through deliberate experience design.
Closing the Experience Gap
Bedrock executed Hudson's transformation using a systematic approach that aligned spaces, services, and systems around tenant impact:
| Spaces & Products | 27-year vacant lot, parking garage | 404,000 SF Class A office, 56,000 SF event venue, public plaza, seven-story atrium with Corvette-inspired skylight, future 225-room Detroit EDITION hotel, 97 luxury condominiums |
| Services | None | Fitness center, pickleball court, sports simulator, rooftop lounge (2026), curated retail, coffee truck, public programming (concerts, art installations, food trucks) |
| Systems & Tech | N/A | Mixed-use integration enabling cross-programming between office, retail, events, and public spaces; hospitality-grade amenities designed for tenant experience platforms |
Each decision reflected an understanding of what modern tenants actually need. The seven-story atrium isn't architectural vanity; it's a collision space that encourages spontaneous interaction. The pickleball court and sports simulator address wellness and community building. The Department event venue creates programming infrastructure that activates the building beyond 9-to-5 office hours.
Most significantly, the mixed-use model itself represents systems thinking. Office tenants gain access to event venues, retail, public spaces, and future hotel/residential components—creating an ecosystem rather than an isolated tower. This is the REX thesis in action: when spaces, services, and systems align around how people work and gather, experience becomes a measurable competitive advantage.
The Experience Payoff
Hudson's Detroit opened into a challenging market, yet the results validate the experience-first approach:
- 100% pre-leased Phase 1 office space before completion, anchored by General Motors' world headquarters relocation
- Premium positioning maintained with Class A rents commanding $27.70 per square foot while suburban markets decline
- Public space activation with Nick Gilbert Way opening in November 2025, featuring concerts, art, and community programming
- Mixed-use momentum with retail tenants (Alo, Tecovas) opening alongside office occupancy, Phase 2 hotel/residential delivering in 2027
- Symbolic impact, transforming Detroit's most prominent vacant site into a catalyst for Woodward Avenue revitalization
The metrics tell the story: in a market with elevated vacancy, experience-driven assets command premium economics and tenant commitment.
Voices of the Experience
"Hudson's is more than a building. It's a community gathering place that celebrates Detroit's past while building its future." – Bedrock Development Team
Experience Lessons Learned
Heritage creates differentiation. The J.L. Hudson name and Corvette-inspired atrium weren't nostalgia; they were authentic Detroit character that commodity towers can't replicate.
Mixed-use solves the hybrid challenge. When office alone can't justify commutes, retail + events + public spaces create reasons to gather beyond desk work.
Amenities must be hospitality-grade. Fitness centers, simulators, and rooftop lounges aren't perks; they're infrastructure for talent retention.
Timing matters less than quality. Despite market headwinds, experience-first properties win tenant commitment and premium rents.
This is the REX Effect. When you design for how people actually work and gather, not how they worked in 1998, you create destinations that redefine what urban office can become.
The REX Advantage
The Hudson's Detroit transformation proves that experience-driven design wins in competitive markets. But imagine achieving similar results with:
- Playbook-driven efficiency: REX's Ideal Tenant Profile Builder, Journey Mapping, and Health Score Tracker systematize what Bedrock developed through trial and investment
- Portfolio-level consistency: Deploy proven experience strategies across 20+ assets without starting from scratch each time
- Data-driven optimization: Real-time tenant engagement analytics prove ROI to investors and guide continuous improvement
While Bedrock intuitively understood experience gaps at Hudson's Detroit, REX provides the methodology and platform to systematically close experience gaps across entire portfolios, turning pioneering one-off transformations into a repeatable competitive advantage.
The question isn't whether experience matters. It's whether you can deliver it at portfolio scale before your competitors do.
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