The Lower Woodward Avenue Historic District, also known as Merchant's Row, is a mixed-use

Mixed-use development

Mixed-use development is the use of a building, set of buildings, or neighborhood for more than one purpose. Since the 1920s, zoning in some countries has required uses to be separated. However, when jobs, housing, and commercial activities are located close together, a community's transportation...

 retail, commercial, and residential district in downtown Detroit, Michigan

Michigan

Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....

, located between Campus Martius Park

Campus Martius Park

Campus Martius Park is a re-established park in downtown Detroit, Michigan. After the fire of 1805, Campus Martius was the focal point of judge Augustus Woodward's plans to rebuild the city. It is where the "point of origin" of Detroit's coordinate system is located...

 and Grand Circus Park Historic District at 1201 through 1449 Woodward Avenue (two blocks between State Street to Clifford Street) and 1400 through 1456 Woodward Avenue (one block between Grand River Avenue and Clifford Street). The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places

National Register of Historic Places

The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

 in 1999.

History

The Lower Woodward Avenue Historic District contains thirty-four commercial buildings built at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, many by noted architects. By the 1920s, this area of the city was one of the most active shopping districts in the nation; in 1925, the State and Woodward interseation was the most active pedestrian crossing corner in the U.S.

Many famous and historic Detroit businesses either began or had flagship stores in or near the district, including Vernors, Sanders Confectionery

Sanders Confectionery

Sanders Confectionery is a company formed in Detroit in 1875, best known to those in the midwestern United States for its assortment of ice cream, toppings, bumpy cakes and candies...

, Winkelman's, S.S. Kresge Co., F. W. Woolworth Company

F. W. Woolworth Company

The F. W. Woolworth Company was a retail company that was one of the original American five-and-dime stores. The first successful Woolworth store was opened on July 18, 1879 by Frank Winfield Woolworth in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, as "Woolworth's Great Five Cent Store"...

, and Hudson's. New retail has emerged in the district.

Construction

Most of the structures in the distruct are of steel frame construction with a front windowed facade finished with brownstone, white brick, white terra cotta, or red brick. They all stand wall-to-wall, filling the lot lines and fronting directly on the sidewalk. Most were originally designed to house retail on the first floor and offices on the upper floors.

See also

• List of buildings located along Woodward Avenue, Detroit
• Midtown Woodward Historic District
  Midtown Woodward Historic District
  The Midtown Woodward Historic District is a historic district located along Woodward Avenue in Detroit, Michigan. Structures in the district are located between 2951 and 3424 Woodward Avenue, and include structures on the corner of Charlotte Street and Peterboro Street...
  
  
• Religious Structures of Woodward Avenue Thematic Resource