The Russell Industrial Center is an industrial factory turned to commercial complex of studios and shops that is located at 1600 Clay Street in Detroit, Michigan. The Russell Industrial Center is a 2,200,000-square-foot (200,000 m2), seven building complex, designed by Albert Kahn for John William Murray in 1915.
- Venue
- Russell Industrial Center
- Town
- Michigan, US
The Russell Industrial Center is an industrial factory turned to commercial complex of studios and shops that is located at 1600 Clay Street in Detroit, Michigan. The Russell Industrial Center is a 2,200,000-square-foot (200,000 m2), seven building complex, designed by Albert Kahn for John William Murray in 1915. It contains studios and lofts and serves as a professional center for commercial and creative arts. Murray Body Corporation supplier of bodies to Ford and the third largest auto-body company in the U.S. built the complex for its business in 1924. Murray soon diversified its business leaving the automotive industry in 1955. The complex has become another of Detroit's renovated buildings. In 2003 Dennis Kefallinos purchased it and converted it into more than one million square feet of studio space and lofts for various artists, creative professionals, and businesses. The Russell Industrial Center works with non profits, local colleges, and businesses. Kefallinos owns several Detroit businesses, such as Nikki's Pizza in Greektown. John William Murray, born 1862, in Ann Arbor, Michigan formed the J W Murray Mfg. Co. in 1913 to supply sheet metal parts for the automobile factories in the Detroit area. The first plant was located in Detroit, at 1975 Clay Street, which is next to the Grand Trunk Western Railroad line and borders Fordyce, Morrow, Marston and Clay Streets. Murray Manufacturing began manufacturing automobile bodies, stamped fenders, hoods, cowls and frames. The growing demands from customers, such as the Dodge brothers, Ford Lincoln, Crosley, Willys, Hudson, Hupmobile, King and Studebaker, led Murray to expand his operations. In 1915 Murray hired architect Albert Kahn, to design a larger industrial center to meet the demands of Detroit's growing automotive industry. Kahn was one of Detroit's foremost industrial architects, known for his large concrete-reinforced automobile factories. His design was strong, fireproof, inexpensive to construct, and ope