New York —

Hudson’s Detroit, the Motor City’s first new skyscraper in nearly half a century, is a symbol of Detroit’s transformation from bankruptcy to boomtown.

The recently opened $1.4 billion skyscraper on the site of the former J.L. Hudson’s department store will eventually feature high-end stores, luxury condos and a five-star hotel.

Detroit “was probably at the bottom of the barrel in this country – from crime and unemployment to everything in between,” Dan Gilbert, the billionaire who has helped catalyze Detroit’s revival, said in an interview with CNN. “It’s been a 180-degree comeback.” Gilbert’s real estate company developed the complex at the former Hudson’s, a shopping mecca for generations that closed in 1983.

Hudson's department store on Woodward Avenue in Detroit in Jul

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