A $60 million project to transform a historic hotel and other largely vacant buildings in west downtown Dearborn kicked off Wednesday morning with a groundbreaking ceremony.

The Wagner Place development, lead by Ford Land Development Corp., the real estate arm for Ford Motor Co., is expected to result in about 600 of the automaker's data insights and analytics employees moving there in the middle of next year through relocation and consolidation.

In December, the city secured a $3 million performance-based grant from the Michigan Strategic Fund to construct a 373-space parking deck on what is a surface parking lot at West Village Drive and Monroe.

The project is expected to bring a pair of three-story mixed-use buildings to downtown and restore the Wagner Hotel into retail and office space. One-third of the 150,000-square-foot development is expected to be retail space.

"Developing an urban office environment positions Ford to offer a work setting that will appeal to a new generation of employees," Dave Dubensky, chairman and CEO of Ford Land, said in a statement. "Wagner Place supports our goals to create a more collaborative and inviting campus atmosphere for all employees."

The project area is between Mason Street to the west, Oakwood Boulevard to the east and south of Michigan Avenue. Some of the structures in the area are slated for demolition as part of the project, according to a December MSF memo.

"This is absolutely a transformational project that will change the future of downtown west Dearborn in the sense that we are bringing in over 600 employees who will be able to patronize our businesses, and activate the climate and environment there," said Cristina Sheppard-Decius, executive director of the West Dearborn Downtown Development Authority.

Detroit-based Neumann/Smith Architecture is the architecture firm on the project while Mid-America Real Estate Corp., which has an office in Bloomfield Hills, will be responsible for leasing the retail space to tenants. Sterling Heights-based Roncelli Inc. is the general contractor.

A year ago, Ford Land confirmed that it planned to purchase the property for the project.

Dearborn Mayor John O'Reilly Jr. said in a statement that the project "represents the ongoing evolution of not only our west downtown, but the entire city."

The project is the latest large-scale real estate move for the automaker.

It is spending about $1 billion in the next 10 years to overhaul its headquarters campus and research and engineering hub in Dearborn, and has leased about 240,000 square feet at Fairlane Town Center in the former Lord & Taylor space and an adjacent mall wing.

Correction: The original version of this report misstated the type of workers who will move into the new space. This version is correct.