Detroit's Motown Museum expansion: Expect a big 2019 for Hitsville

Brian McCollum | Detroit Free Press

Show Caption Hide Caption Motown Museum CEO talks expansion plan Robin Terry, chairwoman and CEO of the Motown Museum talks about museum’s $50 million expansion plan.

At a high-level meeting in his Los Angeles home earlier this month, Motown founder Berry Gordy Jr. and his longtime confidant Suzanne de Passe were absorbed in a round of brainstorming with officials from the Motown Museum.

With the museum’s $50-million expansion plan taking shape back in Detroit — and fundraising starting to accelerate — the group was locking down fundamentals, recounted museum chairwoman and CEO Robin Terry: What Motown stories must be told in the new complex? Which experiences are crucial? What can’t be overlooked?

In the end, the 88-year-old Gordy had one overriding message for the museum team: “Just make sure it’s entertaining.”

That’s certainly part of the plan for the 50,000-square-foot complex that will emerge around the iconic Hitsville, U.S.A., house on West Grand Boulevard, where Gordy and company once shepherded the careers of blue-chip Detroit acts like the Supremes, Stevie Wonder, the Temptations and Marvin Gaye.

But the project will also look to reignite the spirit that made Motown a homegrown Detroit phenomenon in the first place, "that crossroad where entrepreneurship and creativity intersect," Terry told the Free Press in her most extensive public remarks yet about the expansion project.

Gordy moved his label operation to L.A. in the early ‘70s, and the Hitsville building was reopened as a nonprofit museum in 1985. It draws more than 70,000 guests annually, a go-to destination for overseas tourists and a steady parade of visiting concert stars eager to step foot on hallowed musical ground.

Two years after the expansion campaign was launched with an intensive, behind-the-scenes fundraising effort, a palpable optimism is taking hold inside the museum offices. While a targeted timeline still hasn’t been disclosed, Terry said philanthropic momentum is growing — and with the label's 60th anniversary set to thrust Motown into the spotlight next year, she’s confident the pace will only quicken.

Today, the museum is announcing a $500,000 grant from the DTE Energy Foundation, bringing the fundraising total to $16.5 million, or one-third of the $50-million goal. It’s the first time an amount has been divulged since the campaign was announced in October 2016.

It isn't customary for capital campaigns to disclose totals before reaching 50 percent, but museum officials said they want to share the figure because of community interest in the project.

Several more significant pledges are in the immediate pipeline, said Terry, a grandniece of Gordy.

“The next six months are game-changing,” she said. “People are being extremely generous. The work we’ve been doing, these kinds of gifts — they just take time. And now you’ll start to see (the results).”

The DTE Energy Foundation grant follows contributions from UAW-Ford, Ford Motor Co., William Davidson Foundation, Lear Corp., the Erb Family Foundation, Dr. William Pickard and others.

The Motown Museum campaign is also drawing interest from out-of-state donors, Terry said, buoyed by the broader revival happening in the city’s downtown and Midtown districts. National fundraising specialists are working with a Detroit steering committee, and Terry herself has spent recent months crisscrossing the country to meet with potential donors.

“People are intrigued by what’s happening with Detroit, and they’re intrigued to the point of wanting to be a part of it,” Terry said. “We present a unique opportunity for them to be part of the city’s revitalization in a real authentic, entertaining way.”

Speaking this week with the Free Press, Terry delved deep into the expansion goals and the big-picture vision at the heart of it all.

She described a colorful, cutting-edge complex that would keep one foot in history while vigorously leaning forward — perhaps even ultimately nixing the word “museum” from the name.

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With the Hitsville house remaining as “the crown jewel,” the West Grand Boulevard site would grow into a contemporary cultural experience — a campus of immersive exhibits, new recording facilities and musical incubator programs geared to kids and young adults.

In other words: Motown, the record label, may be long gone from the city, but Motown as a gush of creative and entrepreneurial energy could get a fresh new life in Detroit.

In many respects, plans remain more sky-view than detailed. Ideas continue to evolve: At one point, for instance, a proposed reworking of the Hitsville tour would have rendered Studio A off-limits — instead, guests would view the venerated recording space through glass panels.

That plan has been scrapped, and consultants are now devising ways to balance "the magic and the maintenance," as Terry put it, preserving the historic studio floor while absorbing the wear-and-tear of foot traffic in the little room that produced a towering amount of the 20th Century's popular music.

Other plans seem to be settling into place. New conceptual designs provided to the Free Press portray the exhibit space looming behind the Hitsville house, its façade of colorful fins arrayed like the spines of LP records. The color palette was derived by analyzing the covers of classic Motown albums that hit No. 1.

Recapturing Motown's youthful energy

Museum officials are confident there’s long-term value to the Motown brand in Detroit. But they’re also keenly aware that as the music’s original, baby boomer audience reaches its elder years, it’s critical to shape an institution that can resonate in 2028, 2038 and beyond.

Indeed, that challenge motivated the expansion project to begin with, said Terry: “We have to figure out how translate this important, authentic Detroit story to that next generation.”

“There’s a legacy that’s been created here that has had tremendous impact, maybe the most profound in our lifetime, on our culture and this world,” she said. “And so we’re preserving that. But the vision is not to make it the landing pad. The vision is to use it as a springboard.”

The move toward cultivating young talent and helping them forge industry connections is already afoot: In 2014, the museum launched Motown Mic, an annual showcase for young Detroit poets and spoken-word performers. And this summer brought the inaugural Amplify competition, a singing contest with a $2,500 cash prize and studio time.

Meanwhile, 30-year-old rapper Big Sean has thrown his energy behind the expansion effort, holding a swanky philanthropic event in June and joining an internal fundraising committee.

"Support from people like Big Sean is critical, because we've got to talk to another generation," said Terry. "When Big Sean says this is important, a whole lot of fans listen."

Beyond the music, Motown still holds sway as a beacon for black America: Founded 60 years ago by Gordy with an $800 family loan, the label with the crossover pop hits became the biggest black-owned company in the world. Gordy sold Motown Records in 1988 for $61 million, or $128 million in today's dollars. Nine years later, he began parceling out the song-publishing arm in a sale equivalent to $562 million today.

On a recent snowy weekday, a 31-year-old Detroit musician who goes by Blessed Gaddis was visiting the museum. He snapped selfies with his fiancée in front of Hitsville's famous picture window as decades-old hits like "Shop Around" pumped from the outdoor sound system.

"Our parents came up on this music, but it takes us back to very important moments in our own lives," Gaddis said. "Even though it was created in the '50s and '60s, you come alive every time you hear it. It's still relevant."

Part of Detroit's rising tide

The Detroit development rebound hasn’t been without its aches and pains, including concerns that some neighborhoods may be getting left behind.

But the Motown Museum expansion may symbolize the redevelopment energy in its purest form: an old, beloved Detroit institution that will hold tight to its tradition while getting a bold new blast of polish. Hitsville, perhaps the city's most identifiable landmark, could have sat there as an aging house for coming decades; instead, it’s getting lifted up by the broader Detroit revival.

“I don’t know if it would have been possible 20 years ago,” Terry said of the expansion effort. “I believe it’s happening when it’s supposed to happen.”

Among those who are newly engaged with the site is Motown’s founder himself. The museum long seemed something of an afterthought to Gordy, who seemed content that it be a pet project of his late sister, Esther Gordy Edwards. The Hitsville property had sat idle for more than a decade when Edwards, the family's de facto historian, spruced up the site and opened the doors as a museum in 1985.

But Gordy, who will turn 89 on Nov. 28, has become emotionally invested in the expansion campaign, said his grandniece.

“For my uncle, it wasn't a priority back then to create a museum. He thought about the legacy in other ways,” Terry said. “But he and others have come to see how the birthplace (of Motown) is at the heart of telling the story for the future. And so it's very important to him.”

Gordy, who still owned a stretch of properties along West Grand Boulevard and Ferry Park Avenue, deeded those sites to the museum ahead of the 2016 expansion announcement.

For Terry and company, the expansion campaign is picking up steam at a convenient time, just as the Motown legacy is set for a high-profile 2019. The label, now operated under Capitol Music Group, will be marking its diamond anniversary with a prominent national campaign — including a series of album reissues and a major hometown event that Terry says she can’t yet disclose.

“Eyes will be on Detroit,” Terry said with a knowing smile.

The new year will also bring what’s being touted as the definitive Motown film. “Hitsville: The Making of Motown” is the working title of a project that has been filming since spring 2017, sanctioned by Gordy and directed by the London production company Fulwell 73, whose partners include late-night TV host James Corden.

It all adds up to a promising stretch ahead for the museum effort.

"We want to get it done as fast as we can," Terry said. "But that means we need people to continue to jump on board, to be part of something that will not only transform this neighborhood, but will impact lives. It's truly going to inspire people with a story that is uniquely Detroit's story."

Contact Detroit Free Press music writer Brian McCollum: 313-223-4450 or bmccollum@freepress.com.