DETROIT — Detroit’s former main train station, designed in the Beaux-Arts style by the same architects who created Grand Central Terminal in New York, has tall columns and vaulted ceilings that hint at its past glory.

Yet much of the station is now crumbling, covered in rainbow graffiti and weathered by decades of rain and snow that seeped in through the deteriorating roof.

“Michigan Central Station has long been a symbol of Detroit’s vibrancy, and then it became an international symbol of decline,” said Detroit’s mayor, Mike Duggan.

Now the long-vacant station is getting a new life, thanks to the Ford Motor Company, which will transform the depot as well as an adjacent book depository, brass factory and hosiery factory into a 1.2 million-square-foot transportation innovation district.