Along Detroit’s beautifully restored international riverfront is Huntington Place, a world-class meeting and convention facility and home to the North American International Auto Show. For almost its entire existence, it was known to Detroiters as Cobo Center.
The complex is located on the site where Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, a French colonist, landed on the banks of the Detroit River on July 24, 1701, and claimed the area for France in the name of King Louis XIV.
Huntington Place is one of the largest convention centers in the country. Built by the City of Detroit, it officially opened Aug. 15, 1960, as Cobo Hall and was named in honor of former Detroit Mayor Albert Cobo. It was Cobo’s vision to build a convention center, and it was realized only after he died in office in 1957 at age 63. The center and its attached arena cost $56 million to build (about $441 million today, when adjusted for inflation) and took four years to complete. It occupies about 17 acres of land along the riverfront.
The first convention at Cobo Center was the Florist Telegraph Delivery (FTD) in 1960. The first event was the 43rd Auto Industry Dinner on Oct. 17, 1960; President Dwight D. Eisenhower was the keynote speaker, and the ceremony aired live on WXYZ-TV.
The 12,000-seat Cobo Arena opened in 1960 and was home to the Detroit Pistons from 1961-1978. It has hosted concerts by acts such as the Doors, Jimi Hendrix, the Rolling Stones, the Who, Bruce Springsteen, Queen, Kiss, Weezer and many others. The arena also has hosted presidential speeches, boxing, wrestling, figure skating, roller derby and Detroit-area graduation ceremonies.
But since 1965, the largest event held at the facility is the nation’s premier annual automobile event, the North American International Auto Show, which takes place every January. This prestigious event draws journalists from around the world and puts the international spotlight on Detroit. Since 1976, the Charity Preview party has raised an average of $2.4 million each year for southeast Michigan children’s charities. After the Charity Preview, the NAIAS is open to the public for 10 days, drawing a million total attendees a year.
Every sitting U.S. president from 1960 to 2008 (Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon, Gerald R. Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush) has addressed a convention or attended an event at Cobo Center. President Barack Obama visited before being elected to the White House.
As one of the nation’s first mega-convention centers, the facility was made even larger in 1989, when renovations and expansions were completed. At a cost of $225 million, it nearly doubled the facility’s size, to 2.4 million total square feet, and was renamed the Cobo Conference/Exhibition Center. Now, the center boasts 723,000 square feet of exhibit space in five exhibit halls ranging in size from 100,000 to 200,000 square feet. The building’s flexible design allows the adjoining four exhibit halls on the main floor to form 623,000 square feet of contiguous exhibit space.
Following an article by HistoricDetroit.org's Dan Austin highlighting Mayor Cobo's racially discriminatory policies, conversations began to rename the conference center. Mayor Mike Duggan began discussions to explore selling the naming rights for the building, as is common in many cities. In February 2019, a 22-year, $33 million deal for building maintenance and improvements was announced in which Detroit-based Chemical Financial Corp. acquired the naming rights. However, Chemical delayed slapping its name on the building because shortly thereafter, it was announced the bank would be merging with TCF Financial Corp. The merger closed in August 2019, and on Aug. 27, 2019, the building was officially renamed the TCF Center.
"Today a name of the past comes down from these walls," TCF Financial Chairman Gary Torgow said at the time, "and we proudly and honorably replace it with a name that stands for community and inclusion and a powerful future for everyone who is associated with it."
The Rev. Wendell Anthony, the NAACP Detroit branch president, added: "Names conjure up images of character and behavior and help to identify who you are and what you may stand for. ... The name Cobo ... is not one that has brought to this convention center the level of respect and appreciation of all Detroiters. Now some 60 years later (it) has reminded us of an era we seek to want to keep in the past, never to be resurrected in the future, even though there are those today who are seeking to take us back to a period of division and discrimination."
But the mergers didn't stop there, and the TCF Center name would be shortlived.
In December 2020, a little more than a year after Chemical merged with TCF, TCF announced it was merging with Columbus, Ohio-based Huntington Bank. That merger officially closed in June 2021, and the TCF brand was retired.
On Dec. 9, 2021, the facility was renamed Huntington Place. Simply swapping "Huntington" in place of "TCF" to make Huntington Center was ruled out because there is already a Huntington Center hockey arena in Toledo, Ohio.
Today, Huntington Place is managed and operated by the Detroit Regional Convention Facility Authority (DRCFA). The five-member authority board consists of one representative from each of five governmental agencies – the City of Detroit, State of Michigan and the three metro-Detroit counties of Wayne, Oakland and Macomb. The DRCFA oversaw a $279 million renovation completed in 2015. The renovation included the adaptive re-use of Cobo Arena into a 40,000 square foot ballroom, 30,000 square foot three-story atrium, broadcast studio, outdoor flex space, additional meeting rooms, and opens the facility up to views of the Detroit River with floor to ceiling glass along the new Atwater Street entrance.