On April 25, 1913, stockholders of Home Savings Bank and the Wayne County Savings Bank approved a merger. At that time it was announced that a new, larger building would be built on the site of the old Home Savings Bank on the northeast corner of Michigan Avenue and Griswold Street.

A building permit was issued Aug. 11, 1914 for this new building, designed by Donaldson & Meier. The steel-reinforced concrete structure cost about $200,000 to build (the equivalent of about $6.2 million in 2023 dollars) and opened Dec. 20, 1915. It was built with foundations that could support a skyscraper, if the bank needed the space to grow.

However, quite the opposite happened: The building later became a branch of Manufacturers Bank, and in the 1960s, the upper floors were ripped off. The building’s exterior was also resheathed and modernized, leaving few clues that the building was once as grand as it was.