Foundation Hotel 

in Detroit

Detroit’s new boutique Foundation Hotel was converted from the old Detroit Fire Department
Headquarters.

T heThe highly anticipated conversion from the old Detroit

Fire Department Headquarters to boutique hotel is finally open in

downtown Detroit. Located right across from Cobo Center, the
Foundation Hotel has kept the fire department aesthetic, while
adding finishing touches from Detroit businesses and artisans.
All light fixtures have been custom designed for the space. The charred wood
that slightly separates the space was salvaged from the Architectural Salvage
Warehouse. The tiling on the walls has simply been cleaned and repaired. A
vintage carpet and desk welcome guests into the lobby, along with a retail
lobby showroom for local businesses.
Built in 1929, this steel-
frame, five-story
neoclassical building served
as the long-time home of Michigan’s oldest fire department. After the fire
department moved out in 2013, Aparium Hotel Group redeveloped the
structure into a boutique, 100-room hotel
Jason Long is a Partner at OMA, based out of the New York office. Since
joining the firm in 2003, Jason has brought a research-driven,
interdisciplinary approach to a wide range of OMA’s projects internationally.
From concept to completion, he served as the project manager for a new
national museum in Quebec City and the Faena Forum, a multi-purpose venue
in Miami

Through adaptive reuse and precise interventions, Jason Long and OMA New York have

transformed the historic Post Office mail sorting warehouse into a new public destination and
cultural venue for Houston, featuring a diverse collection of programs meant to evolve and
adapt to the needs of the city. The Barbara Jordan Post Office warehouse was built in 1962 and
was used by the United States Postal Service (USPS) until 2015. The redevelopment of the site,
which broke ground in 2019, saw the opportunity of preserving the massive building and
integrating it into the fabric of downtown Houston.
His portfolio extends to residential development in California and New York, including The Avery in San
Francisco and most recently two new towers for Greenpoint Landing, OMA’s first project in Brooklyn. He
has recently focused on a number of adaptive reuse projects including the transformation of a post
office warehouse in downtown Houston into a mixed-use hub, a historic parking garage in New York City
into a new synagogue, and a laboratory building at the University of Toronto into a center for the
university administration.

Jason holds a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from Vassar College and a Master of Architecture from
Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. He currently teaches at the Cornell University School of
Architecture, Art and Planning