As the Fisher’s new custodians, The Platform’s goal was to reverse decades of disinvestment and vacancy and have its iconic Arcade be considered a gathering place. To accomplish this, Van Dyke Horn helped create the Fisher Reintroduction event to invite the community and desired audiences back into the building and reposition it as an excellent, high-quality office building, as well as position its iconic Arcade as a beautiful and welcoming space for Detroiters and visitors alike. The event kicked off a new era in New Center and invited Detroiters to learn of The Platform’s grand vision for the future of both the building and the neighborhood. It was a symbolic closing of the door of past struggles and celebration of the beginning of a prosperous future.
The Fisher Building Reintroduction had two primary audiences. Top consideration was given to rebranding the Fisher Building as a “Beacon of Detroit,” the place where creators, thinkers, and doers gather. These audiences included the “maker community,” be them artists, creatives, thought influencers, or community stakeholders.
The Fisher Reintroduction event celebrated the architectural and historical importance of the Fisher, as well as highlighted the current place makers and creators of the city through a photo exhibition highlighting the work of artists and community leaders in the city.
The large wall-size canvas portraits of makers were a first for the building and the city. These photos of Detroit “makers” were taken by Detroit photographers, making it a true celebration of the city and its creative class. The branding of the Fisher Building as “The Beacon for Detroit” as well as the “Beacon Project”-series is the vision of, and curated by, Everard Findlay, so another component of our media outreach push was introducing Everard and his vision to Detroit.
To generate more media buzz around the event, we had The Platform reveal that not only were they reintroducing the Fisher, they were going to pour $100 million into the landmark and its next-door neighbor, the historic Albert Kahn Building. It was also announced that J Baldwin’s, which catered the event, would be opening a restaurant as an anchor tenant in the Fisher Building. Because of the several different things happening at once, we married them into one package and brought in a business reporter and a features reporter from each of the two major papers in Detroit to sit down and hear the complete pitch. They each turned out a multi-story package, tackling their respective angles. We also set up several sit-down meetings with reporters and The Platform to introduce them to the media. We assembled a comprehensive media kit, including an extensive history of the Fisher as well as bios of all the featured creators in the Beacon Project. We worked the phones tirelessly to ensure the media was aware of the upcoming big event and debut of the first Beacon Project.