3687 Fort Street (Wyandotte, Michigan)
| 3687 Fort Street | |
|---|---|
 | |
 | |
| General information | |
| Type | Commercial building |
| Location | 3687 Fort Street Wyandotte, Michigan |
| Coordinates | 42°11′40″N 83°10′46″W / 42.194413°N 83.179530°WCoordinates: 42°11′40″N 83°10′46″W / 42.194413°N 83.179530°W |
| Construction started | 1949 |
| Opened | 1949 |
| Owner | Finazzo Investment Company |
3687 Fort Street is a commercial building at the northeast corner of Fort Street and Orchard Street in Wyandotte, Michigan. Built to house a Goebel Brewing Company warehouse in 1949, it was later repurposed into a truck rental agency before becoming a bus garage and subsequently housed several automotive repair shops after a stint as a repossessed car lot, and currently houses the Motor City Automotive of Michigan used car dealership.
History[edit | edit source]
The building was originally built in 1949 to house a distribution warehouse for the Goebel Brewing Company of Detroit. The warehouse remained active into at least 1956, though by 1960 it had become an American Truck Rental office.
Great Lakes Transit Corporation, the public transit provider in the city of Wyandotte, soon acquired the building for use as a bus garage, replacing an older garage at Biddle Avenue and Pennsylvania Road. The garage was transferred to the Southeastern Michigan Transportation Authority (SEMTA) upon its acquisition of Great Lakes Transit on April 1, 1974, though SEMTA reassigned what it had renamed the Wyandotte Terminal into its Metropolitan Transit division (for the past few years, Metropolitan had already operated bus routes along the portion of Fort Street that this building is located on that were continued by SEMTA).[1] SEMTA closed the Wyandotte Terminal in 1981, replacing it with a smaller, leased garage at 13400 Reeck Road in Southgate.[2]
After the Wyandotte Terminal's closure, the property's parking lot was used to store repossessed cars[3] before the building began housing various auto repair shops. In 1995 and 1996, Auto One was located in the building.[4][5] The next tenant, People's Choice Auto Maintenance & Repair, closed in 2006. By 2011, All American Auto Clinic had opened in the building. A Lincoln Park man employed at the shop parked his 2005 Chevrolet vehicle at about 7 a.m. on May 3, 2012, and was notified by a co-worker that its front passenger’s window was broken.[6] All American Auto Clinic closed in 2014. Downriver Auto Works opened at this address on June 25, 2016, though All American Auto Clinic's signs were left untouched.
On June 29, 2018, Crime Ring Kustoms moved into the building. The owner, Patrick Dingman, was charged with falsely reporting a customer's 2019 Ford Transit Van as stolen (at approximately 7:50 a.m. on February 11, 2020[7]) and for concealing it in April 2020, and was further charged with receiving and concealing stolen property on April 19.[8] He was additionally charged with a count of conducting criminal enterprises on August 27, 2020.[9] Crime Ring Kustoms went out of business due to these charges, and in April 2022, Motor City Automotive of Michigan relocated into the building from their previous location at 14916 Telegraph Road in Berlin Charter Township.
References[edit | edit source]
- ↑ Motor Coach Age, October-December 2003, page 5.
- ↑ Motor Coach Age, October-December 2003, page 14.
- ↑ Sale listing, Romulus Roman, August 5 & 6, 1981, page C-4.
- ↑ CelluarOne advertisement, Romulus Roman, June 22, 1995, page C-7.
- ↑ Job listing, Detroit Free Press, March 31, 1996, page 78.
- ↑ Kasuba, Jim. "WYANDOTTE: Off the blotter", The News-Herald, May 11, 2012.
- ↑ Kasuba, Jim. "Disorderly intoxicated men arrested, woman scammed and other Wyandotte police briefs", The News-Herald, March 8, 2020.
- ↑ Kasuba, Jim. "Wyandotte business owner accused of stealing from customer; faces multiple felony charges", The News-Herald, April 21, 2020.
- ↑ Kasuba, Jim. "Wyandotte business owner charged with operating a criminal enterprise", The News-Herald, August 28, 2020.