Germania Building Complex

The Germania Building Complex is significant through its associations with the Staeblers, a German-American family prominent in the history of Ann Arbor, and with the successful businesses upon which their prominence was founded. The Germania Building itself is significant as the most important and best preserved nineteenth-century hotel building remaining in Ann Arbor, as a late Victorian commercial block notable in architectural terms in the local context, and for its strong associations with Ann Arbor's large German community, for whom it served during its early years as a center of social and cultural life.

The Germania Building Complex consists of two adjacent, physically connected, and historically related structures located at the southeast corner of West Washington and South Ashley streets on the western edge of Ann Arbor's central business district. The older of the two structures, the 1885 Germania Building, is a square, three-story, stone-trimmed, brick, Late Victorian block to which a fourth floor was added in 1895. Directly behind the Germania Building is the former Staebler & Sons garage, a utilitarian, two-story, brick structure constructed in 1918. Both buildings were owned by the Staebler family and housed Staebler-family businesses.