Palms, Francis, Building & State Theater

The Palms Building and Theater is architecturally significant as a well-preserved example of a 1920s movie palace. The Palms Building was built in 1925 by the Palms Realty Company as the Francis Palms Building and State Theater. It is a major work of one of the nation's most illustrious theater architects, C. Howard Crane. Crane eventually designed all but three of Detroit's great movie palaces, accumulating a total of more than fifty theaters to his credit in Detroit alone. His office enjoyed a nationwide reputation and executed several hundred theaters throughout the United States prior to 1930. Crane moved to England in the early 1930s, where he continued a successful practice until his death after World War II. With a budget of two million dollars, Crane undertook the design of the Palms Office Building and the State Theater as his most ambitious project up to that time. The florid Renaissance classical style employed in the State Theater later served as a departure for the grandest project of his lifetime, the neighboring Fox Theater constructed in 1928. The 1920s was Detroit's greatest period of growth and prosperity and the elaborate State Theater was the most opulent movie palace built in Detroit up to that time. It was constructed as an investment by the wealthy Palms family who had inherited vast real estate holdings in downtown Detroit from the family patriarch, Francis S. Palms. All of the Palms' family members were great builders and real estate developers. The Palms Building was the family's only venture into theater construction. The theater was originally leased by John H. Kunsky. Kunsky first brought moving pictures to Michigan on a regular basis when he opened the Casino Theater (demolished) in Detroit in 1906. He continued to expand his activities until he was the owner of Detroit's largest theater chain. By the 1920s, the Grand Circus Park area, which he had firmly established as the City's theater district, was informally known as Kunsky's Circle, because he operated most of the great movie houses in the area. Kunsky's architect for all of his theaters was Charles Howard Crane. The State Theater was the culmination of a trend in Kunsky's theater construction toward larger and more elaborate structures. Although not ultimately the largest theater in the city, the 2967-seat State set a new standard of luxury and opulence at the time of its construction in 1925. Crane designed the State with all the latest features including an orchestra pit and organ that could be lowered out of sight, and a large modern stage equipped to handle live performances ranging from a single vaudeville act to an opera troupe. Primarily though, it has always been used as a movie theater.

The Palms Theater Building is situated at the northern edge of downtown Detroit on Woodward Avenue, one of Detroit's principal thoroughfares. It is two blocks north of Grand Circus Park which became Detroit's theater district in the 1920s with eight theaters in the surrounding area. The Palms Building consists of a twelve-story, 105-foot square, terra-cotta sheathed office tower at the northwest corner of West Elizabeth Street and Woodward Avenue with a brick, six-story, windowless theater auditorium extending to the rear along Elizabeth Street about 160 feet. The exterior elevations of the office tower portion of the structure are elaborately treated in the Beaux Arts Italian Renaissance style except for the ground floor, which was modernized about 1960 with glass and aluminum storefronts and a monolithic masonry and concrete treatment. The interior of the Palms building is divided into two distinct parts; the office building and the florid Renaissance classical style theater. Except for the storefront alterations and the removal of the original marquee and the remodeling of the outer lobby, the building and theater are for the most part unaltered.