Parke-Davis and Company Pharmaceutical Company Plant

The Parke-Davis complex in Detroit, Michigan, is a complex of late nineteenth century and early twentieth century structures dating from 1891 to 1955 which comprised the Parke-Davis and Company pharmaceutical research and manufacturing plant. The complex meets criterion A because it is associated with the growth and development, between 1891 and 1940 of one of America's most important pharmaceutical firms. As the home of Parke-Davis and Company, one of the most important, if not the most important, American pharmaceutical firms since about 1870, the complex includes the first pharmaceutical research laboratory building constructed in the United States as well as buildings where dozens of significant research and production breakthroughs occurred. The complex is in many respects the birthplace of the American pharmaceutical industry. It is also significant in that Parke-Davis was a major industrial employer in Detroit before the automobile industry dominated the city's economic life in the twentieth century. Parke-Davis remained of primary importance through the mid-20th century.

The Parke-Davis complex in Detroit, Michigan is a fourteen and a half acre complex comprised of the manufacturing, research, and office buildings of the Parke-Davis Company pharmaceutical plant. The property was acquired by The Stroh Brewery Company in 1980, and is now being redeveloped as River Place, a mixed-use project involving rehabilitation for office, retail and residential space. Located along the Detroit River approximately 1 and 1/2 miles east of the city's central business district, the complex includes 26 structures dating from 1891 to 1955. There are some excellent examples of standard brick mill buildings of the early 1890s and early 1900s as well as reinforced concrete buildings dating from the 1920s on. The complex possesses some limited open space at its southern edge along the river, while its central and northern portions are made up of a core of tightly packed clusters of interconnected buildings. The scale of the structures within the complex ranges from one to six stories, with the vast majority in the core between three and six stories in height.