Hard Rock Coming to Motown

Scheduled to open in late 2003, Hard Rock Cafe Detroit will be situated at the main entrance to the Compuware building overlooking Campus Martius Park and will feature 225 seats of indoor, al fresco (within the Compuware atrium) and outdoor patio dining as well as a large, inviting bar area and merchandise store. It will be the first Hard Rock Cafe in Michigan.

"Detroit's rich music history and ongoing downtown revitalization efforts made the decision to open a Hard Rock Cafe location there an easy one," said Oliver Munday, VP of strategic development for the company. "Detroit has been a target of ours for more than 10 years. We were waiting for the right location with the right partners and we've found both with Compuware."

He told GlobeSt.com that the company wanted to join Detroit's roar back to life sooner, but waited to see where the casinos landed. The three temporary casinos in downtown Detroit had all planned to move to $2 billion permanent locations along the Detroit River.

"If they had been all clustered along the river, as originally discussed, that would have made us look more at that part of town," Munday told GlobeSt.com.

However, because of high costs, lost-owner issues and time constraints, the city could not acquire all the land needed for the riverfront property. The casinos worked out a deal with the city to move permanent sites to other locations within the downtown."We feel with Compuware, we're making a dramatic statement. It's an exciting part of downtown, yet still close to the casinos," Munday said.

The Campus Martius project is now under construction, with Compuware as the largest tenant."We're honored to have Hard Rock Cafe as our anchor," said Peter Karmanos, Compuware chairman and CEO.

Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick said the commitment of Hard Rock brings prestige to the city."A top-notch, international retailer such as Hard Rock only builds on the tremendous momentum underway in Detroit," Kilpatrick said.

Hard Rock Cafe has a network of more than 100 Hard Rock Cafes in 40 countries. The Orlando-based company is a subsidiary of The Rank Group, which is based in London, site of the original restaurant.