The Motown Museum’s expansion is in the homestretch at last: Construction has begun on the third and most substantial phase of the project, a two-story, 40,000-square-foot space targeted to open in summer 2026.

The new timeline, revealed during a celebratory media event Monday at the museum’s West Grand Boulevard campus, is a landmark in the museum’s eight-year expansion story and promises a long-awaited crowning moment for one of Detroit’s best-known cultural destinations.

The project’s final cost has been set at $75 million, and $70 million is now in hand amid an extensive fundraising campaign underway since 2016, said Robin Terry, the museum’s chairwoman and CEO.

The Motown Museum expansion’s initial price tag was $50 million, but like projects across the country, escalating costs prompted construction delays. Work had been scheduled to start last year.

“It’s been about passion, love and perseverance,” Terry said Monday, addressing media with the backdrop of a construction trailer and the dirt tract where work has quietly started.  

The project was also held up by the COVID-19 pandemic and an unanticipated round of mandated environmental approvals following $10 million in federal funding in 2022.

Hitting the new fundraising milestone was crucial to finally moving forward, said Terry. Amid the rising costs, some previous donors “came back to the table” with additional funding, she said.

“What’s critical about $70 million is that it means we get to work. This construction is starting,” she said. “We no longer have the concern of further escalations, which is critical to projects like this.”

The new structure will rise behind the famed Hitsville, U.S.A., the original headquarters of Motown Records and home to the Motown Museum since 1985.

Renderings released Monday provide the first glimpse of the new building’s lobby, a gold-themed space adorned with images of Motown luminaries such as Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye and Diana Ross. The complex will house new exhibit areas, a retail shop and a theater sponsored by Ford Motor Company.

The lobby will be accessible from both the West Grand Boulevard side and Ferry Street to the south, and visitors will be enveloped in Motown music as they enter, said Terry.

The new space will also include a dining spot dubbed Miss Lillie’s Motown Café – named in honor Lillie Hart, the Berry Gordy family caretaker who became the company’s in-house cook.

Construction will be overseen by the Detroit firm L.S. Brinker. Steelwork will start in the spring, with exhibit installation to begin in February 2026, said company CEO Larry Brinker Jr.

Among those on hand for Monday’s announcement was Zena Howard of Perkins + Will, the expansion project’s architect of record.

“This is exciting stuff,” said Howard. “This is when you see this incredible work coming out of the ground.”

Monday’s media event was held inside Hitsville Next, an educational and artist development that opened in 2021 as part of the museum’s first expansion phase. It was created by conjoining three houses next to the main museum building.

The second phase, which included a new plaza out front and restoration work on the iconic Hitsville house, was completed in 2022.

Planning for the new exhibit space is well underway. Part of that effort has included extensive interviews with Motown artists and other alumni, assembling “the story their museum is going to tell the world,” Terry said.

Previously announced exhibit features include “The Motown Atmosphere,” an immersive audio and visual space, and “The Backstage Lounge,” an audio repository housing every recording in the label’s vast catalog along with curated interviews.

Levi Stubbs III, a Motown Museum board member and son of the late Four Tops singer Levi Stubbs, described the final expansion phase as a point of pride for Detroit.

“I can’t wait for everyone to see what we’ve been working on for so many years, and share it with the rest of the world,” Stubbs said.

The museum event came just hours after Tito Jackson’s family announced the singer’s death at age 70. Alongside his brothers Jackie, Jermaine, Marlon and Michael, Tito and the Jackson 5 shot to fame with Motown Records, having recorded some of their earliest material at the West Grand Boulevard site.

Terry began the morning press conference with a moment of silence in his honor, describing him as “a member of one of the greatest groups to ever come through the doors of Motown.”

Story By: Brian McCollum | Detroit Free Press

 Contact Detroit Free Press music writer Brian McCollum: 313-223-4450 or bmccollum@freepress.com.

Photo Credit: Renderings provided by The Motown Museum.