Detroit’s ruins were the reason most people came to this subject, and the city has spent the last five years either knocking them down or converting them. The honest 2026 picture is that the famous ones are mostly finished, one way or the other.
What happened to the big ones
The Packard Automotive Plant is effectively gone. Demolition resumed in March 2024, the south water tower came down in October 2024, and by late December 2024 every structural component had been razed except two administrative sections on East Grand Boulevard kept for preservation. Building 22, renovated in 2015, is still in use by Display Group. The 43-building complex people photographed for 20 years does not exist.
Eloise Psychiatric Hospital in Westland is now a paid attraction. The surviving Kay Beard building operates as the Eloise Asylum, with a haunted house, escape rooms, history tours and paranormal investigations on advertised hours. The firehouse shell has been restored for storage, the old commissary is a family homeless shelter, and the power plant is slated for demolition. Roughly 5 of the original 78 buildings remain, and trespassing elsewhere on the grounds is still prohibited.
Fisher Body Plant 21 is a construction site. A $134 million conversion into Fisher 21 Lofts, mixing residential, retail and co-working with atriums cut through the deep floorplates, was under way as of September 2024. It is privately owned and closed to explorers.
St. Agnes Catholic Church on the near west side is one of the few big Detroit shells that is still genuinely derelict. The church closed in 2006 and the interior is destroyed. An arson fire took the rectory; photographs from June 2025 confirm the church itself is still standing. A December 2022 city planning recommendation for 85 apartments plus retail has never been acted on.
The United Artists Theatre auditorium was demolished between September and November 2022 and the site is a parking lot. The attached 18-storey tower survived and is being converted into 148 apartments as Residences @ 150 Bagley.
What you can legally see
Eloise is the only one on this list you can walk into, and you buy a ticket. Packard, Fisher Body 21, St. Agnes and the United Artists tower are all private property; entry is trespass and the redevelopment sites carry construction liability on top of that. The Francisco Morazan wreck off South Manitou Island is the easy one: the partially submerged hull is still visible from shore, and the National Park Service points visitors down the Old Growth Cedars trail to look at it from inside Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.
On conditions: what is left standing in Detroit is early 20th century industrial and institutional fabric with asbestos, lead paint and collapsing floors, and a good share of it is now inside fenced, insured, actively worked construction zones.
Full state list with check dates: abandoned places in Michigan.