The Donovan Building was a 10-story building opened in December 1923 and was designed by renowned architect Albert Kahn.

It took its name after the man who had it built, Timothy R. Donovan.

By the late 1960s, Motown Records' Hitsville, U.S.A., compound had grown to seven houses on the south side of West Grand Boulevard and one on the north. It "became a little village," Esther Gordy Edwards, Berry Gordy's older sister, told the Free Press for a May 15, 1983, story. "The streets were blocked after school every day because all the kids could come in. It was just amazing. Fantastic."

But the global juggernaut needed even more space, and took over the Donovan Building in 1968. It would occupy the building until 1972, when the beloved record label moved to Los Angeles, which had surpassed New York City as the center of the music industry. Motown announced it was leaving Motown on June 14, 1972.

"Though it appears that Motown simply followed the trend by moving, some Motown watchers suggest that Detroit was becoming too small for its stars and for Gordy," the Free Press wrote May 15, 1983.

"I don't know if it was necessary to move when we did," Gordy told the Free Press for that article. "I moved to L.A. to basically continue doing the same things that I was doing in Detroit, and I was interested in getting into television and that sort of thing. ... I Wanted to get a much international coordination as I could."

After Berry Gordy Jr. and company left, the Donovan was last occupied by JOWA Security before closing in 1974.

The building was demolished in January 2006 because Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick said it was an eyesore for the visitors of the upcoming Super Bowl. The owner of the building, Cherrylawn Realty, agreed to the demolition and funded it. The demolition of the building, along with the adjacent Sanders Building, was completed in two weeks. Because of this time constraint, little was removed from the buildings before demolition. Items such as marble, documents and architectural detailing were simply smashed to bits.

On the day of the Super Bowl, the site was used for parking for as few as three tour buses.

The site of the Donovan continued to sit undeveloped until the opening of Little Caesars Arena in 2017, when the site was folded into the plaza for the joint hockey and basketball venue.