Amid a sea of parking lots sits a lone survivor of what was once a residential neighborhood. The Mera Hotel - built in 1898 - is the oldest building in the city's Park Avenue Historic District.
The Mera was a small residential hotel that the Detroit Historic District Advisory Board said may have been built by Henry Bartlet. Bartlet died at age 75 in 1899, and his wife, Amanda, is listed in the city directory as living there in 1900.
The permit for the building was issued to the architectural firm of Kastler & Hunter on April 13, 1898 for the construction of this three-story brick residential building, measuring 36 feet by 81 feet and costing $8,700 - the equivalent of . William E.N. Hunter, one of the architects of the firm, went on to build a career in church design.
HDAB describes the Colonial Revival-style building as featuring "a rusticated first story with arched windows and embellished masonry entranceway, a two-story bowed window in the central bay of the front façade, and rondels in the parapet wall."
Its permanent residents in 1905 were the two proprietors, Effie Howe, a widow, and Kate C. Sias.
This area of downtown was first developed with 19th-century frame houses and fashionable apartment buildings like the Mera, many of which gave way to office buildings and commercial use as Detroit entered the Roaring Twenties.
Madame Martez - an "international psychic medium" - offered daily readings from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. from Apartment 41 at the Mera during the late 1920s.
In August 1950, Dolores Jepsen, 34, took her own life by hanging at the Mera.
From 1947 until at least 1975, the Mera's small commercial storefront was occupied by Downtown Train & Camera, which offered in-store repairs and factory parts. The store formed following the 1951 merger of D&K Camera Repair Co. and Downtown Train and Camera Shop. The business was run by Carl S. Kamm and Dick Diltz, two former Free Press photographers. Free Press photo editor Charles Flowers wrote about the store in the Dec. 12, 1974, edition of the paper, calling it "just plain nice to visit. ... Stop in, haggle, and you may leave with something you like." He also noted its "extensive collection" of used cameras, lenses and accessories.
As Detroit entered a long period of decline, many of the structures in the area bounded by Cass, Adams and Woodward avenues and the I-75 freeway were demolished for parking lots to serve the theaters in the area and, later, Comerica Park on the other side of Woodward. But the Mera outlasted its neighbors, and several Cass Corridor hold-outs continued to call the building home.
In 1990, classified ads for the Mera listed rooms for retirees at $120 a month, about $300 in 2025 valuation.
On March 17, 2015, a fire was reported at the Mera. One person was injured, and it took two hours to get the blaze under control. The suspect was identified as a tenant who had recently been evicted.
Since around that time, the Mera has been empty. It was sold along with 124 W. Columbia by Samuel and Guadalupe Saucedo for $3 million in September 2022 to a 122 W. Elizabeth LLC, which has an address in suburban Troy, Mich. Some have speculated that the buyer was Olympia Development. Given that no work has been done on the Mera in the ensuing years, fears have mounted that this old survivor will join its many neighbors in being demolished for a parking lot.