The Santa Fe Apartments was a rare example of a Mexican and Spanish Revival-style multi-unit apartment building that opened in 1926. The building, which featured 36 apartments, was erected by developer Harry Dunitz and designed by the firm Wiedmaier & Gay.

Ads for the Santa Fe in the fall of 1925 featured two- and three-room apartments, "completely furnished with brand new furniture; exceptionally large rooms; it will pay you to investigate these apartments at once."

The April 3, 1932, edition of the Detroit Free Press reported that the Santa Fe had been sold by Eugene Stephenson to Albert Nelson, then the manager of the Grant Hotel in what is now Detroit's Midtown. The sale price was reported as $76,000, the equivalent of about $1.8 million in 2026 value, when adjusted for inflation.

In the 1950s, what was then Wayne University bought the Santa Fe to operate as student housing. Tartars would continue to call the five-story apartment building home for some 40 years.

In December 1985, the Santa Fe was one of three buildings on the university's campus nominated for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places; it was added the following year, along with the Chatsworth Apartments and St. Andrews Memorial Church.

However, in 1996, Wayne State University (WSU) decided to demolish the Santa Fe as part of the development of Yousif B. Ghafari Hall. Also razed was the Glenn Manor Apartments (the Katherine E. Faville Residence Hall). Residents of the building were directed to the $28 million University Tower Apartments that had opened in 1995 on Cass Avenue near Forest Avenue.

"We can't save all the buildings," WSU President David Adamany told The Detroit News for a Sept. 10, 1995, article that included the school's plans to raze the Santa Fe. "I wish we could. We're just trying to be the best university we can be, and sometimes, that requires sacrifice."

WSU had imploded the historic Mackenzie Hall, formerly Webster Hall, in 1991, among other demolitions. To its credit, the university did drop about $42 million to renovate Old Main. Since Adamany took over as president of WSU in 1982 to 1995, the school spent, or committed to spend, more than $250 million to buy properties, build new buildings, demolish certain structures, and beautify green spaces. That would be the equivalent of approximately $539 million in 2025 valuation.

It would take 26 years for the nonexistent Santa Fe to be removed from the national register. Today, flower boxes and a pedestrian plaza stand where there once was a stunning and, for Detroit, unique apartment building.

More on this building coming soon.