Federal's to Rust Belt

Ferndale's Northwest corner started out with a church and small wooden real estate office of George Badder. In 1920 Mr. Badder built the first brick two story office building in Ferndale. In 1924 the entire "Badder Building" was moved several feet west to prepare for Wider Woodward and 20 feet north for a wider Nine Mile Rd.

The Badder Building housed MacMillan Drugs, Merchant's Restaurant, C. Archambeau supplies, a variety of other stores, and many offices above.

On March 25, 1937, Federal's Department Store opened north of the Badder building and shared a wall with the Radio City Theatre.

A new building was designed for Federals by Charles N. Agree very similar to other Federal's stores in the area. In 1949 the Badder building was demolished and the new Federal's store was built. Its grand opening was May 4, 1950 with prize drawings - including trips to Cuba! Its clock tower dominated the corner of Woodward and 9 Mile for three decades.

In March 1973 Federal's closed their Ferndale store, along with 11 other local stores. Some likened it to Detroit losing its downtown Hudson store - which was unimaginable. Many people wanted a K-Mart in the Ferndale location. The store did briefly reopen as "Rags To Riches" by businessman Stefan Szbunia, but was short lived.

The adjacent Radio City Theatre had become a Revco drug store which left in 1974 sparking debate about use of these 2 big empty buildings. One idea was to turn those and adjacent stores on Nine Mile into a mall featuring small merchants. An idea very close to the "Rust Belt" concept which opened 37 years later.

Another plan was to convert Federal's corner into a multi-level parking structure. Due to ventilation requirements and project cost that idea failed (thankfully).

Unfortunately, due to the fire of 1975, the Nine Mile stores were lost (but not Federal's) making the mall idea less feasible.

Ultimately, in 1979 the Federal's store and Radio City Theatre were demolished. A new structure was built in 1984. Initially it was a "Gap Outlet" store then in 1994 an "Old Navy". In 2011 the Rust Belt market opened and continues to flourish.