Barriers and temporary fencing prevent pedestrians from getting close to the Macomb Daily building, where falling facade pieces were reported on March 20.
By: Dean Vaglia | Mount Clemens-Clinton-Harrison Journal | Published April 2, 2026
MOUNT CLEMENS — Falling bits of the facade at the former Macomb Daily building forced Mount Clemens authorities to secure the area around it in late March.
On March 20, the city of Mount Clemens announced it had placed barriers on public property around 67 Cass Ave. following reports of debris falling from the facade. City Manager Gregg Shipman says the call first came to the Mount Clemens Fire Department before being handed off to the Department of Public Works, which promptly put up barricades.
“We’re not happy about it,” Shipman said. “A lot of people aren’t happy about this building that’s been sitting there for so many years. There’s prior orders that’ve let it sit there for years and years. We do everything we can within the city’s power. We maintain all blight enforcement on it and everything we can do legally. If (the building’s owners are) willing to pay those fees, there’s really not much the city can do — but we do make it a priority for the safety and well-being of the public.”
The former newspaper headquarters has been vacant since the 1990s. Worries about the building’s condition led city officials to force its owners to take action relatively recently.
“We actually made them get a structural engineer’s report about a year ago on the building,” Shipman said. “We were seeing a little bit of cracking going on with the building, so we made them go out and secure a structural engineer’s report for the building to make sure it was stable.”
Despite its stability, the fracturing facade has become a public safety issue. City officials were able to reach out to the property owner and arranged a meeting with their legal counsel for March 31. Shipman said the owner hired a demolition company to remediate the building in order to make it safe for the public and that a demolition permit has been applied for.
Representatives for the building’s owners did not respond to a request for comment by press time.
Now nearly 100 years old, the Price Building at 67 Cass was commissioned by the owners of the Daily Leader newspaper in 1929 as a printing facility and office space. The building would play venue to several other forms of media with WMLN-FM broadcasting from the building between 1947 and 1958 and the Emsee Theatre, later the MC-Art, operated as a movie theater in the building between 1946 and 1959. The Macomb Daily would acquire the building via mergers in 1964 and remained there until moving to another facility on North River Road in 1994, ending 64 years of the newspaper business at the site.
Emptied out over the following 30-some years, the building has remained without a purpose since the industry the building served left it vacant. For sale signs adorned the outside for years, though as of early April the building’s online listings have been removed from sites like LoopNet and NAI Farbman.
“The people who drive through downtown, they see this blighted-out old building that almost looks abandoned,” said Mayor Laura Kropp. “Despite our efforts of revitalization, it’s kind of this glaring eyesore.”
The building’s location puts it right in the middle of so many downtown projects. It shares South Walnut Street with the future location of City Hall at 20 South Main St. and is blocks away from the recently overhauled Macomb Place. Main Street will soon be getting its own reconstruction in the form of a road diet, medians and parallel parking.
Elsewhere in the city, the Manchester Mount Clemens apartments project is getting ready to begin underground work following funding delays and infrastructure relocation. It is expected to be completed by fall 2027.
“We want all our projects to be started and finished. Unfortunately, they don’t go that quickly,” Shipman said. “We’re ready to start City Hall. We’re ready to finish the (downtown). We’re ready to do something with the Macomb Daily building. We’re ready to see the Victory Inn project.”