The heart of New Center was developed in the 1920s as a business hub that would offer convenient access to both downtown resources and outlying factories.

In addition to the government and commercial offices along Woodward and Grand Boulevard, New Center contains the Fisher Theatre, the Hotel St. Regis, the Henry Ford Hospital, restaurants, and residential areas.

[2] In the 1890s, major railroad infrastructure known as the Milwaukee Junction was built just south of Grand Boulevard to facilitate industrial expansion in the city of Detroit.

[1] The lack of suitable parcels frustrated William C. Durant in his search for the optimum location for his planned General Motors headquarters.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, new townhomes and condominiums were constructed in what had been empty areas of New Center, including a section along Woodward just north of Grand Boulevard.

[12] Additional loft renovation (as well as TechTown, the WSU research and business incubator hub) took place at the same time within the New Amsterdam Historic District.

The economy of the New Center area is largely dominated by Henry Ford Health, the Detroit Public Schools system with their headquarters in the Fisher Building, and more than 2,000 State of Michigan employees in the high-rise office complex Cadillac Place.

Shinola has its headquarters, and 30,000-square-feet in the College for Creative Studies, – CCS – (originally the Argonaut building, or General Motors Research Laboratory).

[13][14][15] In 2014, Shinola gifted the city of Detroit with four new 13-foot tall street clocks, installed at Cobo Center, Eastern Market, in front of the College for Creative Studies at the corner of Cass and Milwaukee, and near Shinola's own first retail location, at the corner of Cass and Canfield.

The Cadillac Place state office complex and the Fisher Building are National Historic Landmarks in the area.

[27][28] An area south of Grand Boulevard along Woodward contains some retail stores in the district which have existed at their present location since the 1920s.

At the turn of the century, a number of private homes were built along Grand Boulevard and in the neighborhoods to the north, notably including what is now the Virginia Park Historic District on the northern edge of New Center.

The first development on the new South Campus site was the construction of a $30 million, 275,000-square-foot, Medical Distribution Center on 18-acres, built for Cardinal Health, Inc.[33] Further plans were announced in 2017, with the construction of a new $155 million, 187,000-square-foot, six-story, Brigitte Harris Cancer Pavilion, along with a skywalk across West Grand Boulevard to connect it to the Henry Ford Hospital, opened in January 2021.

[34][35][36] In February 2023, Henry Ford Health announced plans for a major $2.5 billion development, and will partner with the Detroit Pistons and Michigan State University.

[51][52] In 2015, Central Detroit Christian Community Development Corporation announced a $10.2 million plan to renovate the four-story, 44-unit, 42,200-square-foot Casamira Apartments at 680 Delaware St., built in 1925.

[53][54] In 2018, a local investment group purchased the 125-room Hotel St. Regis, and plans a $6 million modernization, [55] and that was followed by the purchase of the Albert Kahn Building by a joint venture with a $58 million plan to convert it into 211 apartments, and more than 75,000 square feet of retail and office space, and renamed, The Kahn.

[58][59] Further redevelopment was underway at 3040 E. Grand Blvd and John R St, on the Albert Kahn historic 1901 designed sandstone constructed residence for Robert Robertson.

[69] In addition, the New Center area houses the administrative offices of the University Prep Schools system,[70] along with the following schools: The College for Creative Studies (CCS) is a private, fully accredited college with campuses in Midtown and New Center, that offers Bachelor and Master of Fine Arts degrees .

After WJBK moved to Southfield in 1970, WTVS (Detroit Public Television), the city's PBS station, took over the New Center site and operated there until 2008.