Embracing the motel retrofit trend, Trumbull & Porter is a boutique hotel located on the west side of Downtown Detroit in the Corktown neighborhood. Compared with the patchwork of high-rise surrounding Shinola in Downtown Detroit, Corktown is your regular metropolitan neighborhood setting with beautifully family homes abutting a vibrant Michigan Avenue.

Trumbull & Porter entered into the motel mix in Spring 2016 with a distinctly unfussy offering converting a mid-century Holiday Inn structure. The 144 bedrooms are styled with eclectic furniture, with polished concrete floors on ground level rooms and robust, industrial finishes. Rooms are generously portioned – far better value for money when comparing with floorspace on Woodward Avenue.

The hotel has an on site restaurant and bar that are convenient but not the highlights of the Corktown. For coffee in Corktown, note the diminutive Folk which is a 3-minute walk from Trumbull & Porter (found at 1701 Trumbull) – they serve excellent coffee and simple dishes. On Michigan Avenue is Takoi who focus on modern Thai cuisine, while a mile north in the pioneering Core City wedge is the Argentinian menu of Barda. Find cocktails at The Sugar House, one of pioneering bards in the city and now part of a group of cocktail venues in Downtown and Midtown.

Training Notes

Like many of the neighborhoods outside Detroit’s immediate Downtown core, Corktown is spacious with green lots dividing rows of houses. These provide excellent backstreets for running on both broken tarmac and smoother surfaces, with the central part of the city available on the banks of the Detroit River, signposting a continuous run along the RiverWalk.

Three miles from Downtown Detroit is Belle Isle – a beautiful piece of land with plenty of cut throughs and pavement to run uninterrupted. There is only one way to reach the island – aim for MacArthur Bridge via RiverWalk. Find an athletics track to the north of Corktown – Tom Adams Field (Google Maps) in Midtown Detroit.

Cyclists have hundreds of miles to choose from but no clear roadway. Belle Isle provides the best circuit for moving at speed on a road bike – 60% of a 5.4-mile loop is separates from traffic and well surfaced. Rouge River Greenway Loop is also a quiet strip to cycle on. Wolverine Sports Club organize a series of group rides across Detroit – make contact with them to find out what you need to complete via their waiver. 

Winter visitors to Detroit can also looking into Lexus Velodrome and take on their 166m track, being careful to know the 50 degree banked turns. The track opened in January 2018 and offer day passes for $40 (book via the website).

Swimmers passing through Downtown can use the Boll Family YMCA, home to Detroit’s most central swimming pool – 25m in length. Day passes hover around $20 with better rates available for multi-day versions. During the summer, open water swimming is possible on the Detroit side of Belle Isle.

Learn more at trumbullandporterhotel.com