The Fisher Building is one of Detroit's most remarkable structures. It's hard to believe that less than a third of the original concept was built. The Fisher family essentially gave Albert Kahn a blank check for construction. Kahn envisioned an incredible structure, with two smaller towers flanking a 60-story center tower that would have stretched far beyond the current Fisher Building’s footprint. The Great Depression halted construction, leaving New Center with just one of the smaller side towers.

Planned in the 1960s, an ambitious expansion of the city's Cultural Center (the blocks surrounding the DIA) would have seen the construction of a planetarium, natural history museum (called The Hall of Man), performing arts theater, and a musical arts theater, all surrounding a large ornamental garden. Parts of the plan, like the expanded DIA, were eventually completed, but the connected and aesthetically consistent site never came together.

The Book family has left their mark on Washington Boulevard, but their never-built Book Tower would have dwarfed all of it.Planned adjacent to the current Book Building, the Book Tower would have soared 70 stories into the sky. Designed in the late 1920s by architect Louis Kamper, a completed Book Tower may have been the tallest building in the world.

Believe it or not, the Renaissance Center was originally supposed to feature many more giant glass tubes. The vision for the complex included up to 15 towers. Architect John Portman's master plan even featured tiered residential towers right against the Detroit River.

Approved by voters in the early 1920's, The riverfront Civic Center plan was designed by Eliel Saarinen and his son, Eero. Detroit would eventually constructed several elements of the plan in the 1940s and '50s, but nixed original centerpiece—an open grassy area with scattered trees—in favor of the vast awfulness of Hart Plaza. The old Saarinen plan is visible in the photo.

Detroit had big ideas for the Kern Block long before the Compuware Building rose there in 2003. In 1966, Glen Howard Small was approached to design an office skyscraper for the site and came up with what you see here: Two main towers connected with a staggered array of smaller building forming a sweeping, solid structure.

The idea of making lower Woodward Avenue a pedestrian-friendly mall was thrown around for decades as a means to revitalize the downtown shopping scene. In 1976, Rossetti and Associates took it to the next level, proposing that a glass canopy completely cover Woodward in front of the Hudson's Building. Rossetti's plan closed the avenue to all non-bus traffic and envisioned a street filled with park-like amenities. (Note: Image is not Rossetti's plan, but a similar proposal called the Carnival Mall.)

Detroit long dreamed of a domed stadium to host the Tigers and Lions, often imagining it right on the riverfront. Unlike many of the projects in this article, this one is solidly in the thank-goodness-this-never-happened column. One Rossetti-designed iteration of the dome had a capacity of 80,0000. The dome dream was dealt a serious blow when the Lions moved to the new Pontiac Silverdome in 1975. The Tigers would have to wait another few decades for a new home.