Detroit revives 1920s service station

A Detroit gas station from the 1920s is getting a second life — not as a café, not as lofts, but as a place where people can actually fix cars again. Devin Sykes is rehabbing the old Mack Avenue property into Sykes Self-Service Garage, a DIY shop where people will be able to rent a bay, use a lift, and work on their own vehicles. That sounds niche, but the gap it fills is pretty obvious. Plenty of people still want to wrench on cars. Far fewer have the space, tools, or zoning luck to do it at home. ### What is he building? Basically, it’s a self-service garage. The plan is to offer stall rentals, hoist access, specialty tools, workshops, and prepaid memberships inside a restored former service station at 10150 Mack Ave. on Detroit’s east side, near Hurlbut Street. The project is explicitly aimed at DIY mechanics and antique-car enthusiasts, which makes sense given both the building and Sykes’ background in restoration. (s3garage.com) ### Why does the old building matter? Because the building is part of the pitch, not just the container. Sykes describes himself as a historic preservationist, and the shop leans into that identity — a historically authentic garage setting instead of a generic industrial unit. That changes the feel of the project. It’s not only about cheap lift time. It’s also about keeping a piece of Detroit car culture alive in roughly the form it started. (s3garage.com) ### Where did this come from? Sykes bought the property in October 2023 for $30,000 from a woman who inherited it from her father. It had sat abandoned for years and was previously known as Neal’s Service. Since then, he’s been working through the slow part of any revival like this — cleanup, structural rehab, planning, and the very unglamorous job of making an old building usable again. (s3garage.com) ### What will customers actually pay for? The model looks like a mix of hourly or day access and memberships. The site already advertises prepaid access and founding memberships, and it lists a day pass at $200 for eight hours. That does not mean every job costs $200 — it just shows the business is already testing real pricing and trying to fund the buildout before opening. ### Why is this useful now? Because modern car enthusiasm has a space problem. (bluewaterhealthyliving.com) A lot of younger owners live in apartments, city houses with no real garage, or places where even a basic brake job becomes a neighborhood dispute. Shop labor is expensive, but buying a lift, specialty tools, and enough room to use them is even worse. A shared garage is the middle option — kind of like a gym membership, but for jack stands, torque wrenches, and a two-post lift. (s3garage.com) That’s the real appeal here. ### Is this open yet? Not yet. The current target is fall 2027. The heavy lifting on the property appears to be underway, but the project still needs finishing work, equipment, and all the practical stuff that turns a cool idea into an operating shop. So the news here is less “Detroit has a new garage today” and more “a concrete version of this idea is actually moving forward.” (s3garage.com) ### Why does Detroit fit this idea so well? Because Detroit has both the hardware and the audience. The city is full of automotive history, old industrial buildings, and people who still see cars as something you work on, not just finance and replace. A restored service station turned communal wrench space lands differently there than it would in a random warehouse park somewhere else. It feels native to the place. That part is inference — but it’s a pretty grounded one. (bluewaterhealthyliving.com) ### Bottom line This is a small project, but it solves a real problem. Sykes isn’t just saving an old station. He’s trying to rebuild one of the basic missing pieces of car culture — a physical place where regular people can learn, repair, and hang around cars without needing a full shop of their own. (s3garage.com 1) (s3garage.com 2)