Motown Museum CEO says $75 million expansion project is "a labor of love"
Motown, nicknamed "Hitsville U.S.A.," started as a record label in Detroit in the late 1950s. Today, its history remains preserved through the Motown Museum on West Grand Boulevard.
What started as a recording studio founded by Berry Gordy and later became an exhibition by the late Esther Gordy Edwards is getting a major makeover under the leadership of Robin Terry.
For Terry, the museum represents not only decades of Detroit's music history but also her family's legacy. Edwards was Terry's grandmother, and she founded the museum in 1985, more than 10 years after her brother moved Motown's headquarters to Los Angeles in 1972.
The Detroit house-turned-studio that Gordy bought remains, but the $75 million 50,000-square-foot expansion project will give the museum more room to showcase its history with an interactive experience, a theater and a cafe.
"(It) allows the visitor, no matter what the age, no matter what level of knowledge, to really come into this space and celebrate Motown," Terry told CBS News Detroit.
History of Motown
According to Terry, Edwards served as Motown's vice president and was known for accompanying young artists on the road as a guardian. While on the road, Edwards would collect items to bring back with her, like posters. After Gordy relocated Motown Records, Edwards proposed keeping the house where the label once stood and preserving it.
Terry recalled coming to the museum with her grandmother to help put the items she collected on the walls. It drew crowds of people who wanted to step into the iconic Studio A, where music greats like Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye and The Temptations laid down tracks.
In 1987, two years after the museum was established, the state of Michigan declared Hitsville U.S.A. a historic site.
"We're just building on that vision," Terry said.
More than 20 years later, Edwards died on Aug. 24, 2011.
Terry credits her great-uncle and grandmother for starting and preserving something that has attracted the attention of people both inside and outside Detroit.
"For us, this is a labor of love and really building on what those two giants accomplished," Terry said.
"I believe my grandmother would be really proud," she added. "I was probably always the kid that, you know, just strong-willed, independent and had my own ideas, and I think she would probably say, 'Robin did it again.' This was one of those moments where it might have seemed impossible at the beginning, but I just wasn't going to give it up."
Recognizing unsung heroes
While the last name Gordy will forever live in Motown, Terry says it was her mission to ensure that everyone who stepped foot in the studio all those years ago would continue to be recognized.
"I'm very driven by our alumni family and the fact that so many of them, as my uncle even says often, our unsung heroes, I just didn't want their stories to continue to go unsung on my watch," she said.
Terry says she has visited Gordy, who is now 96, in Los Angeles to gather his feedback on the expansion. She says her uncle is proud of the museum and the expansion project.
"He understands that Motown did something that is inspiring lives today, and you don't have to wait until everybody's gone. This story has a purpose today," she said.
Where does the project stand?
Construction is ongoing with the grand reopening expected in 2027. Terry says they have raised $72 million of the $75 million for the project, and credits the many donors who contributed.
In November 2025, alumni celebrated the installation of the final beam used in the construction. Many of the artists signed the beam.
"It's not an easy feat, even when it's Motown, to raise the $75 million, but we have had such a tremendous response to this project, and not just locally but nationally," she said. "The goal is to get this done and then some."
