For more than 25 years, the Dabls Mbad African Bead Museum has stood at the corner of Grand River and West Grand Boulevard, providing Detroiters with a unique look at African culture and heritage while beautifying the surrounding area. 

Now, one of the cultural institution’s buildings will meet the wrecking ball. 

Detroit’s Buildings, Safety Engineering, and Environmental Department (BSEED) Director David Bell said in a Thursday statement that a building in the museum’s complex is set for an emergency demolition. 

The decision comes after museum founder Olayami Dabls posted on Facebook last week that he needed help setting up a GoFundMe page in an attempt to stop the city from demolishing the building, which is not currently part of the museum. Dabls said he’d hoped to renovate the structure which has a collapsed roof and wall.

Bell said when Dabls made the social media post, there was no demolition order issued. 

“However, since the issue was brought to our attention, we have inspected the building and determined it to be in a state of significant collapse and must be taken down immediately,” Bell said in the statement. 

“It is important for people to understand that this is an entirely separate building from the Dabls museum, which is not affected by this order,” Bell stressed. “The building has deteriorated to the point it is no longer salvageable and poses an immediate threat to public safety. Our primary concern is the health, safety and welfare of residents and the public who may visit the area.”

Dabls told BridgeDetroit that the cost to repair the damaged building would have come with a hefty price tag–$400,000. Dabls also said he received a $500 blight ticket last Saturday for the building.

The building is at least 100 years old, dating back to the early 1920s. He said he was planning to house new gallery space and educational workshops inside the building if he could have come up with the funding for repairs. 

“I could’ve done so much with this space,” he said. “But people said it’ll cost less to rebuild than to repair, so all is not totally lost.”

Prior to the emergency demolition order, the artist launched a GoFundMe page. As of Friday morning, Dabls had raised $725

Even before this year, Dabls was having issues with the complex. 

In 2018, the Detroit News reported that the museum’s buildings were in disrepair. Dabls was working with the Los Angeles and Detroit-based architectural design firm Lorcan O’Herlihy Architects and Allied Media Projects on the renovation of the museum’s three buildings as well as a separate neighboring building.

Dabls said Lorcan is still working with him and has invested more than $100,000 in the museum. However, it’s been difficult to raise the money the last few years due to the unstable economy and the pandemic, he said. 

“We’ve been getting grants, but those grants have just been enough to pay operational costs. It takes a lot of money to do what we were doing,” Dabls said. 

Even so, there are still positive things happening around the museum. The space borders the Grand River Art Alley, an initiative created by the city’s Arts, Culture & Entrepreneurism (ACE) to beautify neighborhood alleys. The Grand River Alley runs from Vinewood Street to Taft Street between Grand River and I-94. 

“Detroit ACE has been working with Dabls as a partner on one of the arts alleys that we’re transforming around the city,” ACE Director Rochelle Riley said. “We’re proud to work with him and to continue to help him in any way we can.” 

A different kind of museum 

The space is one of three buildings Dabls uses for the museum, which opened in 1998. The museum site is home to 18 outdoor installations as well as the African Bead Gallery and African Language Wall mural. He also has a retail shop, where guests can choose from the thousands of beads, African ornaments and jewelry Dabls has collected over the years. 

“I would say there’s 7,000 pieces,” he said. “I’ve been collecting African material culture since 1985.” 

Dabls was interested in opening the African Bead Museum to give attendees a different kind of experience, where they could immerse themselves in the work and not look at art behind a glass case. 

“The idea of what we call art, well, Africa never had a word for art because to them, it was material culture, meaning each piece represents a certain aspect that’s important to the people,” he said. 

Now, the museum has become a tourist attraction. Dabls said he just had visitors from Los Angeles and, in the past, from places as far away as India. 

In 2022, Dabls was named as a Kresge Eminent Artist, an annual award from the Kresge Foundation celebrating lifetime achievement in art. 

Milford resident Mary Bajcz volunteers at the museum and helps Dabls paint his African Language mural and other things around the property. 

She said she started visiting the museum and “found it a place of renewal and healing.” 

“It’s just something that my friends and I like being part of because we really believe in Dabls’ work and know that he needs help,” Bajcz said.

She said she knew the damaged building was in bad shape, she was surprised to hear that it is going to be demolished. 

Dabls said he may eventually have a new building constructed on the site if the city allows it.

“Sometimes, you cut your losses and move forward,” he said. “And we would have still been struggling trying to make the repairs before we got hit with another ticket. We still have the land, we still have people interested in rebuilding.”