Apparently, letting Tiger Stadium just sit there and do nothing costs a lot more than one might think. The Detroit Free Press reports, “In the last four years, Detroit has spent nearly $2 million in maintenance for the closed stadium while city leaders have sought a developer to transform the historic park.”
The most depressing thing is that there have been TWO good, reasonable proposals for what to do with the stadium. One was a multi-use commercial-residential rehabilitiation planned in cooperation with the local residents in Corktown and had broad community support in the neighborhood. The other was a plan for Detroit area colleges and universities (Wayne State, Wayne CCC, U of Detroit, etc.) to “share” a scaled down version of the stadium. These plans were killed, IMO, because Ilitch doesn’t want ANYTHING to potentially compete with his lackluster ball team, and neither of these proposals called for the demolition of the ball field—which is all he’ll stand for. And the power listens to the money. Kwame wants a “big box” store there to “serve” the community. But the lot size isn’t big enough for a Home Depot, so there’ve been no takers. Makes me wanna cry.
—Scott Trudeau Jul. 7 '04 - 04:18PM #
—Scott Trudeau Jul. 7 '04 - 04:18PM #