OT: Detroit City Council Agrees to New Red Wings Arena Deal

Submitted by nmumike on

There has been some debate recently about the Wings moving to a new arena, and some of that debate centered around who was paying for it and who was going to build it etc...

This has been an ongoing process and this just furthered that conversation. Detroit City Council voted and a new arena is now very likely.

Highlights from the deal:

Under the land swap deal, the Wings owners would get an additional 37 properties where those lucrative developments could be built, according to city documents.

The 650,000-square-foot, 18,000-seat multipurpose arena is slated to be built on a patch of Woodward, about four blocks north of the Fox Theatre and Comerica Park.

About $367 million, or 56 percent, of the entire project would be paid by private investors. About $283 million, or 44 percent, in public money would come from existing economic development funds, requiring no new taxes.

James Burrill Angell

February 4th, 2014 at 3:20 PM ^

Illitches had some other properties that they're  swapping for the City owned pieces of real estate that essentially complete the literal puzzle of land ownership where the new arena is going. Illitches had already privately acquired much of the land in that area parcel by parcel but there were some big City owned pieces in there that were needed to create one big continuous parcel to build the arena.

Here's a map of what's happening. Pretty useful to understand what the deal today was about.

 

James Burrill Angell

February 4th, 2014 at 2:52 PM ^

I appreciate your point.. That said, I'm constantly in that area of Detroit and the area where this is going in has been a literally empty  burned out roughly one mile square with NOTHING. If there are four or five occupied buildings in that area its more than I would assume from driving through it consistently. Further the property in its current distressed condition essentially creates a barrier between downtown and midtown to the north and the MotorCity Casino and some of the surrounding area to its west. The development of the arena and the planned development around the arena will bridge all that. I won't generalize stadium deals but this one is VERY VERY good for the City and area.

rob f

February 4th, 2014 at 3:03 PM ^

I completely agree with your above assessment, Mr. Angell.  I make the nearly 200-mile trek to that area about 3-5 times per year to see the Tigers and/or Lions and/or to events at the Fox Theater, that entire nearly-vacant tract of land (as it stands now) does Detroit absolutely no good.  Win-win all the way on this project.

And no, not saying that this alone will solve the woes of Detroit as a whole, but each piece of the renewal puzzle that is put into place does its own small part in making Detroit somewhat self-sufficient in the long run.

TheNema

February 5th, 2014 at 12:14 AM ^

The worst example has to be Raymond James Stadium in Tampa. It was built with 100 percent public funds (yes, literally 100 percent). It should basically be an open park with that model, yet the Glazer family gets to lock its door when it sees fit and the NFL owns all rights to footage of the Bucs' activity on that field.

 

jmblue

February 4th, 2014 at 3:32 PM ^

If the Palace can seat 22,000 while containing around 200 suites, I don't see why the new arena can't be similar - unless it's too cramped a piece of land to make it that big.  

I guess they're trying to create artificial scarcity, but that seems unnecessary.  It was one thing for the Tigers to move to a smaller stadium when they never sold out Tiger Stadium, but the Wings do sell out the Joe.  

 

 

goblue20111

February 4th, 2014 at 3:39 PM ^

They sell out in the sense that tickets are bought but often times the seats go unused (companies by season tickets and don't use them or individuals) and it looks really bad on TV. I attended the last game on a Friday night agaisnt the Canadiens and it was fairly empty.  I've seen it pretty empty even for a playoff game.

jmblue

February 4th, 2014 at 3:43 PM ^

But that phenomenon is related more to the cost of tickets than anything.  Going from 20K to 18K seats won't stop corporations from buying tickets.  If anything, it will be an even more corporate crowd because ticket prices will have to go up to recoup the cost of construction and the reduced capacity.

 

 

BlackOps2ForLife

February 4th, 2014 at 3:20 PM ^

I have never been to the Joe, but heard from some people that it is "kind of" a dump and needs upgraded, so a new arena sounds appealing. I know that place has a lot of history, but it's never a bad thing to get a new arena or stadium.

James Burrill Angell

February 4th, 2014 at 3:28 PM ^

Not only is it kind of a dump, apparently its in need of several million dollars of renovation just to get it up to code (most notably the supersteep incredibly scary stairs to the doors). Apparently the City hasn't been enforcing because its been known for about five years now that the Illitches we're angling for a new arena. Why put in the repairs on building they'll like blow up. It sits right on the river. Who ever heard of a giant windowless building sitting right up against a body of water? Makes no sense. There's a million better things that could be done with that location.

MaizeAndBlueWahoo

February 4th, 2014 at 3:38 PM ^

Honestly - I think there's only one better thing that can be done with that location.  It's bordered by a freeway, a gated apartment complex, the river, and Cobo.  In other words it's a totally blocked-off section of town.  You can't put shops and stuff there because it's not big enough to be a destination unto itself.  You put a park there, it'll be littered with needles in no time.

The only use of the space I can think of is an expansion of the Cobo complex.  It's simply inaccessible.

James Burrill Angell

February 4th, 2014 at 3:55 PM ^

Agreed on some level in that I think whatever they do should be attached to Cobo if not an outright expansion of Cobo but:

 

1) Could put a hotel on it that attached to Cobo (I've always wondered why they don't just buy the Pochatrain Hotel across Washington St. and just build Cobo over Washington until the two connect.

2) I've heard the idea of an aquarium with convention/wedding/meeting space kind of like the Atlanta aquarium.

MaizeAndBlueWahoo

February 4th, 2014 at 4:46 PM ^

It's unfathomable to me why the Pontch owners (Crowne Plaza, these days) don't get together with Cobo and install a skywalk.

Then again, the previous owners let it go out of business, which is equally unfathomable given that you could never ask for better access to a city's convention center.  Unless you had a skywalk.

BlueinLansing

February 4th, 2014 at 3:38 PM ^

by today's over the top sport palace standards.  As an acutal venue though the seating is nearly perfect with unobstructed views and no suites within the general seating. 

As a concert venue the acoustics are rough, and location not ideal if you want to eat or drink before hand.   There's absolutely nothing wrong with it as a hockey venue except that its not the Pepsi Center or Staples Center.

 

It is a nearly 40 year old building now

 

 

Alton

February 4th, 2014 at 4:20 PM ^

Don't forget that it's a single-concourse building as well.  20,000 people simply can't take care of business (restrooms, concessions) during a 17-minute NHL intermission, leading to even more issues of empty seats.  The same problem leads to massive delays in filling up and emptying out the arena, which leads to people showing up late and getting up to leave while the game is still going on  Just about every other building in the NHL has a separate concourse for each deck, and most have more than 2 decks.

Also don't forget the terrible angles for the TV cameras, leading to the TV viewer having his/her view obstructed several times a period by people standing up, moving about, acting up, or selling cotton candy.

 

VintageBlue

February 4th, 2014 at 3:40 PM ^

Joe-hater checking in.  It looks like a giant grey toolshed and it doesn't get much better inside.  The location is awful too; stuffed between the Lodge and its off ramps, the backside of Cobo, the JLA parking structure and the Detroit River.  The last one would be a huge plus if the original development at all accentuated its surrounding.

That whole end of downtown was poorly executed as it effectively ends at Washington Blvd with the neighboring blocks to the NW taken up by parking.  It's a shame that the recent renovations to Cobo and now the new arena couldn't have been integrated into a more coherent development near the riverfront.

goblue20111

February 4th, 2014 at 3:46 PM ^

Detroit is pretty poorly designed overall.  It's too big for starters.  I'm not familiar with Chicago to such a large extent but my understanding is that people in Lincoln Park and the truer suburbs of Buffalo Groves, etc. (our Bloomfield Hills, Grosse Pointe) don't really have to traverse the rougher areas of Chicago to get to business and entertainment.  Detroit looks like a bombed out Fallujah except for parts of midtown and downtown.  Hopefully we start to see some changes elsewhere in the city also but part of me thinks it's going to be a long while before Detroit (all of it, not just downtown) is a great area to be again.

jmblue

February 4th, 2014 at 3:53 PM ^

Detroit is currently too big for its population, but that wasn't by design.  A century ago, city planners would have never imagined that there would be large concentrations of poverty near the downtown area.  It just happened that the city proper, for various reasons, became extremely undesirable to live in for middle- and upper-class people and they left, leaving behind an impoverished rump of a city.  

 

 

 

goblue20111

February 4th, 2014 at 4:00 PM ^

At it's peak it had what 2MM people? Within the city proper, you can fit Boston, Manhattan and SF with combined populations of 3.1 MM with about 23 SQ miles to spare. It was designed like a large, extended suburb and not a 'city'. 

http://blog.thedetroithub.com/2010/08/12/comparing-detroit-to-other-cit…

The problem always has been lack of adequate public transportation, lack of diversity in the economy and poor design.  When the factories went up in the city, the houses were built surrounding the factories.  When the factories wanted to expand and it wasn't feasible to go upwards, they picked up and moved out to where they could build what they needed. It's just one shining example.

 

snarling wolverine

February 4th, 2014 at 4:57 PM ^

The three cities you mentioned are extreme cases, though, where there are natural geographic barriers to expanding outward.  Very few U.S. cities are that crowded.  

Detroit actually once was one of the most crowded cities in the country.  To this day, even after having lost two-thirds of its population, Detroit has a higher population density than Phoenix, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta and Las Vegas, to name a few.  It's also more densely-populated than Ann Arbor for that matter.

One could argue that the problem with Detroit is that it actually has too much high-density housing stock.  There are pockets of the city that are extremely densely-populated, and the entire city was once like that, but today those pockets are surrounded by empty space.  Having 700K people in 138 square miles is perfectly normal ratio on paper.  The problem is that those 700K aren't evenly spread out throughout the city.

 

 

 

 

MaizeAndBlueWahoo

February 4th, 2014 at 4:56 PM ^

This probably goes hand in hand with what you're saying about the city looking like a large suburb, but public transportation such as a dedicated metro system would be a colossal waste the way the area is laid out.  In Chicago, people work downtown.  They go in in the morning and out in the afternoon.  In Detroit, people live everywhere and work everywhere.

As far as that layout itself, why shouldn't they have done it that way?  Back when the city was growing, people could afford not to live all crowded and crammed next to each other.  Keep in mind that in the early 20th century, we weren't that far removed from the idea that cities were disgusting pigholes.  Manhattan was a slummy mess, not a collection of gleaming skyscrapers.  Cities were filthy, disease-ridden, and to be escaped ASAP.  So when you had the chance to lay out a city that wasn't?  You had workers that could afford a house and a patch of land, and a car so they didn't have to walk?  And flat land without hills to lay it out in?  This was a godsend.  Goodbye to filthy sewers, crumbling tenements, and the slums - hello to the new middle class city.  Grand Boulevard was laid out for no other reason than they wanted a Sunday-drive promenade, and because they could.  They couldn't possibly have been expected to anticipate 21st century attitudes toward cities.

jmblue

February 4th, 2014 at 5:14 PM ^

 

It was designed like a large, extended suburb and not a 'city'.

 

You must be using a really broad definition of "suburb".  Detroit in 1950 had over 13,000 residents per square mile.  A typical suburb in a large metropolitan area will have a density no more than a third of that.

It's true that Detroit has always had a large proportion of single-family residences, but these are often shoehorned in on very small properties.  Flight to the suburbs began in the 1950s, well before the riots and election of Young, for the basic reason that a lot of middle-class families wanted more living space.

 

GoWings2008

February 4th, 2014 at 3:22 PM ^

and like the idea of building around that area of Detroit.  I've long seen the area around Comerica and Ford Field as a good place to start the Detroit renewal and getting that radius wider and wider with more investment I think is the way to go.  Of course, I know little about City Planning.  But I like that the three of the pro sports teams are located near each other.  I hope investors continue to build around that area. 

LSAClassOf2000

February 4th, 2014 at 3:26 PM ^

Crain's had a good piece on the mechanics of the proposal back around Christmas - (LINK)

Among some of the more intriguing details, I thought, is that Olympia would operate the facility fo 35 years, with 12 five-year renewal options and pay into a fund for annual maintenance to the structure. About $200 million of the cost goes to ancillary improvements and commercial / residential construction in the area too. 

BlueinLansing

February 4th, 2014 at 3:33 PM ^

ago the idea was to move the Tigers to the suburbs and the Wings to The Palace with the Lions stuck in Pontiac.

 

I generally dislike billionaires getting public money to build something they can afford themselves but in a city in Detroit's condition what the hell else are you going to do?

goblue20111

February 4th, 2014 at 3:53 PM ^

Being a billionare doesn't mean you have over half a billion in liquidity. 

About $283 million, or 44 percent, in public money would come from existing economic development funds, requiring no new taxes.  That money comes from a 1% TIF on properties and businesses within that economic development district.

It literally hurts no one. This is what these funds are intended to do -- no one until Illitch had a proposal that worked in that area.

True Blue Grit

February 4th, 2014 at 3:49 PM ^

land vacant.  But it just seems that an inordinate amount of the downtown economy revolves around sports team facilities.  I know there are no easy answers.  I just hope Detroit can figure out how to balance the economy over time  with some creative business development.  

James Burrill Angell

February 4th, 2014 at 4:21 PM ^

First off, Dan Gilbert buying up a huge number of buildings and moving his literally thousands of employees down from the suburbs and into downtown has made a world of difference. With their presences other small businesses that cater to the employees have sprung up and other employers have made the jump downtown as they see that area is viable and vibrant again. I've been going to court down there for over a decade and I'd walk the street at lunchtime and see nobody. Now, its packed. Even the traffic on the Lodge had quadrupled in the last few years. So the point is the downtown comeback hasn't really been on the back of the sports teams.

 

That said, having the three big stadiums down there eats up a LOT of formerly blighted space. Again, on a day-to-day basis it isn't doing that much for the economy. Outside attracting restaurants and bars into that area, bringing money for parking pls property taxes and game day revenue the biggest value is in good attractive use of large areas of formerly blighted land that then makes the City look better.

Section 1

February 4th, 2014 at 3:54 PM ^

... in Michigan history?

I can't think of one, but the competition is fierce.  Starting with the Silverdome.  The culmination of three or four of the worst ideas in sports -- domed football stadiums, fabric roofs, 80k+ seating.  The Silverdome did have a sort of a nice endzone restaurant.  But there was pretty much zero history there.  The one Super Bowl with the 49ers and the Bengals (is that right?  The Bengals?) was a historic clusterfuck on the night of one of our worst ice storms in a generation.  It got Herb Caen of the San Francisco Chronicle to write a devastating anti-Detroit column that turned into a year-long scandal.  As for the Lions, of course they never won much of anything at the Silverdome, because they haven't won much of anything after leaving Tiger Stadium.

As for JLA, the Wings have a good history there including numerous great championships, and so there will be some sentimentality around that.  But for fans of the franchise when they made their home at Olympia, JLA is such parking garage of a wasteland.  And worst of all, it is such a public eyesore right on the riverfront.

They simply cannot destroy JLA fast enough for my tastes.