OT: Palace of Auburn Hills to be demolished
Hopefully this goes smoother than the demolition of the Silverdone
What's your favorite Palace memory? Mine is seeing Guns N' Roses (the Buckethead lineup).
Too bad. A perfectly designed arena that is still great by today's standards.
Not to mention all the parking!
Van Andel Arena is pretty much the same design as The Palace, just smaller with less parking.
Same architect - Rossetti in Birmingham
Billups from half-court against the Nets in Game 5. Interestingly, most people remember that game as a win. It did feel like an earthquake in there when he hit that shot though.
This is too bad. I didn't like the Pistons leaving the Palace and I don't want to see it torn down. It is a great building and was a great atmosphere when they could put a half-way competitive product on the floor.
Agreed. Now that I've had some time to reflect, I think moving the Pistons to LCA was a mistake.
Little Caesars Arena will be just fine once they put a more competitive product on the floor. The idea that an arena should exist for the needs of one single professional sports franchise is pretty outdated at this point.
As a guy who has lived in SE Michigan basically his entire life but has traveled the world extensively and visited just about every version of Urbanization that exists, Metro Detroit has to be one of the worst(and doesn't have a particularly high ceiling). It needs something like an sports arena to act as a downtown catalyst, because as a city it doesn't really have much else going for it. Basically just running on fumes at this point.
Never saw a game or concert at the Palace, but went to LCA recently and really wasn't that impressed. I was in the second deck and was a mile away from the stage, so I can't imagine being all the way up. Plus I'm not a big guy and I felt squished like at Michigan Stadium even in a chairback seat. I was right up against the overhang and had no room for my legs. It's like they tried to jam as many seats up there as they could. I don't know if I'd go back even if the wings or pistons get better.
Yeah, LCA has horrible seating. If you're in the 2nd deck, your sight lines seem like they're straight down, and the leg room is negligible. I'm with you, it'll take an extraordinary event to get me back to the LCA, and even then, I'll only go with floor seats.
By the way, I've never felt squished at The Big House... I'm usually standing up screaming encouragement or playcalls!
my best memories were not sports related - saw U2 (I think the Zooropa tour - Bono ordered from Domino's and they actually delivered some pizzas to the stage); Pink Floyd; and a YES reunion show in the round. All very very enjoyable - it does seem a shame to take down the building but I get it....
No specific memory, just being a kid and watching the Pistons occasionally. Still nice memories though of the bad boys in their peak.
Is it common for arenas/stadiums to have such short lives? 30 years doesn’t seem that old.
It's not the age of the arena here that's the real issue. It could still be used if there were enough events on a regular basis to pay the bills and turn some kind of profit. But it sounds like it's more expensive to keep it standing than demolishing it. It's a shame and seems pretty wasteful.
It just also happens to have one of the bigger and better Amphitheaters in the country like 3 miles from it. That hurts it too. It was doomed from the minute the Pistons bolted. Disney on Ice isn't going to pay the bills.
The Palace had a functional life of 29 years—1988 to 2017.
Olympia was in use from 1927 through 1979—52 years.
Don, I don't know how you feel about it, but it feels like the Palace was "recently" built. I graduated HS in '88 and since then it has just been a whirlwind. To see that it is about to be demolished just seems weird to me.
When it was new - I was watching the best of Pistons basketball there with Isiah, Dumars, etal. I also remember being on the floor for warmups once and couldn't take my eyes off of 7' 5" Chuck Nevitt - and they were playing against the Bulls that day.
My daughter is going to be 35 this year, and I swear she was just a toddler a couple of years ago. So yeah, I get what you're saying.
I still think of the Palace as the "new" arena in town (which I realize makes no rational sense at all). It opened after I graduated from college and moved out of the area.
I only went there a handful of times. Possibly only once--I remember a Pistons game in the early nineties when I was visiting my dad.
Favorite memory on tv is simply winning the 2004 championship . I’m not the biggest hockey guy, so that was the last true memory of one the teams I follow winning a championship . That arena would get so loud from 2002-2008.
I do remember a lot of the Palace staff being the biggest bunch of assholes ,though, particularly the ushers.
I'm glad the Pistons moved downtown, since to me the Palace's location was terrible. But the arena itself was fantastic, and frankly ahead of its time. The only area in which it wasn't ahead of its time was its location, but that wound up killing it too soon.
I too am happy the Pistons moved downtown. If a professional sports team represents a city, they should be located in that city.
While I mostly agree with this, the SF 49ers play 45 minutes West of San Fran and the NY Giants and NY Jets play in a completely different state. I'm guessing this is because of land availability and taxes.
Do the 49ers play on a boat?
LOL Give him the benefit of the doubt, I'm sure he meant south. Funny, though!
Yes, I meant south, lol. I was typing and talking on the phone and not concentrating enough on either.
That is part of what made the Palace such an incredibly difficult place to play, though. The people who went to the games were ALL IN. It was not particularly easy to get to and there wasn't anything else to do around the area. I agree, in a lot of ways that is/was a bad thing, but it ensured the fans at the game were there for one reason only and you could see and feel that single-minded focus in the crowds and the atmosphere.
Actually, for a long time the Palace was notorious for having very quiet, corporate crowds. It was not until the “Going to Work” era of the 2000s that it started to have a strong home court advantage.
No way man. That place was so loud and crazy during the Bad Boy years as well. It was pretty much recognized as a madhouse when the Pistons were good. It did get one step further in 04-07. Magic said during the NBA finals in 04 that he had never seen or played in a more difficult atmosphere than the Palace during those Finals.
No, it was really quiet back then. Just read the book "Bad Boys." It goes on about how different the atmosphere was at the Palace compared to the Silverdome.
Yeah - the location was a killer. When I was living in Detroit and the Palace was still around, I was always in either Macomb County or Troy/Rochester. So a trip to the Palace wasn't terrible.
I don't know how ANYONE from Western Wayne County or Washtenaw County ever made it up there though on your average weeknight. That's a horrible trip.
Sort of related - I've always thought FNT should have "taken off" more as a 2nd Detroit airport. A trip from Troy/Rochester to DTW is terrible in its own right.
I'm in Ann Arbor, and have actually flown out of Flint multiple times. It's still under an hour from home, which is more than doable. However, it's been a while since I priced a flight out that wasn't significantly more expensive or more inconvenient from Bishop, so I've kind of stopped looking there at this point.
Although DTW rarely disappoints nowadays, it would still be nice to have a 2nd option.
Well, we had a good run.
My memories were all of the hour long wait to get out of the parking lot.
That's why there were only two places I ever parked and they were both right near the exit.
My only memory at the Palace is seeing Michigan beat VCU in the NCAA Tournament back in 2013 and seeing the Palace filled with Michigan and MSU fans.
Watching Michigan basketball destroy VCU from the 11th row at center court was probably the best time I ever had there.
Does anyone else get really upset some times about how wasteful our society is? Tearing down a perfectly good building with tens of millions of dollars worth of building materials. Shit makes me sad
It does feel wrong, yes.
user name not checking out.
first the construction jobs.
then the demolition jobs.
then some other construction job.
As a society, America is awful about how much it wastes on buildings. This applies to stadiums, but also to housing and box stores. There is no reason these huge buildings should have a life of 30 years.
Completely agree. For those in NYC, the tear down of 270 Park Ave has the same feeling. The HQ of JPMorgan Chase is being demolished to build bigger and better. 5 year process......
Bummer. Same sentiment as everybody else. There's nothing wrong with that place (other than the lack of surroundings). Happy not to have to drive out to Auburn Hills, but a shame to tear down that building.
Favorite memories: Taking my first real date to a Vipers game. Seeing Led Zeppelin (Page & Plant, technically), and a playoff win over the Pacers.
R.I.P.
"Seeing Led Zeppelin (Page & Plant, technically)"
Were you at the Jimmy Page assassination attempt show? I was... and seated behind the stage, so we actually saw them haul the guy off and wondered what was happening.
https://ultimateclassicrock.com/jimmy-page-assassination-attempt/
It's good for Detroit to have the Pistons move downtown, but it is absolutely obscene to tear down such a great arena. I'm not certain, but I bet Oakland county covered most if not all of the arena. Public money should never be spent to cover rich sports team owners' hobbies.
Bill Davidson privately funded the construction right next door to his company, Guardian Industries. It's what you can do if you're really, really rich and NOT taking the public dime to pay for an arena. Might as well make your plaything convenient to get to for you-- even if it's located in BFE to everyone else.
As I recall Bill Davidson took no public funds at all to build The Palace. He was the best sports team owner in Detroit.
I don't know about any public funding for this arena in particular but it would be interesting to me to get a 3rd party analysis of stadiums that were publicly funded and whether they ended up a net plus for the economy in that community. I think the difficulty would be in finding an impartial 3rd party.
Pretty sure the studies have consistently shown they are not a net benefit when compared to other ways the funds could have been used.
Best memory was seeing Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet band there in concert, shortly before I moved out of Michigan. One of my favorite concerts ever.
The crowd was coming down from Rock and Roll Never Forgets, they had killed all the lights, and all 6 spotlights snapped onto the sax player when he hit the riff for Turn the Page. The roar that went up damaged the roof. Still gives me chills to think about it, 20+ years later.
RIP to the Palace.
For the love of Pete (Seeger?), please get the spelling right (Seger). Bob is the pride of Michigan, and grew up in AA.
I, too, have seen Bob, twice at the Palace (7-show run ~1996), once in Chicago, and once in DC. His deep voice makes me sad now, but the guy is 74. Hoping to see him tour again someday, perhaps at LCA.
He was just at DTE, Farewell 2019 tour..keeps retiring.
Speaking of Bob, saw him at Crisler with Commander Cody back in 78/79, fantastic.