TIGER STADIUM TO BE TORN DOWN FOR CONDOS?
The Detroit Tigers abandoned the 95-year-old ballpark at the corner of Michigan and Trumbull eight years ago. Ever since, city leaders have debated what to do with the previous home of greats such as Ty Cobb, Hank Greenberg and Al Kaline and the site of several World Series and all-star games.
The city of Detroit, which owns Tiger Stadium, just this past July agreed to hand authority of the stadium's future to the city's Economic Development Corp.
Some, though, still are fighting for something to be done with the historic venue.
A demolition contract could be awarded this month with actual dismantling beginning as early as mid-November. Piece-by-piece, fans have bid on items from the stadium in a monthlong online auction. The city will use proceeds from the auction to defray the costs of demolition.
Detroit has spent US$2.5 million in maintenance to Olympia Entertainment, owned by Tigers owner Mike Ilitch, on the stadium since Ilitch moved his Tigers moved across downtown in 2000 to Comerica Park. For many, it is a brooding symbol of blight that several cities with similarly obsolete ballparks have avoided.
Fabled Boston Garden closed to basketball and hockey in 1995 after nearly 70 years as a sports arena. It was torn down two years later. Proposals have surfaced for offices and condos on the site.
Chicago's old Comiskey Park was closed and replaced a year later with a massive parking lot. Baltimore's Memorial Stadium stood empty only three years before it was razed to make way for new homes.
Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick has said he wants a mix of retail shops and new homes at Michigan and Trumbull, the site for professional baseball in Detroit since 1896. Navin Field, which later became Briggs Stadium and then finally Tiger Stadium was built there in 1912.
Those decisions will be watched closely by Timothy McKay. The executive director of the Greater Corktown Development Corp. has been fighting for years to give people living near the stadium a voice in what replaces it.
Corktown is a 173-year-old neighbourhood founded by Irish immigrants. Home to a mix of incomes, races and ethnicities, it sits in the shadow of Tiger Stadium.
The Corktown development group's vision for the site includes a sports museum which has been proposed by the Old Tiger Stadium Conservancy and Hall of Fame broadcaster and Detroit icon Ernie Harwell along with a mix of retail shops and new homes.
``Baseball has left. The hulk itself isn't magical,'' McKay said. ``It's the experience that creates the magic.
``We'd like to see the site honoured ... not by some plaque buried beneath the floor of a shopping mall.''
The nonprofit Conservancy wants to keep the playing field, dugouts, locker-rooms and about 3,000 seats. The group hopes its plan is enough to save part of the ballpark.
If they are rejected, or the Conservancy can't convince the Economic Development Corp. by next July 1 that it can get proper funding for the plan, the go-ahead for full demolition could be given, Papapanos said.
The city is eager to clear at least part of the land to make it attractive to potential developers.
A few solicitations for development were received shortly after the stadium closed.