  Tigersfan9 Member Username: Tigersfan9 Post Number: 40 Registered: 03-2005 Posted From: 69.14.45.237 |
Detroit Should Sell Tiger Stadium As Is In a recent budget address to Detroit’s City Council, Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick preached the virtues of selling city-owned property. "I am pleased to inform you," exclaimed Kilpatrick, "that to date, we have sold or have commitments to purchase $36 million in [city-owned] property. This year we are developing whole new strategies, including bundling of properties as well as looking at the assets of city government that can be sold and placed back on the tax roles." He’s right. The best thing the city of Detroit can do with its massive hoard of property (more than 40,000 parcels at last count) is sell it. The city could do even more to shed such assets. It could, for instance, minimize hurdles to privatization by removing unnecessary and expensive bureaucratic obstacles to acquisition. Case-in-point: Tiger Stadium. For the past seven years, the city of Detroit has attempted to find a bureaucratic answer to the question: "What to do with Tiger Stadium?" Employees in the city’s Planning and Development Department were charged with determining what constitutes a best use for the corner of Michigan and Trumbull instead of simply selling the property to the highest bidder in an open, fair auction and allowing the winner to do with the property as he pleases. Regrettably, the city has paid the Detroit Tigers organization more than $2 million to maintain the stadium over the past seven years while "feasibility studies" have been conducted on what to do with the asset. Failing to be persuaded that Tiger Stadium holds value, city planners seem bent on tearing down the stadium before selling the land — if it is sold at all. Rumor has it that the property may be used to build a new arena for the Red Wings. A lack of ideas, money or interested, capable developers is certainly not Tiger Stadium’s problem. As a potential developer who met with city officials, I can say that there was never any serious consideration given to the proposals for an alternative use of the ball park. The Navin Field Consortium (the group to which I belonged) proposed converting Tiger Stadium to its original 1912 configuration when the park opened as Navin Field. Our proposal was made privately to the Detroit Tigers with the suggestion that they follow the latest major league trend by locating one of their minor league affiliates nearby — in this case at the corner of Michigan and Trumbull. We explained that the New York Yankees have a minor league team on nearby Staten Island and that the New York Mets have a team down the road in Brooklyn. In professional hockey, the Philadelphia Flyers have their top farm team located in their old arena adjacent to their new facility. Similarly, the Cleveland Indians, Toronto Blue Jays and several other teams have minor league affiliates within a short drive of the major league venue. For once, we felt that the Tigers could be ahead of the curve instead of behind it. From a sports marketing perspective, the possibilities are endless: Cross-promotion and schedule coordination would assure that the two teams complement one another; the Tigers would be the only franchise in Major League history to preserve and utilize their former facility; Detroit would be preserving an internationally recognized baseball landmark; profits from the minor league operations could serve to bolster the major league team’s competitiveness; and the Tigers could reconnect with disenfranchised fans who lost interest in the team when they moved out of Tiger Stadium. The consortium also proposed that the stadium be privately financed without subsidies from the city of Detroit or the Detroit Tigers. The only expense would be a market rate for rent, no different than the rent the Tigers pay to house their minor league team in a city like Erie, Pennsylvania. Because such a venue has the potential for multiple tenants, including concerts and special events, it is widely believed that the site could become a real money-maker. Cooperation from the city and the team would undoubtedly assure that raising capital would not be an issue. We also proposed that the stadium be purchased from the city at a market rate or at auction. The consortium included architects and builders who presented detailed cost estimates for a partial demolition and reconstruction of the old park. They determined that it would be less expensive to convert Tiger Stadium to its original form than to build a new minor league ballpark. Incidentally, metro-Detroit is the largest metropolitan area with only one professional baseball team. It is only a matter of time before a minor league team locates in the Detroit area. More than likely, an independent league team will locate in a Detroit suburb, and the Tigers will have a competitor instead of a partner. Shortly after the Detroit Tigers departure in 1999, developers made proposals to the city’s planners for alternate uses for Tiger Stadium. One such party is McCormack Baron, a real estate development firm from St. Louis. It didn’t take long before principals at McCormack Baron were disenchanted with the way Detroit does business. In an April 2000 interview with The Detroit News, the firm’s vice president, Jack Hambene, announced that he had heard no response from the city in the eight months since his firm had submitted its proposal. The city’s reply? "We are not obligated to get back to McCormack Baron," Sylvia Crawford, the Planning and Development Department’s spokeswoman, told The News. "We are putting a contract together for a predevelopment study. We are doing a study to see if it’s feasible to renovate Tiger Stadium." But city feasibility studies are unnecessary. Detroit could privatize (that is, sell) Tiger Stadium by issuing a relatively simple Invitation to Bid. An ITB is used by units of government primarily when it is easy to define the service or asset being contracted or sold outright, and the bids are almost always opened at a very public meeting. The highest bidder for Tiger Stadium would win the land and building, and do with the property as it saw fit: construct a Wal-Mart, residential lofts, a parking lot, or use it as a sports stadium. The possibilities are endless. Selling it in this fashion would constitute the highest valued use of Tiger Stadium by the marketplace. All too often politicians and their lieutenants view publicly owned assets as pawns in power struggles. How city "jewels" are valued by municipalities are often wildly different than how free people spending their own resources would value them. But city-owned property does not exist to advance the interests of a bureaucracy. Selling Tiger Stadium would generate a one-time cash flow, end subsidies for its annual maintenance and likely provide new property tax revenue. In baseball vernacular, we’re talking a financial home run for the city. ##### Steven Thomas is the owner of Detroit Athletic Co., a memorabilia store west of Tiger Stadium, and an adjunct scholar with the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a research and educational institute headquartered in Midland, Mich. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided that the author and the Center are properly cited. http://www.mackinac.org/articl e.aspx?ID=7763 | ||
Drm Member Username: Drm Post Number: 960 Registered: 10-2003 Posted From: 70.236.173.151 |
And where are folks going to park? Curiously, all of the "free market" "thinkers" seem to believe that the neighborhood should subsidize whatever they develop by providing parking for them. | ||
Paulmcall Member Username: Paulmcall Post Number: 688 Registered: 05-2004 Posted From: 68.40.119.216 |
They used to have 50,000 fans get into the place and they found parking way back when. | ||
Corktownmark Member Username: Corktownmark Post Number: 190 Registered: 12-2004 Posted From: 69.246.27.152 |
Right on drm. Folks have no problem finding parking at freedom hill is Sterling... and yet somehow the folks that live near there didn't find the venue very attractive. Thank you for your concideration Paulmcall, let me know what venue we can put next to your mothers house. | ||
Detroitplanner Member Username: Detroitplanner Post Number: 125 Registered: 04-2006 Posted From: 205.188.116.137 |
Not all 50,000 fans would park around the stadium until public transit started to breakdown. Many used to take the bus or the streetcar. It wasn't until the 1980's when you would see lots of cars there. My father would never take us to Tiger Stadium or the Olympia by car. There was no need to. BTW, I would not trust anything put out by the Mackinac Center. It is a very biased organization bent on privatizing everything and supporting the Engler agenda. I would not trust them anymore than I would trust info from left weng fanatics either. You need to know who is publishing what to understand why they are saying it. (Message edited by detroitplanner on June 03, 2006) | ||
Lowell Board Administrator Username: Lowell Post Number: 2677 Registered: 10-2003 Posted From: 66.167.210.191 |
The article sounds more like sour grapes than 'free market' ideas. It comes off painfully like, "My wonderful private deal got trashed, boo hoo; now let it go on the free market." This 'free market' mantra is more often about devices to bring public property into private hands which just happen to be my and my friends hands. Who knows maybe we can make a few million on a quick flip like Nederlander did with the State Fair properties or the Giacalones did with the Jefferson Assembly lands. Standard in these pitches is the "no expense to Detroit" lines and "Selling it in this fashion would constitute the highest valued use of Tiger Stadium by the marketplace". Such comments show complete obliviousness to the Corktown neighborhood values. Like some beancounter he seems to borinly thinks a city exists purely to make a profit and decisions should be solely guided by a frequently corrupted 'open' market place. Let the Corktown people decide how to develop it to fit with their growing and thriving community. | ||
Sfdet Member Username: Sfdet Post Number: 78 Registered: 11-2003 Posted From: 71.146.78.158 |
Lowell - what is wrong with making a profit?? it seems that the 'liberal' mantra is that making a profit is some sort of sin, some sort of crime against humanity. yet when one makes a profit, one is giving people what they want. it's that simple. is that bad? is seems to me that city of detroit would be much better off if GM were making cars which more people want, thereby making more profit. in my home town, safeway (the grocery store chain) makes a profit, and in doing so they fill their shelves with thousands upon thousands of products, products which people want. if safeway filled their shelves with things that people didn't want at an affordable prices, safeway would be out of business. in the long run, the market punsishes those who don't allocate resources efficiently, and rewards those who allocate resourse the way free people want them to be allocated. so you want the corktown people to decide how to develop tiger stadium? great. by letting a private owner of tiger stadium make a profit, then you will have let the corktown people decide its best use. if a private owner makes a profit, then the owner will have given the corktown people what they want. if you forbid a private owner from making a profit, then you are letting narrow interests decide the use of the site, and that public process involves much more corruption than nearly any free and open market. should the city of detroit and the corktown residents decide on applicable zoning and density rules for the site? of course. but create the zoning and then enforce the rules equitably. simple. then let the market decide. and who knows, maybe the tiger stadium will end up housing minor league baseball. | ||
Drm Member Username: Drm Post Number: 964 Registered: 10-2003 Posted From: 69.212.52.213 |
This makes no sense. | ||
Wcpo_intern Member Username: Wcpo_intern Post Number: 1876 Registered: 04-2004 Posted From: 64.12.116.204 |
I agree with Lowell's comments in the abstract, but how does a stadium undermine Corktown's neighborhood values? I'm glad to hear that Detroit will finally start selling some of its enormous property holdings. What other cities, major, minor, backwoods, whatever, hold so much useless property. I can see where having parkland is useful but I can't see where holding onto old stadiums and derelict houses falls under governmental functions. Sell the stadium or tear it down. If the government hasn't found a use for it yet, they never will. | ||
Drm Member Username: Drm Post Number: 966 Registered: 10-2003 Posted From: 70.225.118.206 |
Because the neighborhood is used as a parking lot. Land is kept vacant because there is a huge profit to be made by charging to park cars, with little or no investment necessary and little or no financial risk. It's easy money. How many people want to live next to a parking lot which then becomes a vacant lot 280 days per year? In addition, the fans didn't always treat the surrounding neighborhood with respect. Talk to any of the people who lived here in the 1980s and 1990s about some of the shit they had to deal with on a regular basis. There have been uses proposed, however, to my knowledge, none of these uses provided for parking. As a matter of fact, some of the developers were honest in saying that if they had to build a parking structure then their plans wouldn't be economically feasible. People talk about saving Tiger Stadium, but they often don't care about preserving Corktown, Detroit's oldest surviving neighborhood. If it's not feasible to do both, then I strongly believe the stadium has to go. | ||
Paulmcall Member Username: Paulmcall Post Number: 698 Registered: 05-2004 Posted From: 68.40.119.216 |
I seem to remember Corktown folks were more than happy to provide parking for fans at a price. I even remember a fellow telling how he'd "watch" my car for a few extra bucks. What is going there now? | ||
Mallory Member Username: Mallory Post Number: 13 Registered: 05-2006 Posted From: 207.230.140.240 |
When does the money that should be used for the upkeep and preservation of a building make it worth the expense? Look at how many buildings in Detroit (true classics of architecture) are left to rot. Like the Cadillac, would you spend $175 million to restore a building, or spend half of that and build a new building? I still don't get that one. I'm all for saving the park. I actually wish that the Tigers never moved. I always felt that, what was good for Boston (Fenway) was good enough for Detroit. But all talk is not going to bring the structure up to safe standards. And what about Corktown? I agree with drm, if you take the time to restore the structure, you need to restore the whole of the area. So, would it be the Detroit Mudhens? And btw, SAVE THE JOE! Sorry, I had to say that. | ||
Jjaba Member Username: Jjaba Post Number: 3876 Registered: 11-2003 Posted From: 67.160.138.107 |
Toledo Mudhens have a nice new ballpark, one hr. by Lincoln Town car from Comerica Park. They can whisk a relief pitcher there in a helicopter in 10 minutes in the middle of a game if need be. The Yankees and Mets have done just fine without the Brooklyn and Staten Island teams who probably aren't Triple A teams anyways. The problem with Tiger Stadium dates back to when the City of Detroit bought it in the first damn place and bailed out an inept private ballclub. Politicians runs cities, not ballparks and ballclubs. What was the threat, a move to San Antonio? Nobody believed that nonsense. The City of Detroit should be selling off private land. Encourage private markets to re-develop the whole place. Let the market forces re-develop the land with a nod to Corktown. We have zoning laws for that. Nothing will be built illegally. jjaba. |
