Order Now

 Print this Article
 E-mail this Article

Risky Business

Every prostitute receives a fee, but you give gifts to all your lovers, bribing them to come to you from everywhere for your illicit favors. So in your prostitution you are the opposite of others; no one runs after you for your favors. You are the very opposite, for you give payment and none is given to you.

—Ezekiel 16:33,34

Remember the All-Star Game in Detroit? The 950 seats added for the event were paid for in part by $400,000 in county money.

Why?

Detroit's economic development director Mulugetta Birru said: "Having 950 more seats brings more people to downtown to buy food and beverages and shop."

Two problems. One, the stadium had more than enough seating and two: What downtown? Woodward Avenue looks more like downtown Beirut and most of the economic activity going on there is probably illegal. Of course like any good servant Birru predicted that the new seats "would generate $1.3 million in spillover downtown spending during the week of the All Star Game."

For you math whizzes, the Detroit News pointed out "that amounts to $1,368 of spending per spectator." This is after they spring for the overpriced tickets and concessions. As Neil deMause pointed out wryly: "I'm also pretty sure that Detroit doesn't have a 30% sales tax, meaning the new tax revenues from even $1.3 million would amount to just a tiny fraction of the county's cost."
____________

Riley proposed his company provide the maintenance and security at the stadium for one year, saving the city a few hundred thousand dollars. However Detroit has been paying Ilitch to do just that at a cost of about $420,000 per year. Ilitch has done such a fine job of this that when MLB had shown an interest in holding an All Star event at The Corner it was rejected because "the ballpark's interior is in disrepair."

Hmmm.

So the city would rather pad Mike Ilitch’s wallet than have somebody with an interest in saving the park offer a bit of relief to a city in desperate need of cash. Adding to the sleaze is the fact that maintenance on the stadium had never been put to a bid. As a matter of fact, city officials have yet to produce any contract or agreement detailing the agreement with the Tigers, save “Mike Ilitch thy will be done.” In short it’s like the person put in charge of maintaining the life support of a wealthy patient is the primary beneficiary named in the will and that person never cared much for ol' granny…
____________

So it’s time to kill the old lady off and dispose of the body. Ilitch won’t (obviously)—he’s trying to get his political servants to do it for him and take it out the pockets of the people, some of whom actually want to save The Corner. You see, in the final days of Tiger Stadium as home of the Tabbies, the city levied a ticket surcharge to finance the demolition of the ballpark. Instead, that money went back to Ilitch for “maintenance” (if you’re wondering about the air quotes check out Stranded At The Corner and see the value the politicos in Detroit derived from the money paid to Ilitch to look after the park), and now Ilitch has the money and the city is now obligated to find the necessary millions to finance the demolition of the stadium (estimated between $3-7 million).
____________

The city denies arm-twisting from the Tigers. Detroit’s Planning and Development Director Henry Hagood says: “I never receive any calls from anybody connected with the Tigers organization … We don’t believe another ball club should go in there.” (italics mine)

In its place, Kilpatrick envisions a ring of retail shops and residential housing surrounding the historic playing field, which will be preserved as a nonprofit park and ball diamond ... Any baseball that continues to be played on the site probably will be geared to the Little League level, Zeiler said. That will support the development of youth baseball and also respect the proximity of the new housing nearby.

"We're not going to have jocks in there on a Sunday night putting softballs through people's windows," he said. "It's very much geared to Little League and a community park."

"We see it as a huge economic development tool for our neighborhood and for the city as a whole"

A lot of planning must take place before demolition actually can begin sometime this fall ... The city will pay for demolition, expected to cost about $3 million to $6 million.

The overall plan remains a concept at this stage, with no final price tag and lots of details to be resolved. The city will put out bids soon to find development teams to build the residential and retail components.

Then developers will be sought to build three- to six-story mixed retail-residential projects surrounding the field.

The developers chosen to build the retail-residential projects would have to come up with the money to do so, broadly estimated at somewhere between $40 million and $70 million depending on how many units are built.

"The city has yet to secure developers, however, and still must seek bids for the plan."
In other words: No financing. No contractor. Nothing but license to do what the city seems to have wanted since the Tigers moved in 1999—take batting practice on Tiger Stadium with wrecking balls.