OT: Mike Ilitch seeks downtown Detroit arena district

Yes, correct.  I wonder if people who like Joe Louis Arena have been to any other arena in the NHL.

I have seen hockey games in Boston, Buffalo, Denver, Detroit, Minneapolis, St Louis, Tampa Bay and Washington's arenas.  Not exactly a complette sample, but certainly enough to rank Joe Louis a distant last of all of them.

An arena incorporating modern, more fan-friendly design would be a huge improvement over the dingy, cramped JLA.  Joe Louis must be last remaining single-concourse arena in the NHL--and there's no logical reason that it needs to be, other than the fact that they hadn't invented multi-concourse arenas in the late 1970s.  If it also took a cue from baseball ballpark design and incorporated some old-timey elements (like maybe the Maple Leaf Gardens' end zone upper decks that were practically on top of the ice), it could be a showpiece.

It has luxury boxes around the top. I've been in them.

Well my experience is sort of limited, but I have seen games at the Joe, Nationwide, Xcel, and the Thrashers place.  If the Wings were to build the exact same place as any of those, it would be a massive improvement over the Joe.  

Exactly. A new arena may be good or bad, but Illitch will use his influence to force taxpayers to fund most of it all for his own private profit.

Because if there's one thing the city of Detroit has been saying lately it's "hmmmm, how on earth do we spend all these extra tax dollars that keep piling up in our treasury?"

Not necessarily. The thing has been put off for about a decade now because the city hasn't been able to help with it, the sense people are getting is that Mr. I wants to at least see construction begin before he dies. To that end, he's done plenty of research on privately financing the thing or going in for most of it anyway.

You'll have noticed if you've been paying attention that the Wings have become very, very close with Amway. That's very important because not only are the DeVoss and Van Andel families the richest people in the state, they're also powerful forces within the Republican party at the state level. What public funding this gets will be coming from Lansing and I'd expect a big chunk will come from Grand Rapids in the form of a naming rights deal.

Illitch and the speculation over the new stadium are a big reason why that area has not developed, almost impossible to build there and expect to make a profit with those land values.  Look at how Corktown has developed since the Tigers left, neighborhood got stronger because the focus was on being a neighborhood not serving the stadium, and the price was right for smaller developers and businesses to come in and invest.  Another example is how development was choked in Rivertown, an area that in the 80's and into the 90's had a vibrant nightlife district that got killed when speculators drove up the price of real estate for the rumored riverfront casinos.  

Demand is up in the Downtown/Midtown areas but it's not enough.  Detroit is a long way from any kind of tipping point because the tax rate is so high and services so low.  For almost anything new in the city to get built anywhere it comes with massive subisidies.

That may be, but the other question is, how bad might things have been without the new stadia?

Likely no worse. Economic studies have shown that the impact of new stadiums is negligible at best. Keep in mind that hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer funds went to the construction of Comerica Park and Ford Field - money that could have served other purposes (or could have been kept by the citizens themselves and not levied as taxes). The main benefit of Comerica Park has been that it's become a money machine for the Tigers and allowed them to spend much more than they did at Tiger Stadium, with the intangible benefit of having a winning sports team to make people feel better (which is not nothing - sports are an important part of peoples' lives). But economically it's probably been a wash. It has led to an uptick in attendance, which does mean more people downtown, although most just drive in for the game and then drive out after.  A small number of local businesses located immediately next to the stadium have benefitted.

Ford Field OTOH has done nothing for the Lions as a franchise and right now is harder to justify.  The main benefit it's brought is that for 10 days a year, NFL fans come to downtown Detroit instead of Pontiac. 

Young people with money live in Royal Oak and its surrounding communities and commute to the city. No one wants to live in the city. It is not Chicago. It is a trash heap.

If lyou really want to build a vibrant residential area down there, you've gotta build some new school buildings and do what it takes to keep them safe, gang free and corruption free. Detroit City Schools are the whole reason the population moved out of town. They don't want to put their kids in that situation.

the problem with nationwide was twofold:

1. a privately funded arena sounds nice, but the tax bills are immense. A public stadium authority basically has to own any stadium or else it makes no financial sense

2. Value City existed and was stealing a lot of events that Nationwide needed to be a success. OSU was being uncooperative with the Jackets about forming a scheduling arrangement.