OT: Red Wings Arena District plans unveiled
Plans have been published for the new Arena District. Lots of interesting stuff included. Crains Detroit has a series of 6 articles. You can check them out here
http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20140720/NEWS03/140719845
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Deconstructed design: Most arenas are built as a big box with the playing surface and seating ringed by concourses, concession stands, team offices and restaurants. But the new arena will be “deconstructed” with the outer-ring functions moved into structures just set off or pulled away from the core inner playing surface and seats. They won’t be separate buildings, but linked by a first-ever interior streetscape.
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Glass covered streetscape: The area between the seating bowl and the outer buildings will be covered by glass to create a “covered via,” or interior streetscape, filled with trees, retail, dining and other amenities. Bridges and walkways will connect the outer buildings to the seating bowl through this covered interior street.
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Lighted roof design: The roof of the arena will be fashioned with the most modern programmable lighting so that different images can be produced for a given event. In the rendering provided by Olympia Development, the roof shows the Red Wings logo as it will on hockey nights. But the roof could be green for St. Patrick’s Day or something else for a concert by Kid Rock or Eminem, Ilitch said. He described the desired effect as “classy, not gaudy.”
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Playing surface: The playing surface will be set about 32 feet below ground level to lower the profile of the building, producing a more human-scale environment in the district where most buildings will rise just two to four stories. That follows the practice at Comerica Park and Ford Field, where the playing surfaces were set below ground level.
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A DRAMATIC TRANSFORMATION OF THE HEART OF DETROIT will begin in September, when the Ilitch family breaks ground on the construction of a $450 million Detroit Red Wings arena concurrently with another $200 million in apartments, restaurants, office buildings, parks and shops over 45 blocks. This is the city’s entertainment district, super-sized.
This could be huge for Detroit and it seems like the Illitches are really committed to seeing the full plan happen. Chris Illitch even went so far as to commit to spening "10's of millions" beyond what they had already guranteed.
Thoughts?
It will break ground on July 28th.
http://m-1rail.com/m%E2%80%901-rail-streetcar-construction-will-begin-m…
Here's the construction schedule:
http://m-1rail.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Zone7-12MOTPresentation.7…
It has backing from Gilbert, Ilitch, the city and state.
Correct me if I'm wrong but I saw no mention of A2, looks like a lot of stuff inside of Detroit.
...You already can take a train from Ann Arbor to Detroit. It's called Amtrak and I used it many times when I was a student in Ann Arbor.
is awesomely glorious!
Kinda disapointed that it won't be like Olympia. I hope the building has some character and isn't just one of the same old new arenas that are built these days.
You serious Clark?
I'm only 20. I don't even have a lawn to call my own yet. But if I did I would tell you to get off it.
I can tell you it was a much more beautiful looking building than the Joe.
yeah, well so are half of the burnt out buildings in Detroit. It is time to move forward from both the Joe and the Olympia. The roaring 1920's are not coming back.
Red brick is a lot better looking than a big gray box though.
Looks amazing and forward-thinking. And I'm all for pushing the envelope, especially if the money isn't coming from taxpayers. And, yes, any business that stays in Detroit is better than the opposite. But I do have mixed feelings. History proves that sports stadiums rarely civic revitalization. They create very few good jobs. They're only in business for x days a year. And mostly they just enrich their owners.
The city needs to draw suburbanites (read: white people) to downtown Detroit in a sustained and substantial way. Sure, one great building might encourage others to build nearby. Comerica has helped improve its neighborhood. But would a new hockey arena draw any more people than the current one does? I'm not so sure. Is this "district" to which Ilitch refers a viable prospect or just a PR pipe-dream? I wonder what others think.
Bill Shea(Crain's Detroit Business) had a great break down on where the money is coming from. The tax money for the new arena is property tax collected by the DDA on the value of the new development in the new arena district. And the property tax collected by the DDA in that zone is not a new tax. It already is on the books. Homeowners are unaffected. The DDA tax is not a city general fund tax, and by law cannot be used for pensions, or other debt liabilities. Improvements only. Basically the DDA is sepatate from the regular Detroit government and is not bankrupt. In fact, the city owes the DDA $40M in bankruptcy filing docs.
I hope Mike Ilitch lives long enough to enjoy his creation. At 85, one never knows. It would certainly be a great "victory lap" in the overall context of his life.
He is a machiavellian businessman.
I'm sure you and all your scepticism have done way more for the city than Mike Ilitch.
Everything he has done he has done has benefitted him enormously financially. He isn't doing any of this for altruistic reasons.
A very personal history that I won't get into here. The man is a billionare. You don't get that way by being a honest human being.
Fun fact: the first thing ever to be held at Joe Louis Arena was Michigan vs Detroit in Men's Basketball.
Maybe they can open the new one with that.
The most important news for Wings fans is the change from 18 to 20 thousand seats. That should help keep prices down.
Isn't the new one supposed to be smaller? The Joe seats 20,058.
The point was it's gonna be 2,000 more seats than it was originally planned.
The original plan called for a capacity of 18,500. Now, however, it's going to have a capacity of about 20,000 seats.
...then maybe the young people who move down there after college will stay down there once they get married rather than moving out to the suburbs.
Not saying they're going to live downtown, but still in the city/city limits.
Nonetheless, this looks awesome...hopefully it comes to fruition.
If you want to turn Detroit around you need to build public transportation, aquarium, museum, planetarium etc. Chicago and Toronto are in a much better position than Detroit because there is actually stuff to do downtown besides pro sports.
Detroit already has museums, an aquarium, and transportation—granted, this is the barest transportation system possible and it sucks. The DIA is a major attraction for the art scene—hence the huge fight to keep it away from a potential sell-off. The Science Center has re-opened thanks to a massive donation and is in good health. The aquarium is running again after having been closed for a number of years.
With the exception of transportation, you're targeting the wrong areas for improvement. Look at schools and blight/crime in the neighborhoods, not museums.
None of those facilities besides the DIA are in the same league as other cities. You need people to vacation there and spend money. Detroit is by far the worst city for that in the midwest. You can then use the sales tax money to fix the schools.
Couple things. First, Detroit has a larger tourism industry than many people realize (around 15 million people a year visit the area). I don't know how much larger that number can realistically get in the near-term. The bigger issue is getting locals to spend more time in the city.
Second, all that tax revenue hasn't "fixed" Chicago's public schools, either. It's not quite that simple.
It made sense at the time the Palace was built. The Pistons drew terribly when they were in Detroit, and people were fleeing the city en masse by the time Davidson bought the franchise. He moved it to Pontiac and attendance spiked up. He then built the Palace and for a long time, attendance there was very good. It probably will bounce back if they get back in the playoffs.
Now, downtown Detroit is an acceptable destination for most suburbanites, but 20-30 years ago? Not nearly as much.
is just awesome. worth the click, even if you don't read the article.
Also, I hate to be "that guy" (seriously) but the accelerated timeline makes me worry about Mike Illitch's health. I hope he gets to see a World Series championship or two and an ultra-modern hockey arena open. The artist's drawings are really breathtaking.
The main thing that concerns me is the talk of "accelerated timeline" and completing the entire thing in 3 years. It takes time to build unless you want to risk quality.
Holy shit, Illitch is only 85? I honestly thought he was like 96.