Last week it looked like the wrecking ball was on it's way to the corner of Michigan and Trumbull. Not so fast says Ernie Harwell:A group that includes longtime Tigers announcer Ernie Harwell has come up with a development plan for the neighborhood to convert the ballpark into a mixed-use complex that includes shops, lofts, a museum and a 10,000-seat baseball diamond.
The Detroit News said the plan is to meet with Wall Street to come up with the $20 million needed to finance the project. To give the process some time, Harwell met Monday with Mayor Kwame Kirkpatrick to say the group has commitments from the public for $300,000 that will pay the maintenance costs on the edifice for a year.
While the involvement of Harwell may lend some sex appeal to this plan, the lack of any apparent involvement of a bona fide real estate developer leads me to believe that this is a pipe dream.
Let the place die with dignity, folks.
1 comment:
this is an issue that will not die in the D -- the extremely dedicated preservation crowd have been fighting it out since the new ballpark was announced. as a lifelong tigers fan who's attended many a game at the corner, it will be sad to see it go. but at some point, change is the inevitable order of the universe and must be accepted. the larger problem is that the city of Detroit has been hemorrhaging residents for the past 50 years and the old stadium's corktown neighborhood is not exactly an epicenter of whatever new development has occurred.
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