| | DETROIT -- Nine months after inviting developers to propose
new uses for Tiger Stadium, the city still has no takers.
With the Detroit Tigers relocating to Comerica Park, where they
began play Tuesday, concerns have been raised that 88-year-old
Tiger Stadium will fall into neglect and eventually face the
wrecking ball.
"We don't want the facility to start falling apart," Doug
McIntosh of McIntosh Poris, a Birmingham architectural firm, said.
"The city had plans to bring in events to Olympia (Stadium), but
nothing ever happened."
Plans for redeveloping Olympia were floated after the Detroit
Red Wings relocated to Joe Louis Arena in 1980. Nothing came of
them, and the facility was demolished.
Officials insist that won't happen to city-owned Tiger Stadium,
even though there have been no responses to a July 1999 request for
development proposals.
That request suggested that developers consider renovating parts
of the stadium into lofts, offices and retail space. But the city
was unable to provide a structural analysis of the stadium or
guarantee federal tax credits for the project, The Detroit News
reported Monday.
A September deadline for proposals has been extended
indefinitely.
"We are still looking and hope someone will step forward,"
Sylvia Crawford of the city planning department told the newspaper.
Renovating Tiger Stadium probably won't attract interest from
developers until the city has a revitalization plan for the area
surrounding it, including the Corktown and Briggs neighborhoods,
McIntosh said.
"No investor is going to bite until the area can support it,"
he said. "It needs retail, housing, commercial buildings. There is
not enough infrastructure. You need a critical mass to support the
stadium in its next life."
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