Chevrolet offers to refurbish Tiger Stadium site.

[Joseph C. Krause]

If Jackson wants a large, contiguous site for a massive development, he should advocate the elimination of the downtown freeways. Each of the four cloverleaf interchanges downtown is larger than the Tiger Stadium site.

We need to stop historic demolitions, new superblocks, new parking garages, and silver-bullet megaprojects. They are all poison.

[Junkin4Life]

George Jackson SUCKS

[Junkin4Life]

I actually LOVE the idea the developers sketched out for the Tiger Stadium site, BUT NNOOOO DEGC turned it down. Would somebody PLEASE FIRE GEORGE JACKSON ALREADY???

[bartock]

I was just reading the article... and this the part of what he said that has me baffled......

"Ceding management of the site under even an interim arrangement is not acceptbable to us."

OK........ so for the Tiger Stadium site... an interim arrangement is NOT acceptable.... but for the Lafayette Building site [[location of the Compuware Urban Farm)... it IS acceptable....

Can someone clue me in as to why he appears to be making himself look like a hypocrite AND a fool?

.... also looks like someone at that website has a sense of humor... "acceptbable"?

to me it sounds like he's outing himself as corrupt.

[Trumpeteer]

I just sent the following e-mail to Council Member Jenkins.

Council Member Jenkins:

Although I live outside of MI now I was born and raised in the city. I keep current with what is going on in my hometown as the love is still there. While definitely encouraged by the progress being made to re-birth Detroit, I’m incredibly amazed at the decision to refuse the great offer by Chevy to refurbish the field of Tiger Stadium! That field, if refurbished, would bring far more great press and visitor traffic to Corktown & Detroit than any big box development would ever dream of bringing. In all frankness, the chance of that site being developed anytime soon is near zero and this offer to refurbish should be accepted without any hesitation.

I know I can’t vote or promise anything to help you in your position or the city from afar. However, I can plead to your sensibilities to do what you can to overturn one persons very poor decision.

Thanks for your time in reading my message.

[DetroitPlanner]

I wonder if it was calculated how much revenue would be given to existing businesses by having softball leagues play there nearly every night? I'm sure that this would bring new business to Brooks Lumber, sevaral bars and restraunts, nearby gasoline stations..... Surely this would be economic growth in Detroit.

[MikeM]

http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/in...velopment.html

To understand the former Tiger Stadium site, you have to understand that Detroit's economy is unlike any other place in the United States or, really, anywhere within the G7 group of nations. We're tin-pot, not world-class, and Detroit can't be a world-class city without a world-class economy.

The city's largest landowner is the city itself. Five of Detroit's ten largest employers are government entities. Three more [[Henry Ford Health System, Detroit Medical Center, and Wayne State) are quasi-governmental public institutions. Only General Motors [[#8) and Chrysler [[#9) are legitimately private enterprises, but they required government intervention to avoid liquidation.

Even emerging employers like Compuware [[with a significant government and hospital business), Quicken Loans [[Fannie/Freddie-backed mortgages), and Blue Cross/Blue Shield [[a specially-regulated/chartered non-profit) would be, at least, very different enterprises in a truly free market. I'm not dogging any of those firms -- just pointing out how far out-of-whack the balance between public and truly private economic activity is in Detroit. Adam Smith doesn't live here anymore.

So we have to consider Detroit through a different economic lens than almost any other municipality or market. When Jackson turns down Chevrolet's offer to redevelop the Tiger Stadium site into a first-class ballpark, he says the property has major development value. He isn't saying that it would fetch a high price if it were auctioned off tomorrow, or even three years from now. He's saying that, in the vacuum of real estate metrics, Tiger Stadium has certain advantages that another site [[say, the Love Canal) may not have.

Unfortunately, in the real world, that's not how value is assigned. Something is only as valuable as what someone will spend [[in time, money, and effort) on it. For Tiger Stadium, the site's only real value [[as determined by the marketplace) is as a baseball field. Guys like George Jackson don't get that concept because they manage Detroit's Hyman Roth-like command economy from inside this artificial economy's protective bubble.

[corktownyuppie]

http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/in...velopment.html

+1 Jeff Wattrick.

[[is this Jeff Wattrick, U-D Jesuit '96?)

[Khartoum]

I wonder if it was calculated how much revenue would be given to existing businesses by having softball leagues play there nearly every night? I'm sure that this would bring new business to Brooks Lumber, sevaral bars and restraunts, nearby gasoline stations..... Surely this would be economic growth in Detroit.

I'm failing to see where George Jackson is getting paid in this scenario...

[MikeM]

[[is this Jeff Wattrick, U-D Jesuit '96?)

He can't answer you here...you'll have to contact him through MLive.

[animatedmartian]

http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/in...velopment.html

Unicorn farms and rainbow factories don't sound too bad.

[MSUguy]

Potential developers, including major retailers, would not want to get involved in the site if it meant dislodging a community or youth baseball
league, Jackson said.

http://www.freep.com/article/2011091...r-Stadium-site

I guess kinda see this being a potential PR problem its not like developers are not knocking the door though. I didn't this mention but OP article links about the DEGC turning a development in March. Now maybe it wasn't feasable, but you gotta wonder if it really just wasn't flashy enough for Mr. Jackson's taste

The Corner Development: Detroit rejects $65.3M proposal for 'living
building,' charter school, retail and housing at old Tiger Stadium
site


You might not know it by looking at it, but the northwest corner of Michigan
and Trumbull in Detroit still has a lot going for it: The 9.4-acre property has
a rich history as former home of Tiger Stadium, sits in a relatively-stable
neighborhood, enjoys tax-free renaissance zone status and qualifies for a $3.8
million federal earmark for redevelopment.


Here's what the city-owned parcel won't have any time soon:
Michigan's first "living building," the headquarters of two prominent
nonprofits, a charter school, retail shops and housing -- all surrounding a
rehabilitated ball field re-purposed as a community recreation center.


The Detroit Economic Development Corporation earlier this
month rejected a $65.3 million redevelopment proposal for the site, citing
"significant concerns about the overall financial feasibility" of the project in
a letter to organizers.

"I knew it wasn't a sure thing," said Thom Linn, who helped
put together the proposal and serves as president of the Old Tiger Stadium
Conservancy. "But it would have been an amazing plan. It would have been a major
draw for Southwest Detroit and Corktown."

[Novine]

As usual, Wattrick nails it.

[preserve]

I'm just patiently waiting for the nail salon and LA Insurance office and Instant Pay Check
to open. Isn't that what we all wanted years ago when Archer put together a team to
propose development?

[ferntruth]

I'm just patiently waiting for the nail salon and LA Insurance office and Instant Pay Check
to open. Isn't that what we all wanted years ago when Archer put together a team to
propose development?

You forgot cell phone store


At least Chevrolet is keeping the offer on the table, hopefully the offer will be reconsidered.

[stromberg2]

Look, the bottom line is, and I hope I don't get trashed, that they [[outsiders) are not wanted around here. City officials would gladly accept the above ^^ proposals. A nice ballfield for kids....are you kidding...when we can open yet another hair salon! I can't believe the countless times I have heard these morons in city gov't turn down grants and so forth, because "they don't look like me". Thank you for the quote, Monica!

Stromberg2

[corktownyuppie]

Look, the bottom line is, and I hope I don't get trashed, that they [[outsiders) are not wanted around here. City officials would gladly accept the above ^^ proposals. A nice ballfield for kids....are you kidding...when we can open yet another hair salon! I can't believe the countless times I have heard these morons in city gov't turn down grants and so forth, because "they don't look like me". Thank you for the quote, Monica!

Stromberg2

That may be true...I just don't think that that's what's going on here. Like them or hate them, DEGC was instrumental in getting the Book Cadillac and Whole Foods into town. I'd hardly call those projects "catering to the masses in Detroit".

I will agree that there better not be a Metro PCS and an LA Insurance when we could at least have a nice park to play at. I don't know the history on this...is the DEGC known for building stripmalls?

[hhockey]

I would lay odds that the property will still be void of any developement two years from now if not longer.

[Steve bennet]

The city of Detroit is a dump. Does this news surprise anybody?

[stromberg2]

^^^
Yep, it wouldn't be Detroit without open fields littered with condoms and potato chip bags...Better Made, of course.

Stromberg2

[kraig]

I need to contact Chevrolet. There are a few Ballparks on the east side that have been ignored for decades. No offense to the Southwest side and Corktown, but we get way more attention [[still not enough) than the East Side, hell, the bulk of the Northeast side of Detroit receives less attention than Delray,

[Patrick]

Put an Ikea there!

[ferntruth]

Put an Ikea there!

You made me laugh out loud!

[wolverine]

They want to ink massive deals, but don't understand that places developing best in the city are conglomerations of small businesses in small- to medium-sized existing buildings. Midtown. Southwest. Corktown. They don't even understand or communicate with the neighborhood residents or understand their needs or desires.

Thank you, spot on.

[Huggybear]

I'm curious about why anyone thought this had any chance of succeeding.

The whole OTSC thing fell apart - as told by one of the articles linked to the MLive one - because the OTSC plan was insufficiently financed to do what it wanted to do. My suspicion is that people in positions of power also assessed the economic development end of it - which was not net positive, or at least not what a huge site like that could command with freeway frontage on one side and Michigan Avenue on the other. The city also made it clear that it was not going to vest any rights in the property to OTSC. Whereupon OTSC [[or its supporters) started getting vitriolic on the city and DDA and DEGC and anyone else that had any involvement.

Now Chevrolet [[or one of its execs) enters the picture with an offer to put some effort into renovating the field [[only). The catch is that someone has to maintain it. The choices Chevy presents are [[a) the City [[which can't afford it) or [[b) OTSC, which has a very poor relationship with the city and has made no secret that it wants permanent control of the ball field, period.

I've seen the usual convergent cynicism [["city sucks," "city doesn't no what it's doing," "city doesn't care about history," and other bromides). And to that, I'll pose my own divergent cynical response: the Chevy offer was either a PR stunt or fantastically misinformed.

First, the premise: youth baseball is not played on major-league-sized fields [[it's played on an infield whose linear dimensions are only 2/3 the size of a professional field). What exactly was going to happen here? Building a pitcher's mound at 40 feet? Building 60 foot baselines inside the 90 foot ones?

Second, the need: Nearby high schools and parks [[ahem, Clark?) already have properly-sized fields. High schools have their own [[larger) fields. Why not renovate one of those? Belle Isle would be a great place to develop this.

Third, the partners: the bankruptcy of the City of Detroit is notorious, and the bad relationship with OTSC was all over the papers. Did this executive ever read the papers? Or was this the kind of goodwill check that no one would ever cash?

It is possible that this was a genuine gesture that simply lacked information, but why not research the situation first?

So if the powers that be didn't want to play ball with OTSC a couple of years ago when it had an unworkable plan [[albeit a plan) and weak financing, why would they change course simply because someone was offering to do work on the field? It still doesn't change an immovable assumption - that the city doesn't want any legal [[or arguably legal) entanglements with the property until it is successfully marketed [[and to address someone's point, there is probably a written agreement that requires Compuware to vacate the Lafayette block at the command of the DDA - and if you believe that OTSC would agree to such a provision, I have a second span to sell you).

The quote misattributed to Einstein is that crazy people do the same thing again and again and expect different results, but whoever said it needs to get that message to OTSC. Tom Linn was a class act [[and continues to be - you'll note that he is the first to admit that the development plan was not all he wanted it to be), but his acolytes exhibit such a lack of advocacy skills - here and in other public fora - that they probably hurt more than they are helping.

We all find ourselves working with, for and against "idiots" on a daily basis; the key is figuring out how to get what we want by understanding what the "idiots" want and learning to communicate with them. If some of the people who are in [[or support) OTSC ever learned this lesson [[one that Coleman Young took to heart), they would be out looking for a job-intensive development [[and bigtime developer) who saw value in having a historic ballfield on-site - rather than being aimlessly confrontational with what will be the power structure for the conceivable future. You've no doubt heard the dictum that making ad hominem attacks is the mark of people who have no better argument.

I don't frankly see how anyone so far has ever catalogued the city's list of manifested concerns and preferences [[without which, no one is ever going to succeed in getting a ballfield-friendly development). I think we can compile the following, which I think we can all agree are either supported by history or fairly supportable:

- The city has huge problems with land acquistion and title fights; hence it is not going to cloud the title to the Tiger Stadium site, even superficially, and it is unlikely to convey any interest in the property without a solid development agreement and a reverter.

- A development needs to have a large net economic impact to get any traction. There are several things at work here. First, the city is not going to blow this parcel on a couple of tiny stores that employ a handful of people, a seasonal baseball field, a subsidized residential complex, and a school in a city with massive school overcapacity. Whether you look at it from a tax generation standpoint, a jobs generation standpoint, or just the general pain in the neck, there's little incentive to even engage a project like that. Second, if you look at the scant resources the city actually puts into the DDA and DEGC, those organizations are not going to prioritize small-impact projects [[they're more likely to go after things like getting 3,500 BCBS people and 1,500 Quicken people into downtown workplaces). And since the DDA is funded in part by its inventory of property, it is not going to give the property away for a dollar - even if that means waiting a while. It's going to hold out for a good price or what it considers a sufficiently beneficial project. My speculation is that the city is looking for something that will draw major traffic [[and peripheral traffic) to the site [[and Corktown). People joke about Ikea, but look at the corridor it occupies.

- A development needs solid financing - and the type of financing that OTSC proposed either did not represent sufficient owner's equity, sufficient amount, or both for the city's taste.

- The Tiger Stadium site is 9.5 acres, not likely to be contaminated, and sits on two major road corridors. Your best comp in the CBD [[the fomer Detroit General/Receiving site) was purchased by Wayne County for $7 million [[or about $1 million/acre). Again, this isn't going to be given away as a gift without a pretty compelling reason

The city does not view the ballfield as having inherent value. I'm sure that if you came in with the right project that wanted it to stay,it would stay. But I don't think there is any scenario in which OTSC [[or any other nonprofit/nonprofit use) is going to acquire that site - or any part of it - from the city. The city will probably allow a semi-permissive use [[a blind eye) until it gets a developer on board. It will not do or sign anything that makes it look like it has less than the 100% right to control the site.

My personal view, as a Detroit person who went to many, many games at the old park, is that there is nothing sacred about a baseball field and that we taxpayers have paid enough to maintain that site as a stadium over the years [[even when it was open). It's time to make that site do something that improves the quality of life for the city as a whole, not just the desires of the "community" [[a word special interests often invoke to lend credence to ther own desires). If the goal is to retain middle class families with disposable income and keep their money in the city, the best use of this site might be a large [[and architecturally appropriate) retail center that makes at least a token attempt to stem the hundreds of millions in retail leakage that occurs because Detroiters can't buy middle-class basics.

So my bottom line [[and sorry to be so long-winded) is that the best way to save the field is to help find someone with money and know-how who can be convinced that it adds value to his/her project. Anything else is just banging your head into the wall.