Quote Originally Posted by Bham1982 View Post
This topic is a perfect metaphor for why Metro Detroit has such crappy business districts.

There's apparently a consensus that having a soccer lawn/parking moat, with 15 annual matches, is apparently a better urban use than a dense building with hundreds of employees and thousands of visitors, with active 7 day traffic.

Somehow places like Manhattan have jails and seem to thrive. Not too many soccer fields in the middle of business districts, though. Both NYC-area MLS teams play well outside the city center.
This really downplays what Gilbert and Gores want to do with the site.

Gilbert isn't the type of developer [[Illitch) to develop something and surround it with a sea of parking. He already shuttles employees downtown from the New Center and corktown areas. If he wanted to build more parking structures downtown he could do so.

Also, this wouldn't just be 15 events a year. It would be ~15 matches of a Detroit MLS team, but it would also have the possibility of hosting rugby, lacrosse, concerts, and other events. In Ann Arbor the past few years, the big house has hosted a match between a couple foreign teams and it sells out easily. Having a stadium built for soccer would allow the region to host more big events like that.

Worst case, this would literally only host 17 matches each year. More likely, though, it would be at least double that and would spur more development nearby.