Quote Originally Posted by 3WC View Post
The DTE park parcel was at one time owned by DTE and an Ilitch entity and was planned as commercial development. There was a lot of publicity, much negative, about the deal at the time [[when the Tigers ballpark was slated for the site.)

Make no mistake, the site behind the Fox was always the preferred site of a Tiger Stadium. When it comes down to it, money does not hinder Olympia's development plans, but when they could not make a deal with the Alibri family, who insisted on a piece of Motor City in addition to cash for their lots, they had to move to the current site. When you consider how much the Alibri family turned down for their sites you'd have to consider them idiots. However, recall that the city condemned their lots in order to turn them over the Olympia, [[Alibris were forced under the quick take condemnation statute to take what the City offered, and they did, but sued to overturn the "sale" and won; they paid back the City the amount they received and retained title to their lots.) Then they refused to sell. They have enough money and it didn't make any difference to them. [[Mama Alibri had sold most of her land East of Woodward to Olympia to permit the current stadium to be built.) Revenge is sweet, even though costly at times.

It is no surprise the Ilitch family never sells any land they've acquired. Mike and Marian view the family as a dynasty and their long term plans go out as long as a hundred years. They do have long term plans for everything they own.
This post suggests to me one reason why I do NOT criticize, second guess, etc. folks who are trying to do site assembly for something big.

This story is one for a real estate text book.

This also gives reason to why I'm in favor of limited eminent domain. Much of rhetoric is that people are 'rational actors' and will do the 'right thing', so make them a fair offer...

So getting back to a discussion: Development behind the Fox. So that area is like a DONUT. The Ilitches own most of it but there is a BIG HOLE in the middle of it.

Ugh!!