Pontiac Silverdome - what's happening with it?

[night-timer]

Title kind of says it all. Can anyone give me info on the current state, or future plans, for this sport stadium?

[subsidized]

Here's a link to a story from a few days ago with pictures of the current state of the interior.

http://m.clickondetroit.com/news/uni...rdome/25711274

Here's another link from a few days ago about the upcoming auction. Hell, you can buy a seat right now and it comes with a piece of the roof.

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

[compn]

In my opinion, the silverdome is facing the same thing thats happening to detroit.

Competiting monopoly billionaires have conspired to let the silverdome rot. in order to get people to use their stadiums and parking lots. the city and state are ineffective in using the property, due to corruption and bribes from said billionaires.

The current tenants have decided to scrap it and sell off anything of value. after purchasing the property for a huge amount of money, only to find the resale value drop due to banks pumping and dumping the entire real estate market.

In the end, the seats will be sold, the current tenants will [[in my non slandering opinion) take the money and run. leaving a decrepit husk of a building for the grafiti taggers to claim as their own. soon the city will find it costs way too much to demolish the building and it will rot for the next 50+ years just like the michigan central station or packard plant buildings.

That or it will be demolished very quickly like tigers stadium and we'll be left with a field in the middle of a giant parking lot. perfect for outdoor events, but the city again will be barred from utilizing the property due to competiting interests. just like tiger stadium. to kill any chance of it turning into competition, someone will offer to build a cell phone store on the property and no more public events will be allowed.

Same with joe louis arena.

[jimmyr]

In my opinion, the silverdome is facing the same thing thats happening to detroit.

Competiting monopoly billionaires have conspired to let the silverdome rot.

Oh my God, please stop with this conspiracy crap. It was poorly designed, ugly, too big and in the middle of nowhere [[in the armpit of Oakland County). The multi-million dollar "proposals" were just as flimsy as the Packard Plant fantasies. It sold for $600,000 because the cost to tear the worthless stadium down is probably $10M. The property free and clear is worth less than $10M, or else it would have already been torn down and re-sold [[duh!).

Pontiac should probably condemn the place and sue the owner for a portion of the demo. With that said, as an Oakland County taxpayer, I am not eager to spend x amount of millions in taxpayer dollars to make a huge parking lot in Pontiac that will never be developed. Much more pressing issues that are deserving of our tax dollars.

[GUSHI]

he stole the dome, didn't he pay like half a million or something, for a large chunk of land in the Oc.

[401don]

he stole the dome, didn't he pay like half a million or something, for a large chunk of land in the Oc.

Yeah it's not like Pontiac mismanaged it or anything.

[rb336]

Yeah it's not like Pontiac mismanaged it or anything.

The tiny minds of Pontiac's city council nixed a multi-million dollar deal just months prior

[DetroitPlanner]

The tiny minds of Pontiac's city council nixed a multi-million dollar deal just months prior

Can you provide information on what development the council 'nixed'? I don't recall anything like that.

[rb336]

Can you provide information on what development the council 'nixed'? I don't recall anything like that.

There were, I think, THREE separate RFPs issued prior to the sale to the current owner. I think the lowest purchase price was over $15 million. Many of the proposals were from deep-pocketed developers including Schostak and Etkin. A lot of them were very interesting. All of them except one [[for a racino, of all things) were rejected by the council, usually over very petty things. This was BIG news back then.

[jimmyr]

Oh and rumor has it the seedy owner is gunning for an insurance claim, no doubt worth several times what he paid for it.

[Whaler]

When I was a kid 64-67...We rode our Mini-Bikes to where the Silverdome stands.....It was hills with bikes going up and down!!!!!...Looks like it is reverting back to that ....I know some people that own property right by there...Value has really Dipped!!!!...Whaler

[hybridy]

The Silverdome + Bloomfield Park are a large blemish on OC's pretty face. What's LBP to do?

[jimmyr]

The Silverdome + Bloomfield Park are a large blemish on OC's pretty face. What's LBP to do?

Safe to assume LBP has done a cost-benefit analysis and decided to worry about more important things than spending $10-15M of tax payers dollars to tear down things on land nobody has approached him about developing.

[rb336]

Safe to assume LBP has done a cost-benefit analysis and decided to worry about more important things than spending $10-15M of tax payers dollars to tear down things on land nobody has approached him about developing.

THOSE people [[poor, working class) live there, LBP doesn't care

[Wesley Mouch]

THOSE people [[poor, working class) live there, LBP doesn't care

County government is about infrastructure. Its not their job to care for the poor. That should be a state-level function -- not dependent on county-wide wealth or poverty.

A question for you... do you think politicians 'caring' matters much? Me, I'll take a rat-bastard that runs a great ship. That's the job of a county executive.

LBP, continue to ignore the poor, and make the county a place where things get done and the economy improves and people get jobs because of the economy, not just from corporate welfare designed to make you look 'caring'.

[Bham1982]

A question for you... do you think politicians 'caring' matters much? Me, I'll take a rat-bastard that runs a great ship. That's the job of a county executive.

Yup. LBP is a jerk but a very effective county executive. The county could hardly be better run, with minimal staffing, very controlled costs, top-notch services, and top credit rating.

The Silverdome site will almost certainly become warehouse/logistics type space. Nothing else makes much financial sense.

[motz]

The Silverdome + Bloomfield Park are a large blemish on OC's pretty face. What's LBP to do?

Blame it on someone other than himself even though he championed both projects at the time of their announcement. If LBP actually fessed up to how stupid he was for celebrating/promoting deals and such that were either far too ambitious or just downright dumb, I'm pretty sure a black hole would open up and suck Oakland County right into it.

[WaCoTS]

theres a been a few stories lately about the Dome...couple links i found with decent interior photos:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/0...usaolp00000592

this guy actually went up on top of the dome before it was deflated:
http://www.nailhed.com/2014/01/sunda...ay-sunday.html

i cant find the other one but it was a TV interview with fans who were buying old seats from the place.

[MikeyinBrooklyn]

The Silverdome owner made a spectacularly wise investment in a giant piece of real estate in central Oakland County. He bought it for less than my small apartment in Brooklyn would have sold for, had it been for sale. He bought when the market was way, way down. I'm amazed no one else with money competed for it. He'll either develop it one day, or more likely, sell at a massive gain to a different developer, or many developers, the site is so huge. It'll take time, but they will realize a gigantic profit on the investment. As I've also written here before, Pontiac is so anxious for major revenue from the site that I bet they will be very lenient with zoning and permitting for any development there.

[jimmyr]

The Silverdome owner made a spectacularly wise investment in a giant piece of real estate in central Oakland County. He bought it for less than my small apartment in Brooklyn would have sold for, had it been for sale. He bought when the market was way, way down. I'm amazed no one else with money competed for it. He'll either develop it one day, or more likely, sell at a massive gain to a different developer, or many developers, the site is so huge. It'll take time, but they will realize a gigantic profit on the investment. As I've also written here before, Pontiac is so anxious for major revenue from the site that I bet they will be very lenient with zoning and permitting for any development there.

Did you forgot about a $10M piece of cement and steel located on that "prime real estate"? That cuts a bit into your fantasy margins. And also, Pontiac hasn't been prime real estate in 50 years. The land has value, sure, but the value doesn't exceed the cost of the demolition, or it would have been demoed and flipped already.

[MikeyinBrooklyn]

Jimmy, the teardown of the Silverdome is going to be a big expense. You are of course right about that. Fortunately, there are 160 development-ready acres surrounding it to absorb that expense. And, outside of the structure, the land is clear and ready to go. There is no other comparably large piece of land in SE Michigan in such a prime location.

Also, Pontiac is currently, by most measures, in the best shape in years. There is real development downtown, the city budget is in order, and the OC economy, including Pontiac, is growing again. The site is also adjacent to both I-75 and M59. It could be home to a huge light industrial park, thousands of apartments and condos, a shopping mall, office buildings, a college satellite campus, or possibly all of those things.

They bought low and will sell high.

[Packman41]

Jimmy, the teardown of the Silverdome is going to be a big expense. You are of course right about that. Fortunately, there are 160 development-ready acres surrounding it to absorb that expense. And, outside of the structure, the land is clear and ready to go. There is no other comparably large piece of land in SE Michigan in such a prime location.

Ahhhh… no. There are comparable sites nearby.

About 1.5 miles due south of the Silverdome on Opdyke Road is the former Pontiac Truck Plant site. It is 162 acres in size – so both are comparable is size. All of the buildings have been torn down and it is ready for development now. It has been listed here for about a year now: http://www.loopnet.com/Listing/18219...ad-Pontiac-MI/

While you might quibble about which site has the better freeway access, the Pontiac Truck site has direct rail access [[desirable for industrial development), whereas the Silverdome site is not near any rail lines. Asking price for the Pontiac Truck site $3.40 per square foot.

[Danny]

The Sliverdome is long gone!! I'm glad the Lions are back in Gilberttown Detroit.

[mtburb]

The Sliverdome is long gone!! I'm glad the Lions are back in Gilberttown Detroit.

And all because Illitch wanted to captalize off of the success of the then-new Gateway District in downtown Cleveland and wanted to do his own version to compliment his restored Fox Theater.

And now his version now extends across I-75 and all the way to Grand River.

[jimmyr]

You are dreaming. If it was so sought after the seedy owners wouldn't be trying to cash in some absurd insurance claim. This property is a turd and that's why some broke and sketchy "developers" landed it.