Silverdome Sold for $583,000....

[christos]

http://www.detnews.com/article/20091...for-Silverdome

Wonder what they will do with it? Any ideas?

[buildingsofdetroit]

Blow that schitt up.

[iheartthed]

I can see the headlines now: You can buy a stadium in suburban Detroit for what it costs to buy a couple of parking spots in Manhattan.

[urbanoutdoors]

I am surprised it is so low... You cannot buy 127 acres up north for that cheap let alone a 80000 seat stadium to boot...

[buildingsofdetroit]

I am surprised it is so low... You cannot buy 127 acres up north for that cheap let alone a 80000 seat stadium to boot...

The cost of having to implode the stadium was probably a factor in the bid.

[urbanoutdoors]

The cost of having to implode the stadium was probably a factor in the bid.

Possibly but it is said they are trying to lure a pro soccer team to the site... I doubt they would start from scratch for that....

[Dan]

God, I hope they don't bring pro soccer.

Does anyone in Metro Detroit actually care about soccer?

[Johnlodge]

Possibly but it is said they are trying to lure a pro soccer team to the site... I doubt they would start from scratch for that....

That's a lot of seats considering the 4 people who would show up.

[artds]

I am surprised it is so low... You cannot buy 127 acres up north for that cheap let alone a 80000 seat stadium to boot...

You're not factoring in the liabilities assocaited with the property.

A hundred or so acres up north don't cost you million of dollars each year in maintenance, nor do they require tens of millions in demolition costs to turn them into undeveloped land.

[iheartthed]

You're not factoring in the liabilities assocaited with the property.

A hundred or so acres up north don't cost you million of dollars each year in maintenance, nor do they require tens of millions in demolition costs to turn them into undeveloped land.

Uh... You all are way overplaying how much the cost of demolition factored into this transaction. If the property was actually worth say... $10M, and cost of demolition was $5M, then the property would still fetch bids well above $583,000. But the buyer apparently doesn't even plan to demolish it. So all the talk about cost of demolition is moot.

[[And I doubt that it would cost $5M to demolish this property... A quick Google search says that it cost about $7M to demo the Hudson's building downtown. I'm no civil engineer, but the Hudson's building seems like it was a much more complicated demolition than the Silverdome would be -- considering that the Hudson's building needed asbestos removal and was located in a far more densely built area than the Silverdome.)

The bottom line is that the city of Pontiac just sold the Silverdome for a fraction of what it cost them to build it nearly 40 years ago [[whether you use 2009 inflation dollars or 1973 dollars). The Silverdome was just sold for less than the cost of a Ferrari.

Wikipedia says that the stadium costs $55.7M to build in 1973. In terms of raw dollars, it means that the Silverdome just sold for roughly 1% of what it cost them to build it. That's a 99% loss in raw dollars. The news gets substantially worse if you factor in inflation. You see, $55.7M in 1975 [[the year the stadium opened) is roughly $220.5M in 2008 dollars. So the inflation adjusted loss is... effectively 100%. Just factoring in cost of the property alone, the city of Pontiac lost virtually its total investment into the property.

By any sane measurement, the city of Pontiac is not better off for having been home to the Lions for 25 years. The city is no more wealthy than it was in the mid-70s. Real estate is obviously not much more attractive than it was back in the 1970s.

[Bong-Man]

You seem to be forgetting some parking & advertising revenue. Also, Featherstone & Squirrel wasn't exactly hopping before the 'dome. There certainly wasn't as much spin-off business as opposed to a downtown location, but it was there.

[Danny]

What the Sliverdome needs is a new WNBA team. We should called it the Pontiac Frontiers.

[river rat]

We live in a market economy [[fortunately) and therefore the $583,000 price is the value of the property to a speculator. I say a speculator because the value of any property in SE Michigan is very questionable. Taxes are overwhelmingly high, services virtually non-existant and the future as bleak as ever. The State of Michigan is not immune, and nor far, from default on its obligations. Other states have similiar problems in this economy. Why buy anything here?

Well, hope springs eternal in the speculator as it does in the electorate. Here we are a year after the election and I don't see any jobs blooming and sure enough, unemployment is going up. Hope didn't pan out as a leader as it did as a candidate. And the investor who purchased this white elephant will be disillusioned and run when the taxes increase again and again. Despite massive unemployment, the speculator will find that noone will work for under $15/hr. because they will get that for sitting on their bum. Then the regulators will make rules that will dicourage him and the project will be abandoned.

The answer is to allow real speculators in in an environment friendly to business. SE Michigan is not that place. Sorry to make it political and economical, but thats the problem.

River Rat lives

[Trainman]

There are another two White Elephants that should also be sold

SMART and DDOT can and should be sold for one dollar each.

There are many private companies that can run bus service at a profit by filling up buses with paying customers.

It costs too much according to top state officials at MDOT to pay state fuel taxes for our bus systems and they are forcing a merger to save on costs. But, that will still cost too much based on statistics from the Federal Transit Database.

Vote NO to defeat the SMART tax next August

Let's dump off the White Elephants, like the city of Pontiac did

[dfunkycity]

I can see the headlines now: You can buy a stadium in suburban Detroit for what it costs to buy a couple of parking spots in Manhattan.

Well not exactly a couple but a few.

I just found the news obscene. I wonder if I could get the owners in NYC to sell e Madison Square Garden for $750,000?

I figured if I showed them this story and what I am offering them that they would realize I was offering them a great deal.

[iheartthed]

Well not exactly a couple but a few.

I just found the news obscene. I wonder if I could get the owners in NYC to sell e Madison Square Garden for $750,000?

I figured if I showed them this story and what I am offering them that they would realize I was offering them a great deal.

Depends on what 'hood you're trying to park. You may be able to purchase a three or four spaces uptown for ~$600K, but downtown... In most places it will only get you a couple:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/12/us/12parking.html

[jbd441]

Depends on what 'hood you're trying to park. You may be able to purchase a three or four spaces uptown for ~$600K, but downtown... In most places it will only get you a couple:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/12/us/12parking.html

Notice that article is from 2007. I wonder if there are any parking space foreclosures in NYC.

[crawford]

I can see the headlines now: You can buy a stadium in suburban Detroit for what it costs to buy a couple of parking spots in Manhattan.

I know a relatively new condo near Central Park where spaces cost $325,000 a pop, so you could not even buy two parking spaces for the price of the Silverdome.

Of course, the Silverdome is a drag on the price. If the land were vacant, I imagine it would sell for somewhat more [[though it's in Pontiac and there's a gigantic glut of commercial space along I-75, so who knows).

[DetroitPlanner]

CFL Expansion team?

[Grundyke]

The price is a steal even factoring in that land has virtually no value today and it costs 1.5 million a year in upkeep. If they get the soccer it is a winning proposition hands down. Not to mention they will probably get the monster truck and supercrosses back. The only reason why they left in the first place for Ford Field is Pontiac did not want to run it and did not want to put on the shows. Even with crappy accoustics they could probably get a few concerts a year. Put it into prospective, if they get 60,000 people for the monster trucks which they used to, figure 12-15 thousand cars. Call it $5 for parking for each car [[which we know it will cost more to park there) comes out to $60,000-$75000 alone for one night! Figure in everything else like $8 beer and $5 sodas and you have a potential goldmine at that price. If soccer does come they win, period. You dont have to like soccer, the team does not have to win [[Lions prove that every week and turn a profit), and it does not even have to last at that price. Reopening the movie theater and weekend flee markets in the summer outdoors and indoor flea markets on off weekends in the winter would just help the place. They did not buy it to implode. That just makes no sense. There are empty offices, industrial sites, and vacant land all over Michigan and the country if that was there thinking. Plus we do not know what canadian company bought it yet. Probably a company that could afford too!

[casscorridor]

Demolish!!!!!

If anything gets built it will be a strip plaza with big box stores, a definate improvement from that hulk. Suburban stadiums are dead. Next up: The Place. I can not wait to see that meet the wrecking ball!

[casscorridor]

Demolish!!!!!

If anything gets built it will be a strip plaza with big box stores, a definate improvement from that hulk. Suburban stadiums are dead. Next up: The Palace of Auburn Hills. I can not wait to see that meet the wrecking ball!

[1KielsonDrive]

For that price, I'm surprised Illitch didn't buy it and make Pontiac guarantee a couple hundred thou a year in security and maintenance fees.

[RickBeall]

Crap! I missed my chance for a new rec room!

[kenp]

couldnt scrap all the metal for a lot more then $500,000.

Detroit Express were a very good Pro soccer team in the late 70's that played at the Silverdome, Trevor Francis was the big star.