Last night, Dave Bing stated, in his State of the City Speech, that he would announce plans for the long awaited police headquarters in 60 days.

Let the speculation begin...

A few months back, there were rumors on the United Artists Building, as stated by Matty Moroun, that the building was to be renovated for a governmental entity. Since then, work has slowed on the building, and last night's speech has a lot of coincidences, at the least.

1) Bing stated, that they were finalizing the financing of the project. If the UA is to be the site of the new Police Headquarters, this would explain why work has stopped following cleanup, because monies have not yet been appropriated for the project.

2) The UA is a large building, larger than the current Police Headquarters, at 18 stories, it provides extra space. If the building, as rumored, is being renovated for a governmental entity, what possible entity, that is in need of a new facility, is possibly large enough to fill a building of this size?? I can't think of many.

3) With direct access to the People Mover, and its proximity to Woodward Avenue [[with LRT on the way), this makes a whole lot of sense for tha sake of people who will work at or need access to the building, a much more favorable location to Greektown, near where the current DPD Headquaters is.

4) With 2 adjacent vacant lots [[Statler and Tuller Sites), there is ample room for parking for not only, well, patrons of the building, but for public service vehicles, in secure private spaces.

5) It is entirely possible that this has been in the works for a while, well before Bing's time, and is just now coming to fruition. With the shroud of secrecy over nearly everything the Ilitches do, it would not be suprising if the UA was the location. Last time there was an announcement about new Police Headquarters [[at MCS), a public announcement was made. But, if it is actually the UA that could be the new Police Headquarters, the Ilitches likely wanted to keep everything hush-hush until financing was secured, which is why there has been no announcement.

Just the fact that there has been no announcement, is reason enough to believe that the Ilitches are involved, as almost every other developer in town would be asking for you to bow to them already.

Obviously time will tell what actually happens, but based on everything above, what do you all think??