Major COBO Renovations Announced This Morning

[WALD0123]

Very impressed as well. Opening up Cobo to the city and the river and thereby making a monolith more congruent with the urban space is a huge step in the right direction. And I agree that Detroit did not need to go over 1 million square feet to compete with Chicago and Vegas. Now if we can figure out a plan for the other hockey-based, shut off, monolith next door...

[drjeff]

The big advantage Cobo has is that it's in the middle of downtown. The Chicago convention center, while huge, is in a horrible location. There's nowhere to stay and nothing to do nearby.

[Detroitnerd]

It's a nice design, but I wonder if we are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into saturating a market that already has a fixed number of event planners.

[DetroitHabitater]

An upgraded faster people mover too! Haha

[stinkytofu]

It's a nice design, but I wonder if we are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into saturating a market that already has a fixed number of event planners.

Isn't the idea to draw conventions that are currently going to other similarly sized cities due to their better convention centers?

[Detroitnerd]

Isn't the idea to draw conventions that are currently going to other similarly sized cities due to their better convention centers?

For the exhibition center, yes. But so many institutions are trying to reinvent themselves as locations for galas or fundraisers or conferences, I wonder about the "breakout" rooms and other places that will compete with, say, the new conference facilities at the DIA. Won't we have a lot of people chasing the same dollars that go to mid-size/smaller events with these new smaller rooms at Cobo?

Don't get me wrong. I like the redesign. I just wonder about building all these new small spaces when we already have plenty of small/mid-size venues.

And, frankly, what I'd like to see more of is anything that will create street life, or encourage smaller businesses to fill up downtown. And this is not a frivolous complaint. We've seen 30-40 years now during which billions have been poured into making these big-block developments that are often self-contained, almost like an airport, where drive into a parking structure and needn't leave for any reason [[Millinder Center, Renaissance Center, Cobo, JLA, Greektown, MGM, etc.), even to the point where they build tubeways so you needn't walk on the street. How about finally trying to support some street-level, mom-and-pop stuff for a change? Just sayin'.

Anyway, I must admit, it looks better in the rendering.

[R8RBOB]

. Now if we can figure out a plan for the other hockey-based, shut off, monolith next door...

I had the same question. I like the plan for Cobo but the question of Joe Louis Arena still remains. I would have liked for the Cobo board to somehow make used of the hotel that is right across from Cobo.

[p1acebo]

I had the same question. I like the plan for Cobo but the question of Joe Louis Arena still remains. I would have liked for the Cobo board to somehow make used of the hotel that is right across from Cobo.

+1 to that, it would be one less empty building put to use.