New Old tiger Stadium plans?

[gthomas]

from sources, city denied this plan. Surprise no one mention this;

[Junkin4Life]

when was this????

[esp1986]

There was a story about this on MLive a couple weeks ago now. I thought it looked like a good proposal. City rejected it because of "funding concerns."

If the city is meriting these projects based on funding, we may never see the site redeveloped. No matter who steps forward with a plan, it will be tooth and nail to make it a financially viable project in the city. If someone comes forward with a good plan and only minor financing issues, the DEGC would be smart to use one of their forgiveable loans if they really want to get the site redeveloped.

[DetroitPlanner]

Considering the region lost 140,000 school-aged children over the last ten years, do we need to invest in new schools? If the average school has 500 kids this means we have an extra capacity in our current school system for at least 280 children.

Just because charter schools are seen as having deep pockets, those pockets can only be filled by taking money away from other schools [[be them charter or public).

I would suggest looking for something else that can improve the quality of life for those currently in the Neighborhood. For example the Corktown neighborhood could use some type of variety or drug store.

[gthomas]

Esp1986, that sounds like it can work. I agree, that will be great there and more viable for the neighborhood than a huge parking lot with some national retailer smack down there. I like the plan, its not a dead deal yet. They mention if they come back with proper funding the city will grant the project. Could they use some money from the organization that everyone gave money to, to save tiger stadium/?

[gthomas]

Detroit planner: [I would suggest looking for something else that can improve the quality of life for those currently in the Neighborhood. For example the Corktown neighborhood could use some type of variety or drug store.]

"Improve quality of life"...?? a drug store? MORE VALUABLE than proposal project? On one of the most unique real estate property? A DRUG STORE....NOOOO. I believe this project will help the neighborhood. more greenspace and mix use property. Bringing life back into that corner. A drug store will not do that on that corner...lol cant be serious.

[BrushStart]

I am working on a proposal for the Tiger Stadium site with a partner in the baseball world. The plan is still in its infancy, but would keep the field intact, and include the building of an indoor baseball facility. Right now we are projecting this to be on a 2-year time line, but I'm thinking 2-4 is more realistic. I don't want to say more than that right now, but as it develops I will try to post information as we go.

[gthomas]

We need schools, theyre only closing schools due to lack of funding... we cant afford to keep and maintain them. Classes in public are CROWDED, up to 40 students in each class. Theres also office and retail included w/ playing field and historic markers. Great project I think...

[DetroitPlanner]

Classes are not crowded due to lack of facilities, they are crowded due to lack of willingness to prioritize funding for teachers. By building more schools you make the situation worse by putting more money into capital, making less available for operations.

No you are not understanding me. A drug store or variety store is more needed for those living in the neighborhood than another school. There are many closed schools in that area right now and not a whole lot of school aged children. Where is the closest easy to get to Walgreens, CVS, or Rite-Aid? I'm not sure I'd want my kids to go to school next to a freeway service drive anyway. Keep the basic plan but put commercial along the service drive instead of a school.

New school buildings are not needed and we cannot afford to build new ones particularly when we have 140,000 fewer students in the region than we had 10 years ago.

By adding a diversity to the businesses in the area we help to bring even more folks into the area that might also choose to go to Brooks Lumber or Slows.

[Planner3357]

Here's a cheap and easy one...why not a softball/baseball complex similar to the one off of Mich Ave. in Canton [[Belleville?) With indoor soccer in the winter. Clubhouse. Can call it the Fields at Harwell Park..I don't know. Might be a cool concept.

[Red Devil]

What about building a store where locals could purchase things like beer, wine, and lotto tickets? Or maybe a Cheesecake Factory?

[DetroitHabitater]

There is a school sitting empty 700ft from the proposed school.

[BrushStart]

Here's a cheap and easy one...why not a softball/baseball complex similar to the one off of Mich Ave. in Canton [[Belleville?) With indoor soccer in the winter. Clubhouse. Can call it the Fields at Harwell Park..I don't know. Might be a cool concept.

This is similar to what we are considering, but the organization we are planning on working with focuses on baseball development for inner-city youth, so any plans that are developed will likely lean towards providing an indoor space for baseball above all else.

[Red Devil]

This is similar to what we are considering, but the organization we are planning on working with focuses on baseball development for inner-city youth, so any plans that are developed will likely lean towards providing an indoor space for baseball above all else.

Are you gonna hit up Bud Selig for some MLB Urban Youth Academy cash?

[BrushStart]

Are you gonna hit up Bud Selig for some MLB Urban Youth Academy cash?

We are likely going to look for funding from a number of sources. Detroit already has a chapter of R.B.I., which is sponsored by MLB, which is being run though the Police Athletic League locally. The process of putting a proposal like this together is quite complex, including finding partners who are interesting in donating/investing. We are in the very early concept stage at this point, and looking at potential donors. There are issues of entity formation and organization that must be tackled before we can start soliciting groups for funding.

[Detroitnerd]

The fight seems to be that a whole lot of people want to come up with a plan that preserves the park.

The city seems to be in league with Ilitch, who, if he had his way, probably wouldn't allow any ballpark within 100 miles of Comerica.

City officials will keep shooting down plans for anything that involves the ballpark. People will continue to make misguided appeals to build any dumb thing from a CVS to a Home Depot on the site, either because they lack vision or simply don't care about Detroit history or are in Ilitch's pocket.

That's right: The city can knock down the Lafayette Building for "green space." But how dare any planner incorporate a historic "green space" into their building plans. Too many "funding concerns."

If any more of these creative plans for the old site get shot down, I'm going to interpret "funding concerns" to mean "we get too much of our funding from Ilitch to allow this."

[BrushStart]

With the proposal that we're putting together, we'd be more than happy to work with Mike Ilitch. Because what we're putting together is a philanthropic donation to the community, I personally have no problem with benefactors putting their name on it. I think there is difference between proposals that involve using the park for commercial activity and those that capture the essence of the park's history while providing a valuable asset to the community. At least, that's what we're banking on.

[Planner3357]

I don't think it should be a park just for inner city kids....how about inner city adults too? We need a sweet place for beer leagues!

[esp1986]

I don't think it should be a park just for inner city kids....how about inner city adults too? We need a sweet place for beer leagues!

Not to mention, I don't like the idea of having it be an enclosed, indoor area. KEEP THE FIELD OUTSIDE!!

[BrushStart]

To calm all the fears, the concept we are considering would keep the park open to everyone, and it would not be indoors. However, it would include a smaller indoor facility for cold weather months. Honestly, though, these are just ideas, many things will probably change, if it even gets off the ground.

[preserve]

Call me pessimistic, but, Corktown has been involved in planning for that site since way before 1997 and NOTHING has even been considered viable. It will sit vacant, and
thank goodness for the groups that clean it up and the kids who do go there and play ball because nothing else is going to happen.

[DocTerry]

Must be something afoot. After all the investment made by so many to make the field useable -time, energy and dollars. And after so many games played in the last year or so, DOS came into a very large group/game today and summarily ordered them out immediately. So I hope.there was some kind of reason

[royce]

I like the rendering, but I don't like having a school on the service drive. Like someone mentioned there's a school building about 700 feet away. Why not use an historical school building instead of spending money for a new one? Replace the school with basketball and tennis courts.

One other thing that needs to be considered is this: foul balls can damage cars. Looking at the rendering I can see that there are parking spots very close to the field. One solution would be to move the proposed mixed-use and retail buildings further back from Michigan Avenue and have the parking in front. I know most of you wouldn't like cars in front, but I'm sure you also wouldn't like dents in your car or busted windows from a baseball. Car ports are another solution, but expensive. Maybe just have parking on the lots west of Cochrane Street.

BTW, it appears that the field could also be used for hockey and soccer. A hockey rink would be an interesting addition.

[CLAUDE G]

I have read over that entire plan, as its a 50 page document. Its been around since November and was submitted to the DEGC.

The only issie is that the DEGC rejected it like they did all the other plans.