Why Are There Only Three Casinos In Detroit?

[Hypestyles]

The city could use one more. But make it should be a more expansive, resort-type place..

What happened with the aborted attempt to have all of them be on the riverfront? what all was involved with that effort?

[R8RBOB]

The city could use one more. But make it should be a more expansive, resort-type place..

What happened with the aborted attempt to have all of them be on the riverfront? what all was involved with that effort?

Actually, the city could use one less but that's my opinion. The riverfront idea died when all the landholders wanted more money for their land. The city thought that they would be able to offer the fair market rate for the land but because the land was going to be used for casinos then the price of the land could go beyond the market rate and the city realized that it didn't have enough money to make that happen so they abandon the riverfront and left it in shambles. I still hate that Bastille's had to close. It was a hole in the wall but it was a comfortable place to go to have a beer.

[artds]

What happened with the aborted attempt to have all of them be on the riverfront? what all was involved with that effort?

If you're interested in reading an account of everything that occurred that isn't littered with Gistok's flagrant biases, I would suggest reading the Michigan Court of Appeals opinion in City of Detroit v. Detroit Plaza Limited Partnership.

http://coa.courts.mi.gov/DOCUMENTS/O...258479.OPN.PDF

The "Basic Facts and Procedural History" section contains an accurate account of how things went down.

Contrary to what Gistok posted, the land was taken through Eminent Domain, and the value of the land was determined not by "greedy investors", but by a jury comprised of ordinary Wayne County residents.

[Gistok]

If you're interested in reading an account of everything that occurred that isn't littered with Gistok's flagrant biases, I would suggest reading the Michigan Court of Appeals opinion in City of Detroit v. Detroit Plaza Limited Partnership.

http://coa.courts.mi.gov/DOCUMENTS/O...258479.OPN.PDF

The "Basic Facts and Procedural History" section contains an accurate account of how things went down.

Contrary to what Gistok posted, the land was taken through Eminent Domain, and the value of the land was determined not by "greedy investors", but by a jury comprised of ordinary Wayne County residents.

Nice try Artds... but next time you should try to actually read AND comprehend what you have Googled...

1) This reference source is ONLY about the 6.3 acre LaFarge Cenent Silo site, which was south of Atwater Street... and the plans were to convert the land to parkland... the city and LaFarge were negotiating within a $8-$10 million figure that was never finalized [[see Section 4 - OFFER TO SELL). Since parkland is a PUBLIC use... the use of Eminent Domain... IS ALLOWED.

2[[) The LaFarge partnership got wind that the casinos were going to be built NORTH of Atwater along the east riverfront. Well that stalled the sale of the LaFarge plant. Later the partnership determined that their per square foot land value was something like $175. They got the judge to dismiss evidence that the city was going to show [[Like-Kind-Exchange, page 4) to show how the city got to a lower valuation than what the LaFarge investors wanted. The judge disallowed the jury from hearing this, and that obviously led to the eventual decision of a jury decision of 31.5 million and that verdict was upheld. Going from $8-$10 million to $31.5 million for parkland does seem quite excessive... but that's due to the fact that plans north of Atwater were for 3 Casinos, and it would be intolerable for the glitzy casinos to be next to cement silos.

NOW to get back to the real issue...

The actual acreage of land for the casinos was between Atwater and Jefferson. That was the circa 110 acres of land that was being negotiated by the city and landowners. 42 acres of that land were actually sold to the city [[the casinos paid). But the remaining holdouts wanted much higher figures... according to the article that Artds mentioned... the city tried to use EMINENT DOMAIN, but they were immediately shot down in court by the UCPA [[UNIFORM CONDEMNATION PROCEDURES ACT) mentioned on the bottom of page 2.

So to make a long story short... this so called "evidence" that Artds found deals mainly with the process of Eminent Domain for LaFarge Silo land south of Atwater Street [[to be used for parkland). It does NOT deal with issues [[except peripherally) on land purchases for the actual casino site. That land cound not, and was not EMINIENT DOMAINed... only the 42 acres of parcels that were purchased thru NEGOTIATIONS were actually purchased by the city. The remaining landowners were proverbially "left holding the bag" when Mayor Archer told the casinos to find their own sites.

A good portion of the already purchased riverfront land became the nucleus of the future Tricentennial [[Milliken) State Park.

I stand by my original comments... and with the price of the LaFarge site going from $8-$10 million all the way up to $31.5 million... I also stand by my "greedy investors" statement.

Artds... next time you try insulting other people's intelligence... you might first want to do your homework....