A Final Push to Save Tiger Stadium
Demolition Begins, But Group Still Hoping to Salvage a Portion
It's going, going, but it isn't gone just yet.
While the demolition of Tiger Stadium began earlier this summer - a remarkable sight no matter where you stand on what the future of the famed ballpark should be - a group hoping to preserve at least a portion of the stadium bought more time to finalize its plans. Perhaps it's a sign that city officials are realizing how valuable an attraction this could be.
The Detroit City Council gave the Old Tiger Stadium Conservancy, a group that includes Hall of Fame broadcaster Ernie Harwell, until Aug. 8 to create escrow accounts in the amounts of $300,000 and $69,000. The group has long hoped to save the portion of the stadium from first base to third base and use the remaining structure as a Corktown welcome center and a house for Harwell's baseball memorabilia museum. The museum would include the field that was home to the Detroit Tigers for nearly 100 years until the team moved to Comerica Park in 2000, as well as 3,000 seats.
Generating that initial funding would seem manageable for the Conservancy, but the Council also instructed it to finalize complete funding for the museum by March 1, 2009, by which time they must account for an estimated $15.6 million, according to media reports.
In the meantime, MCM Management Corp. of Bloomfield Hills and The Farrow Group of Detroit will continue with their methodical dismantling of the mammoth stadium that has stood in southwest Detroit since the 1930s. Already, the demolition has produced an enormous, gaping hole where the leftfield concourse once stood, exposing the diamond from neighboring streets for the first time since 1938 when the place was called Briggs Field.
MCM and The Farrow Group are tearing the stadium down at no cost to the city, and will recoup their costs by selling the scraps, which have been estimated to be worth upwards of $1 million.
As the demolition trudges on, Tigers fans continue to line the construction site to get one final peak at the stadium they grew up loving. It isn't uncommon to see on-lookers staring open-mouthed at the now three-sided stadium, into the guts of the park where they watched their childhood heroes win the World Series in 1968 and 1984. It's an unbelievable sight, truly, even through a car window on nearby I-75.
With so much community interest in the stadium, clearly it's incumbent upon local (perhaps even the state) politicians to act on behalf of their constituents and do something to salvage this baseball landmark. Leaving the entire stadium in place, unused, was probably never likely, nor wise. But to hold on to a portion, and create a destination in a section of Detroit that has yet to feel the brunt of the "downtown Detroit rebirth" would be.
The Campus Martius redevelopment downtown, as well as the rejuvenated Entertainment District near the stadiums, has only spread west down Michigan Avenue as far as the recently built MGM Grand Detroit Casino. A baseball museum a few blocks further, surrounded by new housing, retail, or whatever else city officials have planned for the land where Tiger Stadium once stood, could be exactly what the city needs to see the redevelopment spread.
For more on this subject, click http://major-league-baseball.suite101.com/article.cfm/a_final_push_to_save_tiger_stadium
The gaping hole is an awesome sight
|
On-lookers get one final glimpse
|
Work crews began tearing down the LF concourse
|
The stadium opens for the first time since 1938
|
What do you think about this article?
Latest Articles