DEGC solicits bids to redevelop old Tiger Stadium site; fate of field still up in the air

The Detroit Economic Growth Corp. is looking for a few good redevelopment plans for the old Tiger Stadium site.

The request for proposals is pretty wide open, calling only for a mixed-use project with a substantive financial plan for the 9.5-acre site at the corner of Michigan and Trumbull avenues. The DEGC is willing to consider plans that either make use if the historic baseball field left at the site or don't.

"It's not a requirement in the plan," says Brian Holdwick, executive vice president of business development at the DEGC. "We would expect to see some proposals that preserve the field and some that don't. We're wide open."

A number of development incentives come with the parcel, which owned by the city, including its status as a Renaissance Zone, brownfield tax credits and a multimillion dollar federal earmark. U.S. Sen. Carl Levin landed $3.8 million in federal funds to help pay for the restoration of the original parameters of Tiger Stadium then being pushed by Old Tiger Stadium Conservancy. That plan died when the DEGC decided to raze what was left of the stadium last year despite the objections of the conservancy and some powerful backers, like Levin. The status of that earmark is now up in the air. "That would truly depend on the reuse of the site," Holdwick says. "They would have to work with the senator's office."

He adds that the DEGC has received a number of inquiries about the site from people interested in redeveloping it. That prompted the city to issue to RFP even in the face of an economy where financing is at best hard to come by. Holdwick says the parcel's current state and location make it marketable, even in today's economic climate. "This is a clean slate," Holdwick says. "It's a vacant piece of property on a major thoroughfare just west of downtown."

Source: Brian Holdwick, executive vice president of business development at the Detroit Economic Growth Corp.
Writer: Jon Zemke