Why -- and how -- is a bankrupt city building a new $650 million “hockey arena district” to house the Detroit Red Wings? That the question I turn to in a story this week for The American Prospect. It opens like this:
While the state of Michigan appears to have no interest in “bailing out” Detroit, it is giving a substantial boost to the Red Wings, the city’s professional hockey team. Less than a week after Detroit filed for the largest municipal bankruptcy in history, a press conference revealed a deal that will transform 45 blocks of the city with a new hockey arena (or “events center,” as the jargon goes) and a mixed-use entertainment district meant to link two of the city’s healthiest neighborhoods—downtown and midtown.
“This is a catalyst project,” Governor Rick Snyder said, according to Crain’s Detroit Business. “This is going to be where the Red Wings are. Who doesn't get fired up in Detroit about the Red Wings? Come on now, the people that are criticizing are people from outside of Michigan. This is something that is important to all of us.”
The Red Wings are one of the city’s calling cards most worthy of celebration right now: one of the “original six” teams in the National Hockey League and winner of 11 Stanley Cups, most recently in 2008. The team broke the league’s record for consecutive home wins last season (23), and has nurtured legends of the game, from Gordie Howe to Steve Yzerman to Nicklas Lidstrom. They’ve made the NHL playoffs 22 seasons in a row and counting—the longest such streak in all of pro sports. While Detroit is home to three other professional sports franchises, the city has embraced its “Hockeytown” nickname.
For the last 33 years, the Wings have played in the Joe Louis Arena (or “the Joe”), an uninspiring cube on Detroit’s riverfront bizarrely disconnected from the rest of the city. The 20,058-seat arena is Detroit’s largest indoor venue, and was an outlier when it was built downtown, just as the Pistons and Lions fled the city for suburban stadiums. (The Lions have since moved back into the city.) The Joe made a memorable debut by hosting the 1980 Republican National Convention, which nominated Ronald Reagan.
For the team’s new downtown home, developers are reimagining a patchy stretch of land inhabited by pubs, cab companies, vacant lots, and largely low-income houses and apartments, as well as historic landmarks like the Masonic Temple and Cass Tech—one of the brightest lights among the city’s schools.
Detroit’s bankruptcy compels developers to make a stronger than usual case for why the arena should be a priority, even as that the city struggles to pay for public services. Otherwise, the deal carries a whiff of war profiteering.
While plans for the new arena and surrounding district are being discussed, there's no hint at what will happen to the city-owned Joe Louis Arena when the new rink opens. (My guess: it will be deconstructed to make room for pricy waterfront development.) For a fascinating take on the story behind the Joe, and a look at its truly peculiar urban planning problems, see this post over at Radial Logic.
About the image: At my first Red Wings game in -- can you believe it? -- spring 2012.
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