"Historic Dismantling" of Tiger Stadium on Hold

News from Mayor Kilpatrick's office: that the "historic dismantling" of Tiger Stadium is going more slowly than originally planned. Originally scheduled for demolition this month, developers are now being asked to submit proposals "in a few months." The Mayor attributes the delay to a number of factors, including that the building will be "historically dismantled" and not "demolished" and that he believes the city can sell off artifacts to help pay for the semi-erasure (promises to save parts of the main entrance and the field have been made). This is why Detroit News' price tag for the job today of $2-5 million was lower than the original $3-6 million. They think they can fetch a million dollars for memorabilia left rotting for 7 years.

The famous neon lights

Will this landmark actually come down in the coming months or will it fall into the limbo that continues for the Michigan Central Station? Should these buildings be rehabilitated or scrapped? If the buildings should not be rehabilitated, what should replace them? Should the owners of these properties be held accountable for the obstructions to city planning that these limbo-state buildings create? (The city owns Tiger Stadium and the owners of the Ambassador Bridge own the train depot.) Should the city and private landowners be forced to restore or destroy, so that the city can move forward?

In Ann Arbor on Wednesday, two free and open to the public events will discuss the Tiger Stadium site:

4 :00 to 5:30pm Panel discussion in Angell Hall Auditorium C with Preservation Advocates:
Peter Comstock Riley, Founder of Michigan and Trumbull, LLC Isaac David, Preservationist and Architectural Historian

6:30 to 8:00pm Film screening in Angell Hall Auditorium D "Stranded at the Corner: The Battle to Save Historic Tiger Stadium"