Best New Use for Tiger Stadium
Concert venue
There’s nothing like old Tiger Stadium: Michigan & Trumbull ... Briggs Stadium ... the Corner ... Hudson’s Building Dilemma for the New Millennium. It’s an abandoned and endangered white elephant with a lush green center and virtually no feasible hope for survival. While the Archer administration trotted out a glossy architectural rendering of a rehabbed loft/retail/recreational facility, the response from the development community has been nonexistent. In the interim, the joint has doubled in flicks as Comiskey Park, Yankee Stadium, and who knows what else. Notwithstanding its value as a movie stand-in, MT readers have chosen concert venue as the best new use for the ballpark. It’s not a bad choice given the recent big-ticket shows such as Three Tenors, Kiss, etc. I still like the idea of turning the joint into a modern-day Coliseum (capitalizing on this Gladiator phenom ... chariot races, minotaurs …). Here’s a better idea: the Dave Matthews Band played Comerica Park last year to rave reviews. The streets of downtown were overrun with 20-something, freshly scrubbed, microbrew-fueled youth running amok in loose-fitting Gap body armor. So let’s move the cellar-dwelling Tigers back to the old stadium, lower the ticket prices, free up the Ilitch crew from those costly loan payments on the CoPa — which they claim prevented them for bidding for any high-priced marquee players for their low-budget team — and let the SFX international entertainment empire take charge of the CoPa. The Ilitch "kids" won’t have to worry about Sumitomo foreclosing on them when the inevitable strike takes place. And besides, concertgoers have no problem paying ridiculously inflated prices for T-shirts and concessions — a perfect fit at the CoPa. Best of all, baseball would once again be played at the Corner.
