November 2016 was a big month for sports, capped at beginning and end with historic events. On November 2, the Cubs broke their 108 year drought by winning the 2016 World Series in an 8-7, 10- inning, Game 7 victory over the Indians. On November 22, Piston’s owner Tom Gores announced that the basketball team would be leaving the Palace of Auburn Hills, the team’s stadium since 1988, and moving back home to downtown Detroit.
As usual, the conversation at my Thanksgiving dinner with family in a Chicago suburb revolved around sports. After sharing Detroit’s exciting sports news, I got a negative but not unanticipated reaction. “Detroit is a dangerous dump” and although games are a reason to go to the city, “you can’t get out of there fast enough.” My relative believes that even though sports might be a regional attractor to the city, it is not enough to attract fans from out of state. A fancy new stadium is nothing if upscale developments do not follow it. My in-law doubts a stadium’s ability to revitalize a city and sees it as an ongoing urban narrative with a high chance of failure.
As a resident of downtown, I witness the “current climate” on game days as he describes it. Watching from coffee shop window seats, I see the side streets of downtown so saturated with blue Lions jerseys that an alley becomes an informal tailgate. An incredible amount of temporary soft infrastructure emerges to serve a single purpose. Colorful busses with Nemo’s Bar and Old Shillelagh painted on their sides create a temporary transportation network to carry tipsy pub patrons to the stadium. For half a day, downtown Detroit becomes a connected extension of the stadium concourse.
The new Little Caesar’s arena that will be home to both the Red Wings and the Pistons is planned differently. With the Pistons announcing their move to downtown, Detroit will be the only North American city to have four sports teams within four blocks of each other. The stadium is envisioned as part of a new sports district that will strengthen the area connecting downtown to midtown instead of leeching onto the edge of the urban core.
At the Urban Land Institute Real Estate Forum, Tom Wilson of Olympia Entertainment presented a larger vision for the area called District Detroit. District Detroit is a 50 block, $1.2 billion sports and entertainment development that will create the kind of destination my in-law is looking for. The plan creates five new “neighborhoods” each with a distinct character. What will stop the district from becoming a wealthy microcosmic bubble in Detroit?
A recent Michigan State University study revealed that the growth and prosperity which has been brought to downtown Detroit, Midtown and Corktown has not extended to the rest of the city. A summary of the study reveals that “much of the city’s high-profile development is centered in a roughly seven-mile-square area… in the other 95 percent of Detroit…decay continues to dominate the post-apocalyptic neighborhood landscape.” A new stadium and district bring wealth and jobs to the city of Detroit but how might these developments extend prosperity to other parts of the city?
In so many ways, Detroit has re-framed the way I think about architecture in its relationship to a city and revitalization. Four days a week I work for Rossetti, a design firm that specializes in sports and entertainment venues. At work, I question the balance between serving our client and serving our city. The Little Caesar’s arena and District Detroit creates an opportunity for architects to have direct impact through thoughtful place making. It will be exciting to see how this extroverted stadium performs in reality.