Detroit City Council Votes on New Red Wings Arena

An OK moves the city closer to new arena downtown.

A rendering of the proposed Detroit Red Wings hockey arena to be built just north of downtown. The $450 million project is 58 percent publicly funded. (Credit: Olympia Entertainment)

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After many delays, the Detroit City Council voted 8-0 to approve the rezoning that will make the Detroit Red Wings’ new arena possible. The holdup was in part due to concerns about historic buildings in the area: the Hotel Eddystone and the Hotel Park Avenue. (The arena has long been at the center of controversy thanks to its public funding.)

Both hotels were built in the 1920s by the same architect, and they’re on the National Register of Historic Places. Olympia Development, part of the company that owns the Red Wings, agreed to restore one in exchange for tearing down the other. An agreement with city council was reached, according to the Detroit Free Press:

The Ilitches’ Olympia Development of Michigan agreed with the city’s request for stronger assurance that the developers will follow through on commitments to redevelop one of two historic hotels near the proposed 20,000-seat arena. The city’s top lawyer, Melvin (Butch) Hollowell, said Olympia agreed to be held to account to complete redevelopment of the Hotel Eddystone under court order, should the city’s law department ever be forced to seek such a move, in exchange for the council’s approval to tear down the adjacent Hotel Park Avenue, another abandoned historic building.

… Councilman Gabe Leland said the council didn’t get all it wanted, but he was comfortable approving the deal. “We were able to say we saved a building in our downtown,” he said.

About 20 percent of the housing in the redevelopment planned around the arena will be affordable, and the Eddystone will be repurposed as mixed-income housing. Though Detroit-based Next City contributor Anna Clark recently argued that the idea of preserving the Hotel Park Avenue shouldn’t be abandoned, she also wrote that there’s “a lot to applaud in the newest version of the plan, especially the increased affordable housing.”

Though the vote passed in city council, it still needs to be approved by Detroit’s Downtown Development Authority. That vote is scheduled for 3 p.m. tomorrow.

One bright spot to note for those who cringe at America’s ongoing embrace of stadium welfare: Detroit City Council is looking to pass a mandatory community benefits agreement ordinance that would force future mega-project developers to meet with neighborhood residents.

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Jenn Stanley is a freelance journalist, essayist and independent producer living in Chicago. She has an M.S. from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.

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Tags: real estatedetroithistoric preservationstadium welfare

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