The Tiger Stadium dilemma

The Detroit City Council decided it needed more time (until Friday at least) this morning to determine what it’s already had seven years to mull over — what to do with Tiger Stadium?

I’ve gone back and forth on this issue. Part of me wants to cling to the memories that are there and would hate to see it razed to make room for a strip mall that will likely be vacant itself in a decade. The other part of me — the part that’s seen the footage of the deterioration and what’s become of this monolith — thinks it’s time for the big steel and concrete hulk on Michigan and Trumbull to go.

Where I do agree with this less-than-nimble City Council is its argument that basically states: “Why tear the stadium down if we don’t have something firmly in place to begin developing there?”

Why indeed? It is a National Historical Landmark, no? So what’s the hurry Murray, er Kwame?

The argument some will make is that Comiskey Park was leveled as soon as the U.S. Cellular was ready for operation. True, but the White Sox needed parking and the old stadium provided a solution to that predicament. That isn’t the case here. If the city chooses to tear it down and no one steps forward to develop the property then we’ll have another vacant lot and no landmark.

I don’t have a solution to this problem, but I do know my sentimentality is growing stronger and I don’t want to see it disappear with nothing to move into its place.

Ideally, I’d like to see part of the Stadium be saved and used by the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame. (The current Michigan HOF is laughable — a group of portraits and plaques in the hallways of Cobo Center [when you're inducted here, you're literally in the Hall of Fame].) Maintain some of the integrity of Tiger Stadium and you’d have a natural draw to the HOF. Add artifacts of the enshrinees to the plaques and portraits and you’d provide more of a reason for citizens and tourists alike to make the Michigan HOF a stop during their time in the city.

If you have a tourist destination the natural outgrowth would be an eatery or two (perhaps even a chain, Applebees, Red Robin, Buffalo Wild Wings, etc.) to join the standbys like Nemo’s and Reedy’s — what a terrific spot for the old Lindell AC to resurface, eh?

And while I’m spending other people’s money, why not a dual-screen cineplex or some such. (Hello, Magic Johnson movie theater mogul?) It could be first run movies or, perhaps, second runs. You could even devote one theater to old sports movies from time to time — everything from Chariots of Fire to Bang the Drum Slowly to The Fish that Saved Pittsburgh.

Just some food for thought, but the more I ruminate on this issue, the more I don’t want to see my old friend leveled — no matter how much I want a bleacher bench in my basement.