Field of Schemes
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March 04, 2009

Tiger Stadium rehab now at $27m

The Old Tiger Stadium Conservancy officially delivered its financial plan for preserving what's left of Tiger Stadium on Monday. Preservation magazine has the first detailed description that I've seen: The plan will "return Tiger's historic dugouts and locker rooms to their 1923 appearance [and add] a banquet hall, sports bar, and sports memorabilia store," at a total cost of $27 million; $3.8 million would come from one of those controversial earmarks in the Congressional budget bill, with tax credits covering much of the rest.

That would leave $5 million to be raised, but as Kathy Wendler, president of the Southwest Detroit Business Association, told Preservation: "Considering that the total cost for construction is $27 million, being $5 million short is not bad."

COMMENTS

Here are a couple of interesting quotes from Newsday: As it relates to the New York Islanders: "When it comes to threatening to move the Islanders if he doesn't get a new arena, team owner Charles Wang has gone from no threat to veiled threat to barely-concealed threat. And still the building and his $3 billion Lighthouse Project are stalled in the Town of Hempstead's approval process.

Now, Wang has moved on to direct threat: Approve the Lighthouse or the Islanders are outta here!

The threat is tucked deep into the 6,000-page draft environmental impact statement the Lighthouse developers delivered to the Town of Hempstead on Feb. 24. Section 7.0 deals with the economic impact to the town, Nassau County and Long Island if the Lighthouse is not approved by the town.

Hint: The developers think the economic impact of not approving the project will be bad". Here is another: "Wang has already received offers from politicians in Queens and Brooklyn to facilitate a move to those boroughs".
It is interesting BROOKLYN politicians made this offer. The plan is very obvious: The Islanders & Nets at the Coliseum for a couple of years, until Atlantic Yards is ready, then they BOTH will move there.


Posted by Januz on March 4, 2009 07:36 PM

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