And we have a winner in the Pontiac Silverdome auction: A Toronto-based real estate company won the 34-year-old former home of the Detroit Lions with a bid of $583,000, or just over 1% of what it cost to build originally. Even though the price was low, getting the stadium into private hands was important for Pontiac’s financial health, according to Fred Leeb, the city’s emergency manager. “Even I have to admit that the number is lower than I would like,” Fred Leeb, Pontiac’s state-appointed emergency financial manager, told the Wall Street Journal. “But I’m happy that we made the decision. Procrastination was literally costing us millions of dollars.”
The names of the Silverdome’s new owners weren’t revealed, but Leeb did say that they plan on using the dome for a Major League Soccer franchise, as well as a pro women’s soccer team. That’s a bit odd, given MLS’s increasing insistence that its teams play in soccer-only stadiums, but I guess at that price, the Toronto group can afford to buy a stadium that it plans to throw away in a couple of years.