In the news this week is that two well-known big-city sports arenas that have been recently abandoned--because their teams had to have a spike in interest and ticket sales that only a new building can generate--have been dealt with differently.
Exhibit A on top is the Pontiac Silverdome near Detroit, Michigan, built in 1975. It cost a rather whopping $55.7 million back then and was a state-of-the-art domed facility built in a suburban area...two fads that were all the rage in the white-flight era of 1975. (A dome, of course, did make sense for Detroit, what with all the cold and snow.) But when the Lions and Pistons decided they needed shiny new homes to spike attendance despite that the building was still a relevant facility, the Silverdome faced a bigger problem than most ex-stadiums: it was in a small suburban city far away from other venues. When that city, Pontiac, Mi., was hit by the recent economy as badly as anyone, the Silverdome was put up for auction without reserve. Yesterday it sold for a mere $583,000!
Exhibit B is Reunion Arena in Dallas, Tx. Reunion's problem was not its location, but rather its size and its hideousness; at 17,000 capacity it was not large enough to accommodate the NBA and NHL franchises it regularly hosted, and a new arena was initiated by the city of Dallas in 1998 and completed in 2001. Reunion opened in 1980 at a cost of $27 million; American Airlines Center opened in 2001 at a cost of $400 million. Today, November 18, 2009, the City of Dallas demolished Reunion Arena.
Food for thought. Beijing is trying to figure out what to with that whole Bird's Nest thing, too.
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