Developer offers plan for amusement park in Silverdome

They can leave Michigan and Trumbell alone. Too damn much history there.

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Without the chaindog, you'd never get up the lifthill...

the silverdome is in pontiac, mi about an hour away from detroit

Cedar Point Nut-Have you been to Six Flags Elitch Gardens? Unless you have how about you keep your mouth shut about something you know nothing about.

The thing about building and amusement park in a stadium is that so much would have to be converted. Seats would have to be taken out, decks would have to be taken out, ceiling beams would most likely have to be modified, the floor would have to be torn up to put power sources everywhere, ect, ect, ect...

Places like Camp Snoopy in the Mall of America were built from scratch to be an amusement park, so converting a regular stadium would take a lot of time and money to convert. Not that its impossible, just seems like a lot of money to waste just for a indoor park.

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The plans proposed by the development group include replacing the Silverdome with an indoor/outdoor theme park. The $525 million project would offer 40 to 50 rides, 250,000 to 350,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space, 100,000 square feet of entertainment venues and two hotels with conference and meeting space.

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It sounds to me more like they are planning to tear the dome down and then build a park. NOT build the park inside the dome.

Ah, yes, the Palace. I must agree, that is a great venue.

When they were building the Palace, I was working for an interior design firm (moving/placing furniture). It was neat watching the place come together.

I actually got to meet the Piston's "Bad Boys" after a shootaround before the building was completed. Funny thing was, Laimbeer, Rodman and Mahorn were much nicer to myself and the others there than the allegedly "nice guys" Dumars and Thomas.

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--George H
---Superman the ride...coming to a SF park near you soon...

20M a steal for the *Silverdome*?

Have you ever actually been inside of it? It's like the Astrodome, but in a lesser area.

I can't see it flying as this, either. Autoworld tried and bombed. Old Chicago tried and bombed. That one place in Maryland? Bombed.

Parks kind of make it in malls, but even Galaxyland in West Edmonton doesn't strike me as prosperous.

What happened to the Michael Jackson indoor theme park and casino proposed for Detriot? I just saw an article still from this year and he is planning a large coaster called "Thriller" whaich was named after his most popular album and the coaster would be a very large coaster that would be an outdoor coaster with the track enclosed in a tube for year round enjoyment! Anyone heard any more about this project??

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No, my point was that I don't see why they wanted to move football downtown. Where I was going with this is that you have great venues outside of town, with less congestion and more parking, yet some cities want to move it downtown.

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Unfortunately in most cases it never works. People come, but they don't stay, and the CBD nor surrounding neighborhoods see any gain. In fact, they usually see a decline in their standard of living from increased traffic among other factors.

I know of one stadium that has very successful for 26 years now and it is located right smack dab in the CBD. I believe its the largest indoor stadium. The Lousiana Superdome.

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DRUMLINE
"Black Colleges have the BEST bands Period".

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*** This post was edited by Crazydave87 on 12/20/2002. ***

Yes Wolf.. I've been there several times to see events and have worked on sound and light crews there more times than I care to remember. It's still a great deal at $20 mil.

As for the MJ thing. Last I heard he backed out of the casino deal last I heard and with a multi-million dollar breach of contract suit goign on. I doubt he'll be investing the kind of money needed to start up a park anytime soon. He's not making the kind of cash he used to be. Probably wouldn't be making much of anythign if he hadn't purchased most of the Beatles catalog.

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June 11th, 2001 - Gemini 100
VertiGo Rides - 82
Technical Services - 2002
Frightzone Screamster - 2002

Getting back on topic...

As much as i owuld like to see this happen because i am a Detroiter, I think it is a horible idea. The Silverdome always has been and always will be a piece of crap.Regardless what happens to it (unless they blow it up, which i would like to see) they WILL screw it up. I play lacrosse there on the weekend, and it is horrible, the facilities are downright awful, and the heating doesnt work. Not to mention that they had problems with the roof collapsing numerous times. Lets just blow this thing up, because it ugly to look at anways!

Viper432 -- Changing the roads in downtown Detroit will be difficult, since there are so many buildings down there, but in actuality, its neither here nor there since the Silverdome is in Pontiac.

Jerry Garcia, I'd have to disagree with you. There can be something useful done with the Silverdome, and it would be nice to not have to drvie 2 hrs to CP or 3 hrs to MiA when I can drive 45 min to catch a ride at a local amusement park and give money to a local business. My question for you is: Why do you continue to go there if you hate it so much?

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CBClub member #30 and #364 (renewal)

I hope they dont blow up the Astrodome. Our roof hasnt collapsed to my knowledge (but im not old enough to know) and it is historic in being the first domed stadium. Reliant Stadium dwarfs it now, but i still like the Astrodome. No telling what will happen to it now that we lost the Olympic bid.

This is a great idea. I live about 30 minutes away from the silverdome. It'll will need a lot of improvment with the roads and freeways.

Detroit is really turning around. The area where Ford Field sits is a very nice area. There's the Fox Theatre and Comerica Park, home of the Tigers.

The indoor theme park would be great for the off season at Cedar Point.

Not to go off topic, but what type of coasters do y'all think they will put up? I think that a loop and corkscrew coaster would fit in if this happens, nothing special.

Cornball Express or a variation of it could probably be squeezed into a football stadium.

As others have mentioned, an unwanted stadium on a piece of land is a liability not an asset. The land is worth more without the stadium than with it since it will cost a bundle to tear it down. No matter how much it cost to build, if no one wants to play sports, present concerts, etc. in a manner that will support the stadium's operating cost, then it is a liability since it will have to be torn down for most other uses.

I have to wonder about the economics of the proposed park scheme. The proposed project would cost half as much as IOA, and doesn't seem likely to generate the sort of cash flow that would support that kind of investment.

From a governmental viewpoint, even an partially indoor park in Michigan seems unlikely to be a truly year around business. The area would probably rather have businesses that will provide year around employment for this piece of land.

The Point-Even if an amusement park is put into this stadium, the owner will not control what happens to the freeways.

Personally, I think that if you are going to build an indoor amusement park, build it from scratch. The facility is old and from what I hear, down right in horrible condition. Putting roller coasters and a bunch of other heavy manchinery in it will do nothing but hurt the building. Stadiums rarely last longer than 50 years anyways.

But hey, you guys could always keep the building and buy the Colorado Avalanche and throw them in there since they suck this year. Denver needs the money. Just kidding, I will always love the Avalanche.

RubberDucky... I don't think having the Avs and the Wings in the same state is a good idea :)

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Tommy Penner (who never misses a Wings/Avs matchup) - Variable X @ starrynightmare.net/~vxtc
Cedar Point FanBoy since 2001.
"God help us, we're in the hands of engineers." -- Jeff Goldblum, Jurassic Park

haha...never thought of that but that would be great.

Crazydave87 said:

I know of one stadium that has very successful for 26 years now and it is located right smack dab in the CBD. I believe its the largest indoor stadium. The Lousiana Superdome.

The stadiums usually are successful--for the teams. Usually the team doesn't own the stadium but rather, the city. Building new stadiums are almost always cash-losing propositions. but they harbor something very coveted by cities, a pro sports team. cities hope to offset the cost of building a stdium by using the team to make even more money than had they not invested (or subsidized, you pick) in a new stadium.

Cities also (and this is the part that I say almost never works) place stadiums in an area that "needs revitalization" or near a CBD in order to facilitate economic growth in depressed areas. Yeah, you get people into the stadium, but no, it rarely produces any economic advantage to the surrounding neighborhoods or CBD.

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Is that a Q-bot in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?