Mike Babcock, Head Coach of the Detroit Red Wings, has made some comments about a new Wings arena. Babcock wants the state of Michigan to help fund the construction of said arena. Of course the problem with that is Babcock works for a billionaire owner, whose family also happens to own one of three downtown Detroit casinos. Furthermore, the state, county of Wayne, and City of Detroit already pitched in public money to help construct Comerica Park for this same organization and that has not exactly helped revitalize downtown Detroit.
The simple fact here is new stadium construction by itself dos very little to help revitalize poor neighborhoods. Before the state or city decides to build another stadium with public money they should insure that Detroit has chain grocery stores for its residents. Currently the city proper has little to offer its citizens in options to buy food for their homes.
If the plan seem to be to build a new Wings arena behind the Fox Theater (which itself is just across the street from Comerica Park and Ford Field home of the Detroit Lions) the plan is actually a pretty good one. However, it would need to accompany further construction of a mall or retail shopping, restaurants, and bars. It would make for a great entertainment district, but again by itself the stadium would not spark the kind of economic turn around the city needs. That is not to say it cannot be part of said turnaround.
David Marcuso makes this argument:
Most people have entertainment budgets, and the $100 they spend taking the family to the ballgame is $100 that they don't spend on movies or bowling later on in the month. Nobody seriously thinks that we should raise taxes and spend millions on bowling alley or movie theater subsidies, yet we do the same for professional sport stadiums. Yet so long as there is simply a transfer of spending money from one kind of pastime to another, no new tax streams are generated. The only way to make this idea work is to draw money into the economy that normally would not flow into that locality. Stadiums can act as magnets, drawing in out-of-towners to spend on sports and perhaps local restaurants and hotels.
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