John Gallagher

Detroit Free Press



By naming the new home of the Detroit Red Wings the Little Caesars Arena, the Ilitch family may have forgone a multimillion-dollar source of cash from an outside bidder. But that's OK, said Christopher Ilitch, CEO of the family's Ilitch Holdings.

"For our organization, this is more than just about money," he said at an event Thursday inside the arena construction site where he announced the new name. "This is our hometown. This is a legacy business."

He was referring to how his parents, Mike and Marian Ilitch — owners of the Little Caesars pizza empire and the Detroit Red Wings and Tigers — opened their first pizza store in suburban Detroit in 1959.

He said that the family's pizza business was enjoying explosive growth, adding, "This platform for this brand makes perfect sense. It will really help the company."

Under the naming rights deal, Little Caesars will pay about $6.25 million per year for 20 years to another Ilitch entity that will operate the arena. By taking money from one family pocket and putting it in another, the Ilitches have forgone the chance to sell the rights to an outside bidder for a considerable sum.

Besides unveiling the new arena name, Ilitch also unveiled a new logo, a swirling circular image that will adorn all marketing materials. Tom Wilson, president and CEO of the family's Olympia Entertainment, said the new logo symbolizes everything from a hockey puck to pizza, from the ice rink to a stage for music acts, as well as energy and motion.

"Like this facility itself, the logo is unique, it's flexible and it's progressive," he said.

The 20,000-plus-seat arena is said to be slightly ahead of schedule and is to open in late 2017 for the Wings' home opener.

The arena is the centerpiece of the Ilitch family's 50-block arena district development, which is planned to include residential apartments, office and retail developments, parking and a new headquarters building for Little Caesars.

Those projects are the latest in the more than three decades relationship of the Ilitch family with downtown Detroit.

In the 1980s, Mike and Marian Ilitch moved their Little Caesars headquarters from the suburbs into the Fox Theatre building in Detroit. Since then, the family has built Comerica Park, seen their Red Wings win several Stanley Cups and their Detroit Tigers play twice in the World Series.

The announcement of the new name Thursday is just the latest big news this week in downtown development. On Wednesday, businessman Dan Gilbert won approval from the Downtown Development Authority to buy the city-owned parking garage on the site of the old Hudson's store on Woodward as a prelude to redevelopment of the site. And also Wednesday, Gilbert announced a plan to build a Major League Soccer stadium and related development on the site of the stalled Wayne County Jail project.

That latter soccer stadium project may or may not happen on the jail site, depending on the outcome of negotiations between Gilbert's team and elected officials.

Contact John Gallagher: 313-222-5173 or gallagher@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @jgallagherfreep.