The Detroit Pistons are in serious talks to build a 60,000-square-foot practice facility north of Little Caesars Arena in downtown Detroit if a deal is worked out to relocate the National Basketball Association team from its Auburn Hills home to downtown, sources familiar with the talks have told Crain's.

Details such as specific location, time frame and cost are yet to be determined.

Pistons owner Tom Gores and his aides have been in talks for some time with the Ilitch family, owners of the Detroit Red Wings and financiers of much of the $627.5 million Little Caesars Arena that's scheduled to open on 12 acres at Woodward Avenue and I-75 in September 2017. Those talks have accelerated since Gores hired longtime sports agent Arn Tellem to act as his point man for new business, civic and philanthropic investments in Detroit and Michigan last year.

Both sides have acknowledged that they're in at least preliminary talks to figure out how the Pistons could relocate from the Palace of Auburn Hills, their suburban Oakland County home since 1988.

Tom Wilson, president of Ilitch-owned Olympia Entertainment, told Crain's on Sept. 15 that the sides were in a "talks-to-begin-talks" phase, something that remains unchanged, said Mark Barnhill, a partner and spokesman with Pistons owner Tom Gores' Los Angeles-based Platinum Equity private equity firm.