Palace getting new seats, floors refurbished

For those fans hoping that the Pistons eventually would move back to downtown Detroit: Forget about it.

Owner Tom Gores has put $40 million into renovations in the Palace over the past four years.

The current project is replacing all the seats in the Palace and refurbishing the floors, a project that will take three years to complete, according to Kevin A. Grigg, vice president of public relations for Palace Sports & Entertainment and the Pistons.

"This is the first phase of what's going to be a three-year seating renovation inside the Palace," Grigg said Wednesday. "The first stage that you see now will be completed per the start of the preseason. That involves from the lower-level suites all the way down to the floor. We'll have new courtside seats and new seats going into the stands up to the first-level suites."

Irwin Seating out of Grand Rapids is doing the project, costing the organization about $6 million.

"Next summer, we'll do the section up to the end of the concourse suites," Grigg said. "Then the following summer, we'll do the rest of the upper bowl.

"A lot of what we've done here, the whole infrastructure is all being done from the back, so where the current seats get pushed in we're actually going to have mechanical levers where you hit a button and it actually helps collapse (the seats). It helps with manpower."

The entire arena is being re-epoxied, and the concrete floor is being repaired and redone to give the floors a glossy look.

"We're putting new epoxy all the way up to the top of the concourse," Grigg said. "The concrete that houses the chairs and the new epoxy is going all the way up.

"What we'll eventually be doing, and we're not doing it this year, probably next year, we will be deploring NFC (near field communication) technology, which will make the seats smart for people who interact with our Pistons mobile app. That would be conducive to in-seat ordering where we send people special offers, etc."

The organization hopes to have the smart seats fully operational, including ordering food from the seats, by the start of the 2016-17 season.

Contact Perry A. Farrell: 313-222-2555 or pafarrell@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @farrellperry.