City approves transfer of old Tiger Stadium field Site to house retail and offices for Detroit Police Athletic League

Matt Helms | Detroit Free Press

The City Council on Tuesday approved transferring the vacant lot of the former Tiger Stadium to the Detroit Economic Growth Corp., paving the way for redevelopment of the site.

The transfer will allow the Detroit Police Athletic League to pursue building a new headquarters on parts of the site in a deal that would preserve the old playing field for youth sports activities. Detroit also is working with a developer to build housing and retail on other parts of the property at the historic corner of Michigan and Trumbull.

Detroit PAL reached a deal with the city in July 2014 to build a new headquarters and other facilities along the western and northern edges of the site. PAL’s new headquarters is to employ 30 people, with the agency maintaining the playing field for activities including high school and college baseball. The issue had attracted controversy in recent months because Detroit PAL announced it wanted to rebuild the field with artificial turf, not grass. Groups including the volunteer Navin Field Grounds Crew, which has taken care of mowing and cleaning up the field for about six years, argued that artificial turf dishonors the stadium’s legacy and isn’t as safe as a grass field.

The old stadium was vacant after the last game was played there in 1999. Despite efforts to preserve it, the site was demolished in 2008-09.

The commercial redevelopment of the site will be known as "The Corner," a $33-million mixed-use project led by developer Eric Larson of Larson Realty. Larson plans a four-story structure with 30,000 square feet of ground-floor retail and 102 units of rental housing above along Michigan Avenue.

Both PAL’s facilities and the commercial redevelopment could open in 2017.

Contact Matt Helms: 313-222-1450 or mhelms@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter: @matthelms.