John Gallagher

Detroit Free Press

Let's set aside for a day any controversies over Detroit's new arena to celebrate the labor of the workers in hard hats who are building it.

Thursday marked "topping out" day at the Little Caesars Arena project -- the day when those workers hoist the final structural steel beam into place on the crown of the arena's skeleton. It's a milestone that begins the race to finish the project by fall of next year.

By tradition, an evergreen tree symbolizing hope and accomplishment sat atop the beam along with an American flag. And, also by tradition, the construction workers who are building the arena got to sign the beam. Banners bedecked it honoring the iron workers who walk the high steel and the operating engineers who run the huge cranes. There were speeches and handshakes and group photos.

One of those workers was Fred Sullivan of Inkster, a member of Ironworkers Local 25.

"I'll tell you what it means. It's a sense of accomplishment," Sullivan said at the ceremony. "A year ago, it was a big hole in the ground. Right now, you can see the results a year later. It's a sense of accomplishment."

Christopher Ilitch, president and CEO of Ilitch Holdings, thanked the workers.

"It's great to be with all of our iron workers who play a critically important role in making sure that this incredible project comes to life," he said. "The precision, the skill of these guys' work is amazing. I look out my office window over there every day and see these guys crawling all over this thing to pull it together. It's amazing."

With a little over a year of construction work still ahead, Ilitch said he and his advisers haven't decided yet which event will open the new arena. "Lots of possibilities and lots of options, lots of interest," he said. The only thing penciled in for sure is the Detroit Red Wings home opener in October 2017.

The Little Caesars Arena, costing more than $600 million, could host hundreds of events each year, from Red Wings hockey games to concerts, corporate meetings, weddings and other private events and civic celebrations.

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Almost everything about the project has proved controversial at some point -- its location, its cost, the generous public incentives given the project, the question of how it benefits the community at large, the demolition of nearby buildings, and more. But it was easy to put aside those issues Thursday seeing the celebratory smiles and handshakes of the workers actually building the behemoth structure and staying safe in all kinds of weather against tight deadlines.

Construction work tends to be a nomadic career. Crews go from job to job and town to town. But the arena project was designed to home-grow more skilled trades here in the city, not just for this one project but as an economic base for Detroit's future.

To that end, more than 60 Detroit residents have served apprenticeships on the arena site so far, learning their trade. More than 500 men and women work on the site each day, many of them Detroit residents.

It's hard work, and those men and women deserved their chance Thursday to take a bow.

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