DETROIT, MI - Apartments, retail and condo units are all in the works for where the Detroit Tigers played baseball for 87 years.
And the field will be kept, too.
Detroit’s economic development arm has selected a plan for the 9.5-acre property where the storied, former Tiger Stadium once stood in Corktown.
The $33 million plan by Larson Realty Group, selected Tuesday by the Economic Development Corporation, calls for a four-story building along Michigan Avenue that will include 33,000 square feet of ground-floor retail and 102 residential units, each averaging 800 square feet. Plans also call for 24 town home units along Trumbull that could be “a for-sale product,” the DEGC said Tuesday.
A Larson Realty development team, formed as Tiger Stadium Partners LLC for the project, is also considering an alternative plan that would increase density along Trumbull to 141 residential units. Twenty percent of the units have been committed to affordable housing, the DEGC said.
The DEGC is stressing a community involvement aspect to the project, so much so that the developers are apparently even going to use a crowd-funding program for city residents, allowing them to become investors in the development. Details of this program were not immediately available Tuesday.
The Hatch Detroit retail program will be tapped to help promote entrepreneurial opportunities, and half the space will be reserved at reduced leasing rates to local small businesses.
Larson's project partners include Jenkins Construction, Heritage Development, Rossetti Architects, Stokas Bieri Real Estate and University of Michigan Sports Management locally, as well as The Pauls Corporation, Fundrise and Popularize nationally.
Community meetings will be held regularly as the project progresses, and updates on the project will be available at www.revivethecorner.com.
"The decisions made today preserve the history of Tiger Stadium while at the same time providing for the future of the Corktown neighborhood, two historical sites important not only to our city but the region as well," Rodrick Miller, president and chief executive officer, Detroit Economic Growth Corporation, said in a statement.
"This project is a great example of a true partnership between a developer and the community that will create opportunities for both," he added.
In July, the DEGC approved a plan that would preserve the baseball field at the former Tiger Stadium site while turning a large piece of the property over to Detroit Police Athletic League, a youth sports organization.
The EDC signed off on a memorandum of understanding with Detroit PAL, which will move its headquarters to a development that will be built along Cochrane Avenue.
Detroit PAL's plans for the site include moving its headquarters there while preserving the field where the Detroit Tigers played for 87 years as a spot for a variety of youth sports.
Detroit PAL's plan calls for restoring the field while adding a gated entryway, ticket booth, historic memorabilia, lights, scoreboard, covered dugouts, home-run fence and seating for 2,500 spectators, according to the DEGC. Added to that will be a covered pavilion and locker rooms. Detroit's PAL's 9,300-square-foot headquarters there will include a banquet facility overlooking the field.
That project will cost about $11 million, and is being designed by Kansas City-based Pendulum Studios.
"Detroit PAL is thrilled at the opportunity to redevelop the original Tiger Stadium field to achieve our mission of building character in the more than 12,000 young people that we currently serve and the thousands more we will be able to serve through this project," Tim Richey, CEO of Detroit PAL, said in a statement. "The new stadium will serve as a beacon for old Tiger Stadium enthusiasts and bring back wonderful memories for all of us who enjoyed ballgames at this historic corner."
The entire development is tentatively scheduled to be complete and open in 2017.
The Detroit Tigers left the city-owned property at Michigan and Trumbull 15 years ago and moved into Comerica Park downtown. The last remains of Tiger Stadium, opened in 1912 as Navin Field, was demolished in 2009.
David Muller is the business reporter for MLive Media Group in Detroit. Email him at dmuller@mlive.com or follow him on Twitter