DETROIT | Little Caesars Arena & The District Detroit

[mousquet]

^ Hm... Thank you for this.

Yes, I felt offended, but I apologize for having talked to you that way.
I'm cooler, now.

[uaarkson]

Originally Posted by The North One

Oh, have I offended thee?

I honestly wasn't trying to be mean or snarky in any way, but whatever.

The French settled Detroit, and has some French history. We're proud of it.

Edit: And for the record, as a native anglophone I hate the word "dude" as well.

You sound like a fun person.

[The North One]

Originally Posted by mousquet

^ Hm... Thank you for this.

Yes, I felt offended, but I apologize for having talked to you that way.
I'm cooler, now.

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not.

Originally Posted by uaarkson

You sound like a fun person.

What? For disliking the word dude? I don't know man, It's kind of an annoying word. Not to say that I'm above using it, It just never caught on for me.

[The Lurker]

Wow what the hell are you two even talking about?
Thank God the animated martian is providing news and photos relevant to the topic at hand.

[Docta_Love]

Wow what the hell are you two even talking about?
Thank God the animated martian is providing news and photos relevant to the topic at hand.

Ehh wheres the fun in pics and news without the occasional mindless banter

[JonathanGRR]

The arena plans are getting a bit of an upgrade:

Ilitches add $95 million worth of features to new Red Wings arena
Bill Shea | November 4, 2015

Owners of the Detroit Red Wings said today that they will spend an additional $95 million on the team’s new arena — pushing the total project cost to $627 million — for enhancements that include unique seating, a practice rink and outside public spaces.

The Ilitch organization that is managing the project for owners Mike and Marian Ilitch is assuming all of the new costs.

Conceptual artwork provided today by Olympia Development of Michigan shows a concourse called the Via that looks like a pedestrian-friendly city street of shops and restaurants encircling the stadium seating bowl and covered by a clear plastic ceiling to provide natural lighting.

The arena’s overall design is called “deconstructed,” meaning that concessions, retails, offices, etc., are separate buildings pulled away from the bowl of the arena to create the street-like concourse that’s covered but open visually to the sky.

The are outside of the west side of the arena will be called the Piazza, an open-air plaza space that will have a massive LED video board that could show games, according to Sports Business Daily.

“It could be for a Lions tailgate,” Olympia Entertainment President and CEO Tom Wilson told SBD. “On Opening Day for the Tigers, there are 40,000 to 50,000 people just walking the streets down here because it’s like a holiday. Maybe 5,000 of them will be watching our LED board.”

The magazine said Wilson gave a presentation of the overall development during last week’s NHL owners meetings in Las Vegas.

The arena project is being designed by architectural and engineering giant HOK, which assumed the work after acquiring Kansas City-based 360 Architecture last year.

HOK’s principal-in-charge of the project, George Heinlein, told Sports Business Daily that some of the design around is the arena is modeled after New York City’s elevated High Line parkway that snakes through Manhattan.

Other conceptual artwork released today shows suspended “gondola” seating above the ice. Add-ons to the project include more food-service options, enhanced video and sound capabilities, a metal skin on the exterior of the seating bowl upon which video and graphics can be displayed, and additional elevators, according to Olympia Development, the real estate arm of the Ilitch business portfolio.

The project now will also include an on-site practice ice rink, which will also be used for amateur hockey; an outdoor plaza featuring a massive video wall; and more green spaces across the arena site, Olympia said.
...

http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article...gnews-20151104

[skyfan]

http://wingsarena.tumblr.com/

[animatedmartian]

Half a bowl as of November 20th.


http://www.districtdetroit.com/live-web-cam/

[animatedmartian]

December 11th, 2015.


http://www.districtdetroit.com/live-web-cam/

[animatedmartian]

January 9th, 2016.


http://www.districtdetroit.com/live-web-cam/

[animatedmartian]

In the last couple of days, two cranes were assembled over in the southeast corner of the construction area and now one of them is holding a long pillar/pipe at a 90 degree angle. Completely unsure of what this is for or where it's going. It's in an area that has a lot of pipes so a wild guess is this is something for utility work.


http://www.districtdetroit.com/live-web-cam/

[skyfan]

Originally Posted by animatedmartian

In the last couple of days, two cranes were assembled over in the southeast corner of the construction area and now one of them is holding a long pillar/pipe at a 90 degree angle. Completely unsure of what this is for or where it's going. It's in an area that has a lot of pipes so a wild guess is this is something for utility work.
[[/url]

It's for drilling caissons for the foundation. You can't build something like this right on the dirt . This thing will drill a very deep hole and it'll be backfilled with concrete. You can see from the direct overhead shot Nov. 11 where the steel beams are being placed on the concrete pads.

[animatedmartian]

Originally Posted by skyfan

It's for drilling caissons for the foundation. You can't build something like this right on the dirt . This thing will drill a very deep hole and it'll be backfilled with concrete. You can see from the direct overhead shot Nov. 11 where the steel beams are being placed on the concrete pads.

On the cam, they've been putting the most recent caissons outside the perimeter of the arena so the residential component of the development will probably start rising soon. Also looks like they've now reached the roof of the arena (or close to it).

[JonathanGRR]

Thanks for the constant updates!

Any news on the new headquarters building for Little Caesars or the other buildings around the Fox Theatre?

[animatedmartian]

Not that I know of. Construction is supposed to start this spring on the LC HQ so I'm presuming the other buildings nearby will start around that time or sometime later in 2016. No activity on the parking lots where they're planned yet AFAIK.

[animatedmartian]

The media was given a tour of the construction site today.

Future Red Wings home on track for Sept. 2017 opening
Louis Aguilar, The Detroit News. January 28, 2016.

Construction on the future home of the Detroit Red Wings is in full gear now and the goal of opening in September 2017 is on track, officials for the team owners said Thursday.

The spot where center ice will be, 40 feet below street level, is still dirt surrounded by towering steel frames of the state-of-the-art events center. The $627 million structure is being built along Woodward just north of downtown. Some 2,400 pieces of the structural steel have been placed and foundation concrete will be finished in a matter of weeks, said Sean Hollister, senior construction manager at Barton Malow, Hunt and White, who is overseeing construction.

The first pieces of the roof could be installed In March, Hollister said. “We’ve been lucky with the weather and we’ve been working really hard.”

Work continues six days a week, with more than 200 workers on the site daily. Of the $300 million in contracts for the arena awarded so far, $197 million has gone to businesses based or headquartered in Detroit, officials said Thursday.

.....

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/bus...rena/79463326/

[animatedmartian]

Building city blocks: Area around new Red Wings arena teems with planned projects
By BILL SHEA and KIRK PINHO. Crain's Detroit Business. January 31, 2016.





The clearest picture to date of what is expected to be built around the new Detroit Red Wings arena includes a dizzying mix of retail, office, multifamily and hotel space expected to be largely completed by the time the first puck of the 2017-18 season drops.

And within six months — two months after this National Hockey League season ends in June with — a series of substantial milestones, including major tenants such as a large grocery store and hotel, are expected to be announced.

Among those seriously being courted is Walker, Mich.-based Meijer Inc., which has been exploring conceptual plans for smaller stores to fit in dense urban areas, according to Olympia Development of Michigan executives and other real estate sources.

In the area immediately around the arena billed as Woodward Square, Olympia is building about 160,000 square feet of office space. Offices for the Red Wings and Olympia Entertainment, the venue management arm of team owners Mike and Marian Ilitch's business holdings, are expected to take about 100,000 square feet of that.

An additional 55,000 square feet of retail space, plus a 350- to 400-room upscale hotel and more than 120 multifamily units, will be in the area bounded by Woodward and Cass avenues to the east and west and Sproat Street and the Fisher Freeway service drive to the north and south.

Total investment in the Woodward Square area — one of five neighborhoods in the area Olympia intends to rehabilitate as part of its broader The District Detroit plan — is now $1.2 billion, of which 75 percent is (or will be) private spending, according to Olympia executives.

When the district was publicly unveiled 18 months ago, the investment estimate was $650 million, including $450 million in public-private spending on the arena.

The 20,000-seat venue is scheduled to open by September 2017 and its latest cost estimate is $627.5 million.

.....



More specifics about the arena district, from plans outlined by Olympia Development of Michigan released Sunday and from an Olympia request for proposals for residential development obtained by Crain's:

• There is 160,000 square feet of office space planned to form the exterior of the arena, of which about 100,000 will be offices for the Detroit Red Wings and Olympia Entertainment, the venue management arm of team owners Mike and Marian Ilitch's business holdings.
  
• 55,000 square feet of retail space.
  
• A 350- to 400-room upscale hotel and more than 120 multifamily units.
  
• 300 housing units along Woodward Avenue.
  
• 75 housing units in the former United Artists Building on Bagley Street.
  
• 100 units in the to-be-renovated historic Eddystone Hotel.
  
• An undetermined number of units on a 1-acre patch of Brush Park land owned by Wayne County Community College District.
  
• 250,000 square feet billed only as "student housing" next to the planned Mike Ilitch School of Business for Wayne State University at Woodward and Temple Street.
  
• An office building of 40,000 to 50,000 square feet for multiple office users with first-floor retail space at Henry Street and the Fisher Freeway Service Drive at Woodward.
  
• About 132 multifamily units — 108 apartments and 24 townhomes — are to wrap around the nearly 1,200-space main parking deck for the arena between Sproat and Henry streets along Clifford Street.
  
• The new Little Caesars Pizza Global Resource Center headquarters at Woodward and Columbia Street will be nine stories, an increase from eight, bringing it to about 240,000 square feet.
  
• Olympia Development's RFP indicates 19 sites with about 1.44 million square feet of building space, plus the acre of Brush Park land.
  
• The 675 units identified sit in about 958,000 square feet, or about 1,419 square feet per planned unit.
  
• Olympia projects the public- and private-sector spending on the district is $1.2 billion, with about three-quarters of that being private investment.
  
• About $30 million has been spent by Olympia on infrastructure surrounding the arena.
  
• The 20,000-seat arena has a $627 million price tag, of which $250 million is public funding via bonds that will be repaid from property and other taxes already on the books and collected on the new value of property within a special taxing district. The rest of the arena cost is funded by private borrowing by Olympia and $200 million in bonds sold by the state that Olympia will repay from arena revenue.

http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article..._medium=social

[big W]

When is the entire project supposed to be finished as it will be cool to go back to Detroit to see how the entire district looks like. I know the arena is to be completed by 2017 but what about the rest of the project.

I am getting excited to see the first phase of our district here in Edmonton finished in 2 or 3 years with the new arena in finished this September for the Oilers. Should be nice to see both teams in new homes.

[animatedmartian]

Originally Posted by big W

When is the entire project supposed to be finished as it will be cool to go back to Detroit to see how the entire district looks like. I know the arena is to be completed by 2017 but what about the rest of the project.

I am getting excited to see the first phase of our district here in Edmonton finished in 2 or 3 years with the new arena in finished this September for the Oilers. Should be nice to see both teams in new homes.

The area defined as Woodward Square (the arena, hotel, offices, and residential adjacent to the parking garages) is all being built concurrently and will be completed in 2017.

[wanderer34]

It looks like it will be a great arena, replacing the hallowed, but decrepit Joe Louis Arena. My question is will this arena also be able to host basketball games as well??? I hope so since it increases the chance of the Pistons of coming back to Downtown Detroit.