Detroit Pistons may be in final stages to move downtown

The Detroit Pistons may be very close to leaving the Palace of Auburn Hills for a new home in downtown Detroit at Little Caesars Arena.

The Detroit Pistons may be in the final stages of its talk to relocate to Little Caesars Arena in downtown Detroit at I-75 and Woodward Avenue, according to Crain’s Detroit Business. The team could be playing in the Olympia Entertainment-owned venue as soon as the 2017-18 season:

"The expected timetable is unclear. Potential additional deals involving the entertainment and broadcast rights portions of their respective businesses are expected to take longer. No final agreement has been reached, and the talks could still fall through.Detroit Pistons owner Tom Gores will be on hand Friday at this year’s home opener at The Palace of Auburn Hills, and it could be an opportunity for him to announce the franchise’s increasingly likely relocation to downtown Detroit."

As noted by Crain’s, the team’s discussions have been speeding up because the $627.5 million facility is close to being completed. It would be cheaper to address the Pistons’ facility requirements now rather than when the arena is already completed.

Gores also previously said in 2011 that he would be open to moving the Pistons downtown in the near future if it made financial sense.

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The team had entered preliminary talks as recently as a few weeks ago.

Gores is also reportedly planning to build a 60,000 square-foot team practice facility and headquarters north of Little Caesar’s Arena if the team was to move downtown.

The Pistons have played in the Palace since the 1988-89 season. Just two NBA arenas are older – Madison Square Garden (home of the New York Knicks for more than 50 years) and Oracle Arena (home of the Golden State Warriors since 1971). Bill Davidson, who owned the team at the time, paid $90 million to build the Auburn Hills-based facility out of his own pocket.

Now, with the new home of the Detroit Red Wings almost complete downtown, the Palace likely going to lose a lot of concert and gameday revenue. If there are fewer events at the facility, it might not make as much financial sense to keep the doors open, even with the $11 million in upgrades Palace Sports and Entertainment made last year.

Oakland County also reportedly declined to purchase the Palace for $370 million in a lease-back deal this past June. Bill Mullan, media and communications officer for County Executive L. Brooks Patterson, explained it was “the fiscally responsible thing to do on behalf of taxpayers”:

"The base offer was $180 million in cash from the county in return for a $60 million lease paid by the Pistons over 25 years, or $2.4 million annually. The county derived what it terms an “all-in” total of $370 million by including long-term interest payments."

The county would have also had to pay $270 million in bonds if it purchased the venue from Gores and PS&E.

The final decision could be made within the next couple of days.

Any move would have to be approved by the NBA and by Detroit’s Downtown Development Authority.

It is now looking very likely that the Pistons will be playing in downtown again for the first time since the 1970s sooner rather than later.