There wasn’t much wrong with the Palace of Auburn Hills when the Detroit Pistons left. With the controversies swirling around the Ilitch family and Little Caesars Arena, would it have been wiser for the Pistons to stay at the Palace?
The Detroit Pistons played their home games in the Palace of Auburn Hills from 1988 until 2017, until they decided to move back to downtown Detroit and share Little Caesars Arena with the Detroit Red Wings.
Yes, it sounds cool. A brand new $863 million arena in the heart of downtown Detroit right on Woodward Avenue, a new start for the Pistons in a new venue. Heck, I’ve been there and it’s beautiful! That’s not my problem.
The problem is all of the promises surrounding it, specifically from the Ilitch family.
The Ilitch family are the current owners of the pizza chain Little Caesars, as well as the Detroit Red Wings and the Detroit Tigers. They were owned by the late Mike Ilitch, who passed at age 87 in 2017. The majority of ownership responsibilities have gone to his son, Christopher Ilitch.
Residents of Cass Corridor, a neighborhood of midtown Detroit, have been plagued with broken promises from the Ilitches.
As part of the project to create District Detroit—which includes Little Caesars Arena—the Ilitches promised five new walkable restaurants filled with shops, restaurants, and housing. And what did they get? None of that.
Instead, they’ve gotten traffic issues, 27 parking facilities, and fewer places of living for the citizens of the neighborhood.
Other surrounding buildings that were promised to be renovated have got nothing as well.
Karen McLeod, an advisory committee member and resident of Cass Corridor, shared her frustrations about the addition of the arena to The Detroit News.
"“Most of our parking went away through their new parking lots, and the street parking is pretty much gone because the city wanted to make sure the crowds at the arena could get out quickly,” McLeod said. “A nearby party store where many residents relied on for groceries is now closed because the owners took a $3.2 million offer from a suburban developer. So now most of the time, the neighborhood is really kind of deserted. And then suddenly, when there is an event at the arena, there’s just a flood of traffic and we are just kind of trapped.”"
These issues are affecting the citizens around the arena and the Ilitches don’t seem to want to live up to their promises. Though the Ilitches aren’t a part of the Detroit Pistons organization per se, it still makes the Pistons look bad just for being there.
Many of these controversial issues were specifically highlighted in an HBO special of Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel released on April 23rd, 2019, which included U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Michigan, commenting on the lack of progress toward redeveloping District Detroit, via the Detroit Free Press.
"“They promised that it would be something that trickled down to the neighborhood. It hasn’t trickled down,” Tlaib said on the air."
The Pistons didn’t have to move to Detroit. They were perfectly fine in Auburn Hills. They had their own lot with plenty of space for parking all around it and the disruption of local businesses or neighborhoods never appeared to be an issue.
The main reason for their move was to increase attendance. And even that hasn’t happened much anyway.
This past season the Pistons ranked dead last for the percentage of seats sold out of all 30 NBA teams, selling only 76 percent of seats at Little Caesars Arena, per Detroit Metro News.
They also replaced the red seats with black seats this past season because of how they noticeably revealed their emptiness on broadcasts.
Talk about embarrassing!
According to a 2017 Detroit Metro News survey, readers shared factors that deter them from heading downtown, including their commute from the suburbs, poor team performance, as well as expensive ticket prices, parking, and refreshments.
Maybe if District Detroit was more as it was envisioned, they would be more inclined to make the commute. Just a thought.
I had no problems with The Palace either. There’s been so much history in this arena, from the Bad Boy Pistons of the late 80s to the mid-2000s Pistons with Ben, Sheed, Tay, Rip and Mr. Big Shot.
We also can’t forget about the infamous Malice at the Palace, where one of the most brutal fights in NBA history took place between the Detroit Pistons and the Indiana Pacers, including a fight between the Pacers’ Ron Artest and a Pistons fan.
The point is the move hasn’t done much to benefit the Detroit Pistons. Ticket sales haven’t gone up much nor have the controversies surrounding the Ilitches been any help to them.
As much as I like the idea of the Detroit Pistons moving back to downtown Detroit to a brand new arena, they would have been better off staying at the Palace of Auburn Hills.
Here’s hoping that the Ilitches can live up to their commitments sooner rather than later.