To achieve a reasonable stadium size, the Apostolopoulos family plans to remove the dome and divide the stadium into three sections. At the stadium’s ground level, will be a concert hall and a multi-purpose arena, capable of hosting hockey, basketball, and other indoor sports.
Resting on top of those two indoor facilities, will be a roughly 30,000-seat soccer stadium with natural grass. The current upper deck will essentially act as a lower bowl for the outdoor stadium.
At first blush, this sounds absolutely daffy — and maybe it is, I not an architect. But if it’s workable, here’s why MLS should take this plan seriously:
- One family owns the Silverdome and they can do whatever the hell they want with it and no one can say boo.
- That family loves soccer and wants to have an MLS team.
- That family is rich, rich, rich!
- MLS can get an innovative soccer-specific stadium without any city, county, state approval/funding/bullshit.
- MLS can play a part in reviving a city and stadium area that desperately needs help.
To me, this plan makes a lot more sense than, say, putting a second team in the New York City area. In fact, it’s kind of hard to see a downside for MLS brass. If I were the Don, I would tell Apostolopoulos to do his stadium renovations, pay the going rate for the franchise fees and welcome to the league.
The real question is: Is there a market in Detroit for soccer.
Details, details… Agreed. That's the one think I've glossed over in this post. And it's obviously an important point. However, I'm guessing that Apostolopoulos is pretty damn sure there's a market in Detroit if he's willing to pony up the dough for redesigning the Silverdome. Of course, he only paid half a million for it, so he could probably put in the world's largest indoor RV park and still come out in top. I still maintain that a deep-pocketed owner and a wholly-owned soccer specific stadium (if he does the redesign) makes him a pretty strong candidate for expansion. As a long-standing DC United fan, I know how important the stadium issue is.