Detroit Pistons Moving Back Downtown to Join City's 'Reinvention'

Updated. DETROIT, MI — It’s official. Tom Gores is bringing his Detroit Pistons home, to downtown, where the NBA team will join the Detroit Red Wings at the still-under construction Little Caesars Arena.

The move back to Detroit from the suburbs is the latest signal yet that Detroit — the largest municipal government to declare bankruptcy in history — is on not only on the mend, but coming back in a way that could make it the envy of every North American city represented by all four major professional sports.

When the Pistons move, likely in time for the 2017-2018 NBA an NHL seasons, The Pistons, the Red Wings, and the Lions and Tigers football and baseball teams will be located within blocks of one another in the urban core.

Not only is Gores moving the Pistons to Little Caesars Arena, announced last year by Red Wings owner Mike Ilitch and his family, the two families are joining in a mega entertainment venture that will will control most of the major entertainment venues in in the city, also including Comerica Park, Fox Theatre, City Theatre, The Palace of Auburn Hills, DTE Energy Music Theatre, Meadow Brook Amphitheater and Freedom Hill Amphitheater.

“Detroit is rising, reinventing itself,” Gores said at a Tuesday afternoon news conference announcing the move. “The Pistons are doing the same. We’re in this together, and we couldn’t be more excited about that.”

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan and Christopher Ilitch, CEO of Ilitch Holdings, the umbrella company that is building the arena, joined Gores at a news conference to announce the deal.

“This is further proof of Detroit’s resurgence and we look forward to welcoming the Pistons in their new home,” Duggan said.

• See Also: Detroit Pistons Move Downtown: 5 Things to Know

The Pistons move to downtown is expected to create nearly $600 million in economic impact for the city and create more than 2,000 direct and indirect jobs, according to an analysis of the move by University of Michigan sports experts.

The mayor said an additional public investment of $34.6 million needed to add NBA locker rooms, training facilities and rebranding Little Caesars Arena will be paid by refinancing existing Downtown Development Authority bonds at a lower interest rate and extending their term by three years. Bond payments aren’t made from the general fund, but rather from property tax collections captured for downtown economic development. Another $55 million bond issue is possible to build a training practice fo the Pistons. The Pistons organization would retire the debt.

The deal needs the approval of the Detroit City Council, but Duggan doesn’t that to be a problem and said it could be finalized by March.

Several locations are under consideration for a practice facility, and the Pistons have agreed to give $2.5 million over six years to create more than 60 neighborhood basketball facilities in Detroit. More than 20,000 tickets a year will be distributed to city residents and youths.

The Pistons are also agreeing to employ Detroit residents in 51 percent of the jobs needed to build the practice, award at least 30 percent of contracts to Detroit-based companies, work with the mayor’s office for a youth mentorship program, and offer free basketball camps, clinics and other events that promote youth basketball in Detroit.

Gores, a Flint native and billionaire whose business interests are Los Angeles, has never made a secret of his interest in bringing the Pistons back downtown, and the alliance with the Ilitch family is a natural fit. The Ilitches wanted to buy the Pistons before Gores purchased the team and Palace Sports & Entertainment for $325 million in 2011.

Over the past year, “there’s been a courtship” between the Pistons’ parent company, Gore’s Platinum Equity LLC, and the Ilitch family, The Detroit News reported.

That means the Pistons, whose home court is at The Palace of Auburn Hills, are playing their 29th and last season at the suburban Oakland County venue.

“We wish the Pistons well,” Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson said in a succinct, two-sentence statement. “Thanks for the memories.”

Architectural rendering via Detroit Red Wings