Oakland County Turned Down Deal to Buy Palace of Auburn Hills

(Originally published on Oct. 25, 2016) AUBURN HILLS, MI — Oakland County rejected an offer this past summer to buy the Palace of Auburn Hills for $384 million, Crain's Detroit Business is reporting. To make the deal happen, the county would have had to finance about $270 million in bonds.

Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson told Crain's it would have been "a bad move" financially to buy the home of the Detroit Pistons franchise, which is said to be in the final stages of negotiations to move to downtown Detroit in a deal with Little Caesars Arena developers.

Part of the financial risk is due to the fact that Little Caesar's arena will appeal to some of the same major entertainment acts who now play The Palace, resulting in a huge revenue hit for the venue.

» For more on this, go to Crain's Detroit Business.

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