In 1975 the Silverdome in Pontiac, Michigan cost $55.7 million to build. Since then they’ve used it for Super Bowl XVI, the World Cup and a concert by Michael Jackson.
At 80,000 seats it was the NFL’s biggest stadium back in ’75, but now the Detroit Lions have moved to newer quarters in Ford Field, so it sits gathering dust.
Because of upkeep cost of $1.5 million a year the city was forced to sell the property at auction. The winner is a Canadian real estate company that paid a whopping $583k for the albatross. –That’s right. It went for less than 1% of what it cost to build.
In spite of the low price, given the economics of the region, and the number of buildings rusting away, I think they should have held out until the city paid them to take it.
