Harwell goes extra inning to save Tiger Stadium

Fred Girard and David Josar / The Detroit News

DETROIT -- Legendary sportscaster Ernie Harwell met Monday with Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and unveiled a redevelopment plan that he believes can save Tiger Stadium from the wrecking ball.

Harwell and his longtime friend and attorney, S. Gary Spicer, told the mayor that within a 24-hour period they received commitments they believe will total $300,000 -- enough to pay the stadium's $25,000 monthly maintenance bill for one year.

Harwell and Spicer, plus Rick Ruffner, the president of Avanti Press, a Detroit-based greeting card company, and Ruffner's father, Fred Ruffner, pledged a combined $50,000. Spicer said he believes he has commitments from another four companies, whom he did not name, for the rest. The city, however, declined to accept the money.

Three weeks ago, Rick Ruffner wrote a letter to the city about moving his company headquarters from downtown to a retrofitted Tiger Stadium site -- if it were not totally demolished.

Spicer said he and Harwell plan to meet with Wall Street financiers over the next 10 days in an attempt to cobble together the $15 million to $20 million they think their plan will cost. It includes preserving 10,000 seats for a ballfield, lofts, stores and music and sports museums.

Meanwhile, city officials said they still are moving forward to raze the stadium, as the council decided Friday. But if the Harwell team, or any other developer, comes up with the money to carry out a redevelopment plan, the city can delay the demolition, they said.

"We can't stop the process," said George Jackson, president of the Detroit Economic Development Growth Corp., the quasi-public agency spearheading the redevelopment of Tiger Stadium. "Let's see if they can come up with the firm financing."

Jackson said everything Harwell and Spicer proposed has been suggested by others, but no one had come up with the money to back the ideas.

In addition to meeting Kilpatrick, Harwell and Spicer met with City Council members Martha Reeves, who approached them about stepping in, JoAnn Watson and Brenda Jones.

The Detroit City Council voted 5-4 Friday to demolish the stadium, keeping the playing field for youth baseball and using the rest of the land for low-rise housing, stores, and perhaps a museum or community center -- a plan favored by Kilpatrick.

The vote came after Harwell addressed the council, speaking eloquently of the old "house by the side of the road" that has sat vacant since 1999 and asking for a delay in setting its fate until September. The words of the 89-year-old Hall-of-Fame broadcaster touched a chord from Corktown to Wall Street, and Harwell and Spicer gathered the ideas and offers of support that poured in into a cohesive plan.

The duo said that over the past four days, they've received countless e-mails and phone calls from people who pledged their financial support if Harwell and Spicer took the lead. They did not name those parties on Monday.

"Stage One is saving Tiger Stadium by razing it down to Navin Field size -- 10,000 to 12,000 seats," Harwell said Monday, referring to the original name of the park when it opened in 1912. He spoke standing inside the ballpark, only yards from home plate in the surprisingly well-maintained old stadium, peeling paint and cracked cement the only indications of its age.

Harwell and Spicer picture high school and college baseball players training there in the spring, soccer and lacrosse leagues -- even gospel music concerts on Sundays.

Wall Street experts who specialize in stadium financing have agreed to meet this week to discuss various combinations of public and private financing.

Spicer said he wants to consider a variety of financing options, such as a public bond issue or the Green Bay Packers model -- with individuals buying shares of the redeveloped ballpark.

Stage Two would be a music museum, said Harwell.

The museum "would be dedicated not only to Motown and its early stars like Benny Benjamin and Earl Van Dyke, but to latter-day stars such as Madonna, Eminem, Jack White of the White Stripes, all of them who had their roots here," he said.

A sports museum would follow; then 90 condominiums as Phase I of residential construction in cooperation with the Old Tiger Stadium Conservancy, a Corktown group, among others; and finally, stores.

You can reach Fred Girard at (313) 222-2165 or fgirard@detnews.com