Waste of the Day: Throwback Thursday: Feds Spend Millions, But Demolish Tiger Stadium Anyway
Topline: In 2008, the City of Detroit was offered perhaps the best construction contract imaginable: two companies offered to pay the city $300,000 for the opportunity to demolish the vacant Tiger Stadium.
Instead, the federal government earmarked $3.8 million to preserve the stadium — until Detroit voted to destroy it anyway, wasting $5.6 million in today’s money.
That’s according to the “Wastebook” reporting published by the late U.S. Senator Dr. Tom Coburn. For years, these reports shined a white-hot spotlight on federal frauds and taxpayer abuses.
Coburn, the U.S. Senator from Oklahoma, earned the nickname "Dr. No" by stopping thousands of pork-barrel projects using the Senate rules. Projects that he couldn't stop, Coburn included in his oversight reports.
Coburn's Wastebook 2008 included 65 examples of outrageous spending worth more than $1.3 billion, including the $3.8 million earmark for Tiger Stadium.
Key facts: The Detroit Tigers baseball team moved to a new ballpark in 2000, leaving Tiger Stadium unused for years.
The city announced plans to tear the stadium down in early 2008 because two construction companies had agreed to do it for free. Steel prices were high at the time, and the companies wanted to keep and reuse the scrap steel.
A group of Tigers fans, though, banded together to form the Old Tiger Stadium Conservancy and petitioned the city to preserve the stadium, or at least save a corner of it.
The demolition companies did not like that idea. It would take more money and time to save a corner of the stadium instead of just razing the whole thing. The companies even offered to pay Detroit $300,000 just so they would not have to save the corner.
The Tigers fans did not convince the City of Detroit, but they did persuade then-Michigan Senator Carl Levin. He earmarked $3.8 million in the federal budget to renovate the baseball field for use by local teams.
There was just one problem: demolition had already begun. The project went on pause for months while lawmakers decided what to do.
Even the Tigers themselves weren’t interested in saving the ballpark, according to the New York Times.
In June 2009, Detroit's Economic Development Corp. commission voted 7 to 1 to finish destroying the ballpark.
By that time, scrap steel was not as valuable, and Detroit had to pay the demolition companies $400,000 to finish the job. Taxpayers would not have spent a cent had the project just gone on as planned from the start.
Lawmakers then had to find a new way to use the $3.8 million earmark. As of 2014, funds were still being dispersed to random businesses in the neighborhood — including a hot dog stand and an antique store — and it’s unclear where all the money eventually went.
Summary: For most private citizens, choosing between a $300,000 profit and a $3.8 million loss would be a simple decision. Once the federal government and earmarks are involved, that logic seemingly goes out the window.
The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com
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