Re: Silverdome to be renovated into 30,000 seat SSS Just like the Las Vegas stadium AND Casino! HAhah! It doesn't hurt to dream but this stadium renovation sounds ill conceived.
FWIW, I do believe that the upper bowl is supported on its own, but that's just a layman's opinion. The top of the lower bowl is at ground level. My opinion is based on the structural supports you see on the outside of the stadium. Experts, feel free to weigh in.
Re: Silverdome to be renovated into 30,000 seat SSS Except that idea is perfectly feasible if someone had the money to put up for it's construction. Locate it just off the strip or within distance (for the hotel side of the construction) and tap the local fans and it'd be a success. Also plenty of opportunity for ancillary revenue streams for the stadium in a place like Vegas. This just seems like someone biting off more than they can chew. If they're serious about getting MLS in Detroit, they should just flatten the bastard, build a new stadium and arena and develop some of the carpark into practice fields. It's never gonna be an urban stadium like TFC, Houston and Seattle so they might aswell make use of the land.
A post in the Detroit forums already covered this. This was a misquote. He meant potential HOMES, not viewers.
Re: Silverdome to be renovated into 30,000 seat SSS Thats a good idea! Also, what about taking off the top bowl and adding a roof over the stands. They could even remove seats on one end to host concerts.
so 15K for a "big time" international friendly that is costing you a few million to put on is a success? and the bar for success is UNDER "break even". now i see why all of these Detroit people think MLS would be a success in their city. they have an entirely different definition of "success". congratulations DC United you may be only averaging 15K fans a game the past few years and losing money on each game but by Detroit standards you are a "success"!
The problem is, the whole building structure is a system designed to work together. When you start ripping parts out of one part of the system, there are effects on the rest of the system that have to be mitigated. Simply exposing the stadium seating to wind loads by removing the roof and live loads from snow during the winter changes to manner in which the building is loaded and could cause failures or unnecessary stress.
and what does that have to do with the standards set forth by the guy putting it on that everyone has so much faith in? he sees 15K and losing money as success. that is a funny definition of success by most people's standards. it has nothing to do with what has or has not sold. did i say that the event, which hadn't happened yet was or was not a success before knowing the attendance? no. i did not. i made a joke about what passes for success in this guys world view. feel free to learn to read and comprehend before responding in the future.
Re: Silverdome to be renovated into 30,000 seat SSS Not necessarily. The KC development that was ditched and the current project are both well away from "city center". However, I don't know the transit situation from Detroit, if any system actually exists, but this would violate the cardinal rule of SSS development and essentially follow the model of FC Dallas' development, since people couldn't just walk over to the stadium from their urban dwellings and such.
you raise an interesting point. they make the upper section an open air SSS and take off the roof. are they going to leave the fans totally exposed to the sun/elements? add some sort of new roofing over some/all of the seats? what kind of expense does that add? and now that you have essentially made the top of the stadium a giant open bowl that will catch snow, which i hear it does a quite a bit in Detroit, what is that going to do to the structure underneath (the two arenas)? what kind of expense will it take to renovate the structure to support this new giant snow collector?
Except he didn't really say that. The man is a businessman he sees things first and foremost in financial terms. Anything over 15k is above break even and means his group is making a profit from the game and thus it is a financial success. Success isn't a zero sum word, there are varying degres of success, 30k will be more successful than 15k but as long as he's making money off the match then it's a success. I doubt he'll be looking at 15k average attendance for an MLS franchise as particularly successful, Detroit isn't Denver.
What's your point? That engineers haven't thought of this? That he won't bring it up to code? If it's the expense, that's his money, not yours.
Re: Silverdome to be renovated into 30,000 seat SSS "Making use of the land" is probably the plan. Keeping a 30k SSS, a 15k arena and a 5k concert venue in the same footprint means more of the 120 or so acres of parking around the stadium are available for "mixed-use entertainment," as it's termed. Sure, it may take longer and cost more in the short term. But long term, how much do they get with their proposed plan plus a 70 acre outlet mall with an IMAX theater, a couple of nice restaurants and sports bars plus 15,000 parking spaces? Seems a lot to give up for a couple of years on the front end. MLS owners have realized they need to think in terms of decades, not years. From that POV, their plan makes a bit more sense (though I don't doubt at all that there will be significant mechanical difficulties in pulling it off, as Segroves has mentioned).
Re: Silverdome to be renovated into 30,000 seat SSS In the case of Detroit, I think away from downtown may be best...for obvious reasons.
WRONG! re-read the quote please. he said 15K would be a success and 20-25 would be break even. meaning if he gets 15K he will consider that a success and ONLY if he gets 20K will he break even. he has clearly and unequivocally defined "success" to be less than the threshold for breaking even. he thinks that 15K would be a success and at 15K he would be losing money. hey, whatever, the guy can define success however he wants. he is rich, rich people can do whatever they want and call it whatever they want. this country is an oligarchy after all. i was simply, in a joking manner, pointing out that few if any other people would define success in such a way.
Yeah, your "joke" being shown to be idiotic HAS to be a case of poor reading comprehension. It can't possibly have anything to do with your inability to distinguish the significance of regular attendance of an established, local MLS team with a one-off friendly between two foreign clubs. Feel free to take your condescension and cram it. You've posted enough completely retarded things to make folks question your mommy's competence as a parent for not kicking you off of her computer.
My bad, I misread it. Even so he's framing the series of matches he wants to host over the next few years as a build up to MLS. So he more than likely considers getting 15k out to watch a match a good start on introducing soccer to Detroit. Small steps and all that. No businessmen will consider losing money over a prolonged period to be a 'success', he wouldn't be in Detroit if that was his view on the matter.
Heres a crappy photoshop of the Silverdome with the Redbull roof. Screw the upper/lower bowl renovation just keep the bottom!
Meteorologist chiming in on this. The structure must be able to withstand straight line winds (that number changes for locations IIRC) for the exterior. Interior pressures (due to swirling winds within the concrete bowl) are slightly different, but you could solve a few of those issues by altering the facade, correct? Also, I'm not sure winds would be an issue, even with the removal of the roof. The structure itself should be able to withstand the worst winds Michigan can throw at it (which would be Thunderstorm related). The main issue I see with this is snow. Snow was responsible for the collapse of the original Silverdome Roof in the 80's, and possible lake effect due to easterly winds is nothing to mess with at all. If you're putting a flat roof on top of the lower bowl, snow will be responsible for the vast majority of stress. You make a very valid point on snow's effect on the seating bowl structure, but I'd have to believe that a partial roof covering the seating bowl would fix that. I personally think he should continue with his plan, but leave the dome and install field turf instead (I understand that would require a new unit to keep the dome inflated).