Detroits to receive a WNBA expansion team in 2029
A previous version contained incorrect years the Shock were in Detroit. They were in the city from 1998-2009.
Renovations include new locker rooms for the home and visiting WNBA teams.The work is scheduled to begin and end in 2028, with the team starting play in 2029.
Little Caesars Arena will be getting some renovations to prepare it for Detroit’s future WNBA team, and public money will help out with the costs.
The quasi-public Detroit Downtown Development Authority approved a plan on Wednesday, Dec. 17, to provide up to $5 million in cash reimbursement toward the anticipated $8.5 million cost of the LCA renovations.
The renovations would include things such as building locker rooms for Detroit’s to-be-named WNBA team and visiting WNBA teams and modifications to a game officials’ locker room.
The DDA’s financial assistance was requested by the investor group that will own the new WNBA franchise, a group led by Pistons’ team owner Tom Gores.
The $5 million would be paid out as the renovations get completed. The work is expected to start and finish in 2028. The WNBA team would start playing games at LCA in 2029.
Members of the DDA’s board of directors were unanimously in favor of the reimbursement plan.
“It’s to support the renovation of the arena to accommodate the WNBA basketball team,” said Pistons Chief Operating Officer Richard Haddad, “and to make sure they have first-class dedicated facilities just like the Pistons and the Red Wings do.”
LCA opened in 2017 and is owned by the DDA. The DDA leases the arena to the Red Wings organization, which, in turn, reportedly subleases to the Pistons.
The DDA previously contributed $35.5 million to get LCA ready for the Pistons after the Pistons decided to move to Detroit and leave The Palace of Auburn Hills. (Early plans for LCA anticipated only the Red Wings playing there.) That money was to come from a refinancing of the 2014 bonds for constructing the arena.
The DDA gets its money through a special capture of property taxes in the greater downtown area that would otherwise go to local government.
Last month, the Detroit City Council signed off on a Brownfield tax capture incentive, valued at $40 million over 30 years, to assist the Pistons-led investor group in building a headquarters and practice facility for the new WNBA team on a polluted riverfront site near Belle Isle.
That plan involves a big environmental cleanup and also calls for construction of indoor and outdoor youth athletic fields on the site in the future.
Contact JC Reindl: 313-378-5460 or jcreindl@freepress.com. Follow him on X @jcreindl