By the 2017-18 NHL season, the Detroit Red Wings expect to be playing in a new downtown arena. It is around that same time that the building that they’ve called home since 1979 will be demolished.
The City of Detroit announced a settlement with Financial Guaranty Insurance, the city’s largest holdout creditor, that will include “The Joe" and its ultimate demise.
More from the Detroit Free Press:
Downtown Detroit's west riverfront would be transformed with a new hotel, residential and retail complex on the site of Joe Louis Arena and its parking garage, under a deal the city and its largest holdout creditor announced this morning.
The creditor, bondholder Financial Guaranty Insurance Co., would agree to redevelop the 8.6 acres by 2020, with a new hotel that would serve Cobo Center alongside new retail and condos, a redevelopment that officials say could open up the west riverfront to even more development in coming years.
The deal, announced before U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes this morning, means Detroit's last big creditor now has agreed to sign on to the Detroit's plan to exit bankruptcy. And, that means the city is mere steps away from exiting its 15-month Chapter 9 bankruptcy.
As a result of the settlement and the plans to develop a hotel and convention center, the city will demolish the arena in 2017.
The old building has seen better days as one of the oldest in the NHL, but you can bet that Red Wings fans are going to miss it a whole bunch. There were a lot of great memories created by the team in the arena as it housed four Stanley Cup teams.
When the Red Wings enter their new arena, it will be bittersweet, perhaps even more so knowing that The Joe will probably be rubble by then.
