Detroit Mayor Commits To Having Casino Hotels Open For 2006 Super Bowl

1 November 2000

By David Waddell

Today, Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer, auto racing legend Roger Penske, Larry Alexander, CEO of the Detroit Visitors and Conventions Bureau, and the Detroit Lions' Chuck Schmidt are in Atlanta meeting with 31 NFL owners making a bid to host Super Bowl XXL in 2006 at the new Ford field downtown. A minimum requirement in such bids is a demonstration of the availability of 18,000 hotel rooms within a one-hour drive of the stadium. In all, somewhere between 30,000 and 50,000 rooms will be booked in the area if the bid is successful.

On Monday of this week, Paul W. Smith of WJR Radio asked the Mayor whether the bid counts the three casino hotels planned for Detroit's east riverfront. The Mayor's quick, confident and definite response was that the casino hotels are a part of the bid because they will be long finished by then. Together, the three casino hotels will have a total of at least 2400 rooms.

As a result of media speculation and focus on some of the hurdles the casinos have had to clear, NFL Vice President of Special Events, Jim Steeg, expressed the same concern over this issue in The Detroit News on Sunday. "The casino hotels seem to be up in the air," Steeg said. "That's a concern because it is a big portion of the block."

Mayor Archer wasted no time in setting the record straight on WJR Monday morning. He also directly disagreed with the recent statements made by Bill Marriott that Detroit does not need additional hotel rooms. Mayor Archer stated that he has repeatedly heard from Lou Pavlidis, the Director of Operations for Cobo Convention Center, that the lack of hotel rooms in downtown hurts our convention business. He praised the quality of hotels in the region, including suburban facilities, but went on to add that additional rooms will help attract more and more conventions.

By the time Super Bowl attendees come to Detroit in 2006, many of the vital steps planned to revitalize the City will have been taken. There will be a new football stadium in downtown Detroit, to go along with the baseball stadium, Comerica Park. There will be three spectacular casino hotel facilities, extensive retail shopping near the Renaissance Center, and a riverfront park serving as a buffer between all this development and the beautiful river.

Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer, the members of the City Council and C. Beth Duncombe, President and CEO of the Detroit Economic Development Corporation, along with the thousands of other public and private officials that are supporting Detroit