The Detroit Police Athletic League, a non-profit organization working to create safe and supportive places for children to play, is expected to announce Tuesday that it has the funding to move forward with a new youth sports facility at the old Tiger Stadium site at Michigan and Trumbull.
The PAL is expected to break ground in early April on a new $11.3 million L-shaped headquarters that partially encloses the old Tiger Stadium playing field, which will be used for baseball and other youth sports.
Although the Tigers played their final game at Tiger Stadium in 1999, leaving for Comerica Park, the city debated for the next decade on the fate of the closed stadium. Several groups fought to preserve and redevelop the stadium, although their proposals were rejected for years.
Ultimately, the stadium was demolished in 2009, but the actual playing field was preserved. Since then a collection of fans, known as the Navin Field Grounds crew for the stadium's original name when it opened in 1912, has maintained the field and used it as a site for informal games.
During the past two years, city leaders hatched a development plan to remake the site of the old ballpark, and the Detroit City Council finally approved the plans near the end of 2015.