Sources confirmed Friday that the Pontiac Silverdome, Northland mall, the former Kmart headquarters and the Palace of Auburn Hills have been submitted for potential inclusion in Detroit’s forthcoming proposal to host the e-commerce giant’s newest headquarters campus, which would bring an estimated 50,000 new jobs and billions in new investment to the area.
Three of the four megastructures have been vacant for years and two of them are facing demolition in the coming weeks. The fourth building, The Palace of Auburn Hills, held its last public event last month after having lost the Pistons to Detroit’s new Little Caesars Arena.
All four properties span dozens of contiguous acres — a desired feature for Amazon —and three are next to freeways.
It was not immediately clear Friday whether and how the Oakland County properties would fit into Detroit’s proposal for Amazon. Some of the sites may work as satellite campuses for Amazon, sources said.
Detroit’s bid is being headed up by billionaire Dan Gilbert and could include the city of Windsor. A representative for Gilbert’s real estate firm did not return a message seeking comment for this story.
Matt Gibb, Oakland County’s deputy executive, told the Free Press on Friday that the county is glad to be part of a regional effort aimed at bringing Amazon here.
“Our role … is to support what Mayor (Mike) Duggan is doing for the city of Detroit because of the importance to Detroit of that particular project,” Gibb said Friday morning during an Oakland County economic development event. “We made the commitment that we would support the regional effort.”